Online ad blockers can seem like a panacea for consumers tired of looking at unwanted ads. A recent report from Adobe and PageFair found that there are now 198 million active ad-block users worldwide, costing publishers nearly $22 billion. But publishers aren’t the only ones who should be concerned. For any e-commerce operation – and in today’s market that means any retailer, really – ad blockers raise worries about the future of business.

Here are three reasons why e-retailers of all kinds need to be concerned about ad blockers, both for online and mobile devices.

Ad blockers interfere with non-advertising content.

Ad blockers have been known to mess with non-advertising content on websites, such as fonts, comments, and layout design, but that interference is taken to a whole new level with the advent of mobile ad-blocking apps.

Since Apple’s new operating system cleared the way for third-party ad blocking apps in September, mobile ad blockers have burst onto the scene. Research by the mobile commerce and technology firm Brand Branding (covered in depth in Fortune magazine) shows the dramatic effects of viewing content on mobile devices with ad blocking apps. They do indeed block ads, but also end up blocking the majority of all original content from the websites of major retailers like Walmart and Sears, the report showed. In some cases, only a blank page appeared instead of the mobile site.

The damage to e-retailers goes beyond missing content and broken links. In some cases, the report shows, it was impossible to add any items to the site’s shopping cart – an obvious problem for any mobile commerce site.

The difficulty is even more pronounced with the holiday season approaching: Chris Mason, the report’s author, predicts the “vast majority of e-commerce dollars will come through mobile devices.”

Retailers will go “data-dark.” 

It’s impossible for marketers to succeed without reliable data, and this is particularly true for retailers. But ad blockers hamper retailers’ ability to view data about their ad spend, preventing them from being able to make quick judgments. That’s because many ad blockers also disable tracking scripts, so retailers won’t get any information about customers searching for their particular product, setting retailers back a generation in terms of technology.

Fast Company’s Neal Ungerleider notes ad-blocking apps like Crystal make it difficult for retailers to use basic analytics platforms like Google Analytics and Adobe Omniture, which have become essential to monitoring consumer activity in the e-commerce business.

Whitelists and “acceptable ads” are a questionable new expense. An emerging solution to the ad-blocking conundrum for publishers is to pay ad blockers to be placed on their so-called “white lists.” Ad blockers and ad blocking apps are increasingly soliciting payment in exchange for not blocking that site’s ads. But this hardly seems a viable solution, and to some it feels like extortion. What’s more, even after the fees for whitelisting are paid by publishers, it’s unclear as to whether the ads are properly served.

There is a silver lining to the looming cloud of ad-blocking technology. Although online ad blockers have gained traction among the masses, ethical and smart consumers are beginning to understand the business side of digital content distribution – that “free” content is not necessarily free. Increasingly, influencers and early adopters are educating users on the role online advertising plays, and the message is starting to resonate.

In the first few days of Apple’s new operating system, even some of the ad blocking app creators were starting to express doubts about their own inventions. Marco Arment, whose “Peace” ad blocker briefly held the title of most downloaded paid app on iTunes, withdrew the app just days later, citing concerns it was hurting companies who rely on ads to stay in business.

In this new world of e-commerce and mobile commerce, this kind of education will be key to allowing publishers and “free” content to flourish. The future of e-retail depends on it.

Jan Verleur is co-founder and CEO of V2, an online and offline retailer of electronic cigarettes.

 

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