How to Survive Google’s Ad-mageddon

Soon, Chrome will release their new requirements regarding the ad formats acceptable on Google. Although the introduction of ad blocking will provide a better user experience, blocking all ads that don’t respect the Coalition for better Ads standard, will catch some of the affiliates in the middle.

Focusing on quality is a desirable thing but we don’t know how big will be the impact of these changes on publisher’s revenue. The chances they will be penalized are pretty big if they don’t find ways to diversify revenue streams or find some traffic solutions, including ad supported, payments, subscriptions, that are fully complying with the new standards.

The ones that made user’s experience a priority from the beginning won’t have big changes in their revenue, so for them there’s no reason to worry. On the other hand, the ones that will continue to run ads that are disruptive will not only be blocked by Google, but lose their audience as well.

It is well known that consumers are more and more frustrated when ads disrupt their experience. 50% of users that have been surveyed said that they would not return to a page that had an abusive ad. Consequently, the only way publishers will be able to keep their audience on their website is to support valuable content that addresses the consumer’s expectation.

Consumers expect their digital experience to be fast and seamless. This is why we will adjust our messages accordingly, making them: alluring, fast and relevant.

By removing the negative ad experience from the site, by making the native ads blend with the content, which is still king, by speeding up their loading time and by designing and delivering messages based on the user’s interests, we prove that we respect the time and the experience of the users and this way we’ll have more chances to engage them in the future.

These changes came as no surprise for BitterStrawberry team. We believe, Google’s initiative for a better web experience has huge benefits for both users and publishers. By not losing ads in this process, publishers will be able to continue using their marketing strategies, even if they might lose some short-term income in the process.

It’s true that the big winner here is Google, protecting its own revenue and having an enormous power over the web to decide what is acceptable and what is not, but we trust that Chrome ad blocker will act in everyone’s interest. It must ensure transparency regarding its motives to remove some ads and reassure the industry that its initiative is not just self-serving.

Nevertheless, because we feel responsible for our client’s interests, we developed a GUIDE to address the consequences of the new Google Chrome updates.

1. First of all, it is very important to optimize your ad formats as we were saying in the paragraphs above, with relevant content for your consumer, so your website can pass with success the Google’s review.
2. Even if they will announce you that your ad violates the new standards, you have around 30 days to fix the issue. All you have to do is to resubmit your site for a second review using Google’s Ad Experience Report Tool. It is very probable that all your existing issues will be solved in this stage.
3. To speed up the process when you are sending the report, it will be good also to attach the screenshot of the message that you have received in the Ad Experience Report.
4. In case you have big concerns about keeping high revenues using the current ad formats, after 15 of February when Google’s Update will come with the new updates, we recommend you to install a very efficient Anti-AdBlock technology that can bypass the popular Adblock plugins.
5. Last but not least, try to diversify your revenue streams, using various formats that are compliant with Google’s new requirements. They have a great power in boosting your traffic, they improve your website SEO and drive great results in the end, for publishers, increasing the revenue up to 40% in less than one month.

In conclusion, using Google’s tool in order to test if your website violates the standards will make things easier for everyone to get ahead of this issue.

You may also need to find yourself new partners that can deliver better content like native ads and banners and prepolls that respect users demand. If you produce a valuable content for your audience, there will always be a way to monetize it.

Rather than an Admageddon, the new Google rules should have a positive impact on the industry, being more of a quality filter. More than this, publishers have enough time to prepare for these changes, to make new partnerships so they can ensure higher quality content and to improve the user experience. So, theoretically this should be good news for the publishers because the less annoying their ads are, the more likely is to be able to retain their users.