Tag: ad blocking

How old are ad filterers?

Posted on by AAX Team

They say that age ain’t nothing but a number, but the fact of the matter is: we’re all influenced by how many trips around the sun we’ve taken. Everything from the quality of our sleep to how loud we like to play our music, from our idea of the perfect Saturday night to how long we like to sleep in on Sunday morning…has a little something to do with age.

We’ve previously examined various reasons that ad filterers of all ages choose to block ads, but we’ve never looked into the age breakdown of the ad filtering demographic. And what has been revealed is that young people are more likely than older people to curate their ad content in the specific way that makes them “ad filterers,” the 95% of ad blocking users that have an ad blocker installed but elect to be served respectful and non-intrusive ads.

Nearly a quarter—24.7%—of ad filterers are 25-34 years old. The second-largest group is even younger—22.2% are only 16-24 years old.

From the mid-thirties onwards, the percentage of ad filterers keeps decreasing with age. 20.8% of ad filterers are 35-44, 17.8% are 45-54, and a mere 14.5% are 55-64.

So what does that have to do with politics?

Age is often correlated with political leanings, with some believing that people tend to become more conservative as they age. But the last half decade of political life in the USA has
shown that the truth is a little more nuanced.

A lot of this has to do with the graying of America. In the 2020 presidential election, a staggering amount of voters were fifty or older.

From Pew Research:

More than half of Republican and GOP-leaning voters (56%) are ages 50 and older, up from 39% in 1996. And among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, half are 50 and older, up from 41% in 1996. (Source)

The rest of Pew’s data is divided in two: those aged 18-29, and those aged 30-49. The 2020 election marked the first real election that many Gen Z’ers were eligible to vote, and it was interesting to examine the turnout among the youngest subsection of voters.

The result: 19% of Democratic-leaning voters were 18-29, while only 13% of Republican-leaning voters were 18-29.

That leaves those voters in solid middle-adulthood, who also make up a high percentage of ad filterers. But the breakdown among those voters is surprising: there was virtually no difference between the percentage of Democrats and Republicans. An even 30% of Democratic-leaning voters were 35-44, and 29% of Republican-leaning voters were 34-55.

This fairly even split in terms of voting patterns makes it imperative to look at more data samples when analyzing political leanings. We know that a 27-year-old is significantly more likely to stay out late, live with roommates, and—yes—block ads than a 54-year-old…but they’re not that much more likely to vote Democratic.

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AAX is devoted to knowing everything there is to know about ad filterers. In one previous study we looked into what makes this demographic unique, another study examined their purchasing habits, and our most recent study dug deep into ad filterer motivation: the reasons ad filterers avoid advertisements, and how and why those reasons change.
Our passion for all things ad filterer is why we’ve turned our attention to an issue that’s capturing everyone’s attention: ad filterers’ political profiles. We’ve looked through the fascinating findings over at the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) to compile a new study—American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile—available for free download in May 2022.

Where Do Ad Filterers Live?

Posted on by AAX Team

And what does the location of American ad filterers reveal about their political leanings?

The last time we looked at the question of location, one trend emerged: cities. In 2017, the data we examined revealed that 68.8% of ad blockers lived in urban areas. But the world has changed a lot since 2017. And the pandemic ushered in an unprecedented era of remote work, allowing former urbanites to relocate.

And relocate they did.

In 2017, 21% of respondents lived in the suburbs. Now that number has more than doubled and a half of all ad filterers—48.9%—call the suburbs home. One third—exactly 33.3%—live in urban areas. And 17.8% live in the countryside.

So: what does that mean in terms of political affiliation?

Urban vs. rural: the traditional approach

Prior to 2020, the trend was clear: city-dwellers leaned Democrat, and rural folk leaned Republican.

From Pew Research:

Rural areas tend to have a higher concentration of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, while a majority of Americans in urban communities identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. These patterns have become more pronounced over the past two decades as rural areas have moved in a Republican direction and urban counties have become even more Democratic. (Source)

But who lives in the suburbs, according to Pew Research? That’s where things get interesting. According to research done before the pandemic, “Americans who live in the suburbs are about evenly divided in their partisan loyalties.”

The Great Covid Relocation

As we know, COVID-19 changed everything. And that includes demographics. People left dense urban areas in large numbers, choosing sparsely-populated suburbs, large backyards, walkable neighborhoods and nearby parks as urban amenities shuttered for months, if not years, at a time.

The exodus was particularly pronounced from New York and San Francisco, according to The New York Times. Approximately 30 million households changed address.

But what’s interesting is that the same places that attracted people in 2020, at the height of pandemic relocation, were the same places that attracted people in 2019, before the world had heard of COVID-19 and a most people thought of a pandemic as the plot from a Steven Soderbergh movie.

And the places people located to contain large swaths of suburban areas.

These smaller metros—Boise, Idaho; Sarasota, Florida; Youngstown, Ohio—were attractive to people looking for a new home even prior to the era of Zoom and mask mandates. And they’ve remained appealing options for people being priced out of other, larger metropolitan areas, professionals looking to make a change, and employees whose families are growing and whose need for local playgrounds are more pressing than the need to be in the center of it all.

This suggests that, despite reports that a great COVID-related flight would turn American demographics on its head, things have remained the same.

And this aligns with what we know about the way that ad filterers vote: the majority vote Democrat, the smallest percentage vote Republican, but more than a quarter are undecided or elect not to say—in other words, the political profile of a suburban American voter.

AAX is devoted to knowing everything there is to know about ad filterers. In one previous study we looked into what makes this demographic unique, another study examined their purchasing habits, and our most recent study dug deep into ad filterer motivation: the reasons ad filterers avoid advertisements, and how and why those reasons change.

Our passion for all things ad filterer is why we’ve turned our attention to an issue that’s capturing everyone’s attention: ad filterers’ political profiles.
We’ve looked through the fascinating findings over at the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) to compile a new study—American Ad Blocking Users’ Political Profile—available for free download in May 2022.

What’s the Party Allegiance Breakdown Among American Ad Filterers?

Posted on by AAX Team

AAX is getting ready to publish another insight-rich report, filled with fascinating findings gleaned from the vaults that the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about internet behavior.

We’re interested in all internet behavior, of course, but we’re especially interested in the behavior of the demographic GWI calls “selective ad blocking users.”

Otherwise known as ad filterers, this is a demographic composed of the 95% of internet users that choose to run an ad blocker but have consented to see some ads—like the unobtrusive, respectful forms of advertisement known as “Acceptable Ads.”

We know a few things about these interesting individuals. We know they’re more affluent and more engaged than other groups. We know they spend both more time and more money on the internet.

And now we know about their party affiliation.

When examining the party affiliation among USA-based ad filterers, a few things become immediately clear: the largest percentage (nearly 40%) of ad filterers vote Democrat, and the second-largest percentage (roughly 26%) vote Republican.

But it’s important as well to examine the next three most popular choices: Independent, Undecided/unsure and Prefer not to say. Because those three fields, when added up, make 26.6%—larger than the percentage of Republican ad filterers, and enough to tip the balance in a meaningful way.

Red + Blue = Purple

So what do we know about these independent, undecided, and secretive voters?

One thing that’s been made clear is that many independent voters—especially the younger ones—“focus on issues, not party.” That’s one reason we at AAX have compiled a study that connects “party affiliation” with questions about voters’ stated values and their stance on a variety of issues.

Only slightly more than half of voters ages 18-24 were affiliated with one party in 2020. These voters, it’s suggested, “want[ed] to be involved in the issue, not the ideology.” In other words, they were more interested in the values of the candidate than they were with identifying as a donkey or an elephant.

In general, independent voters of all ages tend to lean towards a party…even if they’re not ready to pledge allegiance to that party, put up lawn signs, go to election night parties at the local Democrat or Republican headquarters, or otherwise absorb that party into their identity.

According to recent Pew Research:

An overwhelming majority of independents (81%) continue to “lean” toward either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Among the public overall, 17% are Democratic-leaning independents, while 13% lean toward the Republican Party. (Source)

But, the Pew article goes on to state, the rest of the independent voters are still a wild card, with many of them staying away from political activity altogether, and many more of them keeping their political identity a secret forever.

Whether the trend towards identifying as an independent voter continues upward will remain to be seen, but one fact remains: more than a quarter of the ad filtering demographic are neither blue, nor red…but a shade of purple.

Why Block Ads? AAX’s New Study Investigates.

Posted on by AAX Team

There are some questions that haunt the ad space.

What motivates people to block ads? What are the reasons that users weigh before installing ad blockers? What factors influence these decisions?

That’s why we penned Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations— in order to get to the bottom of these issues. We consulted the treasure trove of data that the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about online behavior, and teased out answers to pressing questions including:

  • How has COVID-19 changed ad filterers attitudes towards ad blocking?
  • Does education level inform ad blocking behavior?
  • Have ad blocking behaviors changed over the last four years?
  • Is there a difference in the ways that generations view ad blocking?

And:

  • What are the main reasons that people block ads?

The questions get even more pressing when discussing the demographic of ad filterers. These are the 95% of users that have an ad blocker installed on their device but still consent to be served ads.

And it’s these users AAX zeroes in on in our latest study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations.

As AAX explored in our last study, ad filterers are a group with unsurpassed purchasing power and online activity. And, as we detailed in our first report, ad filterers lead the pack in terms of brand discovery and their appetite for digital content.

Interested in learning more about the motivations behind ad blocking? Just fill out the contact form below and Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be emailed to you—free of charge, of course.

Beyond black and white: welcome to the new listings

Posted on by AAX Team

AAX is pleased to be revising our vocabulary. In the name of both a) dismantling harmful stereotypes and b) enhancing clarity, we’ll be replacing the term “whitelist” with “allowlist” and “blacklist” with “blocklist.”

These new naming practices reflect a change that’s been occurring industry-wide. The last year has seen a period of sorely-needed cultural consideration regarding racism and prejudice, and how best to dismantle and work against them.

And that includes grappling with terms like “whitelist” and “blacklist.”

When the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) changed their term usage last spring, they explained that:

[…] there’s an issue with the terminology. It only makes sense if you equate white with ‘good, permitted, safe’ and black with ‘bad, dangerous, forbidden’. There are some obvious problems with this. So in the name of helping to stamp out racism in cyber security, we will avoid this casually pejorative wording on our website in the future. (Source)

This issue—of racism embedded in the language we use, often without thinking—is well past due for a reckoning. In a recent piece for AdExchanger, Andrew Kraft harkened back to a famous 1971 interview where Muhammad Ali considered loaded terms that framed “white” as “good” and “black” negatively, writing:

[…] he recalled that all the positive things he grew up with were white, from White Cloud tissue paper to the White House, while all the negative things, from the bad luck of a black cat to the term blackmail, were black. Nearly 50 years later, that linguistic measuring stick is alive and well. (Source)

We think that it’s time to change our vocabulary.

There’s an additional benefit to this terminology change. Terms like “whitelist” and “blacklist,” while understood within the industry, can be confusing to newcomers to the ad space. Replacing these terms with the more explanatory “allowlist” and “blocklist” makes these words instantly accessible: an allowlist allows, and a blocklist…blocks. If doing away with outdated terminology helps us communicate more effectively and succinctly, we consider that to be a bonus.

Because the words we use matter. And AAX is committed to working against racism in all forms, including at the linguistic level.

How COVID shaped ad blocking

Posted on by AAX Team

March 11, 2021 marked a grim milestone: one year since the World Health organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Since then, our lives have changed in a myriad ways. Even putting the vital health- and healthcare-related issues aside, the past twelve months saw upheaval that touched every individual personally. Living rooms were turned into offices, classrooms, and yoga studios. Priorities were reshuffled, dogs were purchased, hair went un-cut.

And, of course, we’re all been very online.

We’re swapped movie theaters for streaming services (even more than in past years), concert venues for live-streams, and social activities basically now take place over a combination of video calls and social media.

Of course, thanks to massive and heroic vaccination efforts, things will change soon—but for now we’re living a highly digital existence.

So: how has all this time online shaped our attitudes towards ads? And have ad filterers in particular—the 95% of all ad blocking users who have an ad blocker installed but still consent to be served ads—changed their relationship to ad blockers?

We looked at data gleaned the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about internet behavior, examining in particular how answers to the question “Why do you use an ad blocker” changed between Q4 2019 and Q3 2020.

And what we found is interesting: there’s been a subtle shift away from issues of annoyance—specifically respondents choosing answers like “Ads are too intrusive” or “Too many ads are irrelevant.” But more people in general seem to choose answers that suggest changing priorities and principles, opting for answers such as “I try to avoid all ads wherever, whether on TV or online.”

There was also a noted shift away from responses that addressed browsing on the go, or away from an energy source. Answers like “To stop my device’s battery being drained” and “I want to stop my data allowance from being used up” both showed a marked decline in Q3 2020—unsurprisingl, given the fact that, for most people, a socket and Wi-Fi connection were never far away during the past year.

But in general, the differences between ad blocking motivation in Q4 2019 and Q3 2020 were less marked than one might imagine, given the tumultuous nature of the past year. Maybe this means that the post-vaccine re-opening we’re all eagerly anticipating will see us seamlessly re-integrating into something very close to the life we left behind last March.

***

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.

Surprising links: education and ad blocking

Posted on by AAX Team

In general, the more educated you are the more likely you are to turn to an ad blocker.

People who block ads—and especially ad filterers, the name given to the 95% of ad blocking users who have an ad blocker installed but also consent to be served respectful, non-intrusive ads—are a well-educated bunch. Whereas only 23.3% of non- ad blocking users held a university degree, and only 4.9% held a postgraduate degree, an impressive 27% of ad blockers held a university degree and 11.7% of ad filterers had a Masters or higher. (Source)

But that doesn’t mean that, within ad filterers as a demographic whole, there isn’t a range of education levels. Approximately 60% have either a high school degree or some amount of college education, and more than a quarter hold a university degree. The only outlier is high school: only 0.9% percent of ad filterers fail to graduate.

This made us curious. We wanted to know whether motivations for ad blocking differed by education levels…or if they remained constant whether or not a user had a high school education or a PhD.

So we consulted the trove of data that the GlobalWebIndex (GWI) keeps about internet behavior. This data is accumulated by actual users responding to questions, and GWI amends it on a frequent, rolling basis.

To streamline the data we looked exclusively at users with a high school degree, a university degree, or a postgraduate degree. We also focused specifically on the top five reasons for ad blocking. And we found out a lot.

When examining the main reasons users gave ad blocking, we noticed that those ad filterers with a high school education replied affirmatively to more statements than those ad filterers with a university degree or a postgraduate degree. Across the board, percentages were higher—from “There are too many ads on the internet” to “To speed up loading times.”

The answer that was most overwhelmingly affirmative? When asked “Why do you use an ad blocker?” 49.5% of ad filterers with a high school education answered “Ads sometimes contain viruses or bugs.” When asked the same question, only 45.3% percent of users with a university degree and 40.9% of users with a postgraduate degree answered “Ads sometimes contain viruses or bugs.”

There was one category that stood out: the one that was favored by those with a university degree. “Ads are too intrusive” was an answer from 46.8% of university graduates compared with 456% of high school graduates and 44.4% of respondents with a postgraduate degree.

***

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.

Motivations for ad blocking across gender lines

Posted on by AAX Team

Popular psychology tells us that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But when it comes to the reasons they block ads, both XX and XY chromosome-havers are solidly together on planet Earth.

In teasing out the reasons that ad filterers—the name given to the 95% of ad blocking users who have an ad blocker installed on their device but still consent to be served ads—decided to curate the ads they’re served in the first place, we wanted to look at a variety of factors. Did a person’s age impact their reasons for ad blocking? Did their education level?

And…did gender?

As it turns out, there’s not a clear pink/blue divide when it comes to the motivations for ad blocking. Men and women seem to be largely in agreement when it comes to the reasons they have for ad blocking…although there are slight differences that we found interesting to tease out.

Speed and intrusiveness: largely male concerns

When we looked at the top five reasons for ad blocking, male respondents were more likely than female respondents to choose the answers “Ads are too intrusive” and “To speed up loading times” when asked “Why do you use an ad blocker?” 48.1% expressed concerns about intrusiveness compared to 44% of women, and 45.8% were worried about ads’ adverse effects on loading times compared to just 40.4% of women.

Unity of opinion?

What is perceived as a browsing experience cluttered with so many ads resulted in a moment of peace and understanding in the battle of the sexes. “There are too many ads on the internet” was the answer given by roughly half of both men and women.

Men and women agreed in almost equal percentages—52.2% of men and 53% of women—that a main point of concern was the sheer quantity of ads online.

Women are aggravated by irrelevant ads and virus threats

When asked “Why do you use an ad blocker,” female ad filterers were most concerned about two things: “Too many ads are annoying or irrelevant” and “Ads sometimes contain viruses or bugs.” 49.4% of women were concerned about the safety issues of ads and viruses/bugs, compared to only 45.4% of men.

But it’s worth noting that the most important issue for both men and women was annoyance/irrelevance. 61.1% of women cited this as the most pressing concern. And, while a slightly smaller percentage of men were troubled by annoyance and irrelevance, it was, at 58.8%, still the most popular response given.

***

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.

How does ad blocking motivation change across age groups?

Posted on by AAX Team

Ad filterers—the 95% of ad blocking users that have an ad blocker installed on their device but consent to be served ads—are a demographic that skews young.

But because ad filterers make up such a massive group of people (95% is a pretty big percentage!) it’s important not to overlook the older segment of the population when looking at motivations for ad blocking.

So we looked at everyone from age sixteen up through retirement age; from the members of Gen Z up through Baby Boomers. And what we found as we also looked through the motivations of Millennials, Xennials, and Gen X’ers, is thought provoking.

Gen Z’ers have more concerns than Millennials

When we examined the top five most common reasons for ad blocking, Gen Z’ers (ages 16-24) were ahead of Millennials (ages 25-34) in terms of voicing concerns about ads.

Where this was most apparent was in the question of annoyance and irrelevance. When asked “Why do you use an ad blocker?” 60.5% of Gen Z respondents replied “Too many ads are annoying or irrelevant,” compared to only 53.7% of Millennials.

But Gen Z led the pack when it came to all other issues, responding in higher percentages than Millennials with the answers: “Ads sometimes contain bugs or viruses,” “There are too many ads on the internet,” “Ads are too intrusive,” and “To speed up loading times.”

Baby Boomers are annoyed and Gen X’ers feel the need for speed

An interesting finding that appears when looking across these five generations is that Millennials (25-34) and Xennials (35-44) show less concern across the board than those people both younger (Gen Z, ages 16-24) and older (Gen X, ages 45-54; Baby Boomers, ages 55-64).

This of course doesn’t mean that Millennials and Xennials aren’t using ad blockers. They are, in fact, one of the age groups using ad blockers the most. However, they’re not reporting overwhelmingly on certain pain points the way other generations are. This might have something to do with the Xennial and Millenials relationship to the internet. They grew up with the internet and the online ad space in many ways, cutting their teeth with AOL account and evolving with the technology. Their understanding of online ads has shifted, and they’re seen things get better—after all, the days of the ever-pervasive sparkly banner ad are over!

When it comes to Gen X’ers, the concern centers around speed. 45.7% responded to the question “Why do you use an ad blocker?” with the answer “To speed up loading times,” compared with 43% of Xennials, 44.8% of Baby Boomers, 41.6% of Millennials, and 42.6% of Gen Z’ers. This concern could be a holdover—as people who came of age in the era of dial-up, speed is a concern that still resonates.

And Baby Boomers, like Gen Z, feel strongly about ads being “annoying or irrelevant.” They responded in greater percentages with this answer than any other demographic, with 70.8% answering “Why do you use an ad blocker?” “Too many ads are annoying or irrelevant.” It’s clear that this is an age group with resources and disposable income, willing to see ads that would be relevant to their interests…but that they’re being inundated with annoying advertisements.If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.

Changes in ad blocking motivation since 2017

Posted on by AAX Team

The world has changed a lot since 2017.

Even setting aside the world-shaking COVID-19 pandemic and all that came with it—the tragedy on a massive scale, the blows to the economy, the reshaping of the way we live, work, and educate—things are very different now then they were four years ago.

To think back to the second quarter of 2017 is to remember a different era: one where Donald Trump had just been elected president, TikTok had yet to be launched outside of mainland China, and the hashtag #MeToo wasn’t yet synonymous with fighting sexual abuse and harassment. In 2017 Prince Harry was a bachelor, Black Lives Matter hadn’t yet grown into an international phenomenon, Greta Thunberg was an unknown student in Sweden, and the streaming revolution had yet to begin.

Our question: in the midst of all this change, how did the motivations and reasons for blocking ads change? The period of time between the second quarter of 2017 and Q3 2020 was full of upheaval, innovation, and reckonings…but did that have an impact on the habits of the ad filtering demographic?

We looked at GlobalWebIndex (GWI) data that examines the reasons that ad filterers (defined by the GWI as “users who have blocked ads in the past month but discover brands or products through ads seen online and have clicked on an online ad in the past month”) choose to block ads.

And we noticed a few key ways in which ad filterer motivation changed between Q2 2017 and Q3 2020.

Fewer affirmatives overall.

The most notable difference between 2017 and 2020 was an overall decrease in affirmative answers across the top twelve reasons for ad blocker use. For example, 61.3% of respondents said that they blocked ads because “Too many ads on the internet are annoying or irrelevant” back in 2017, compared to only 57% in 2020.

And while the percentage difference between the years wasn’t always so dramatic—29.1% of respondents agreed that “Ads might compromise my online privacy” in 2017, compared to 28.9% in 2020, for example—the trend continued across the board.

The outlier: data allowance

However, there was one answer that netted more affirmatives in 2020 than in 2017. When asked why they used an adblocker, 18.7% of respondents in 2020 agreed with the statement “I want to stop my data allowance from being used up,” up from 16.2% in 2017.

This underlines a trend we’ve observed since 2017: more and more ad blocking is occurring on mobile devices, where data and data allowances are a subject of concern.

The biggest loser? Loading times

Another data point jumped out at us, simply because it represented such a stark change. In 2017, 49.7% of users stated that they used ad blockers “To speed up loading times.”

However, four years later, that number had fallen to 39.3%. Speeding up loading times, which used to concern nearly half of all ad filterers, suddenly appears to be a lesser issue.

If you’re interested in learning more about ad filterer motivations and psychology, make sure to check out our forthcoming study, Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations, a study that examines, well, the reasons and motivations behind ad blocking habits.

Why Block Ads? Behind User Reasons and Motivations will be published in April, but we’ll be teasing its release with posts just like this one. And if you’re interested, check out some of our previous ground-breaking studies.

Last November we released Ad Filterers Online: Purchasing Habits and Media Consumption In The USA, which shed light on the subject of how ad filterers spend time online…and how they spend their hard-earned dollars.

And back in January of 2020 we published our groundbreaking study, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Ad Blocking Users,” which drew back the curtain on the youthful, affluent, and well-educated users that have ad blockers installed on their devices.