YouTube has admitted to intentionally creating a suboptimal user experience for people employing ad blockers. Reports of a deliberate five-second delay in loading video pages on Mozilla’s Firefox have been circulating on forums such as Reddit and Hacker News. This delay is part of YouTube’s ongoing campaign to discourage the use of ad blockers.
The impact of this campaign on advertisers is twofold. On one hand, it could increase reach by encouraging users to disable ad blockers on YouTube, which could benefit advertisers by expanding their reach. On the other hand, it could result in ads reaching less valuable customers, impacting the effectiveness of the marketing strategy and increasing advertising costs.
Not everyone is experiencing the reported five-second delay. Attempts to recreate the issue on both Mac and Windows machines, while logged into YouTube or not, using ad-blockers or not, and in incognito mode or not, did not result in any observed delay. However, those that are impacted do have ad blockers installed.
Achieving a balance between reach and targeting is crucial to optimize return on investment. To ensure the best results from their marketing strategy, businesses must consider the impact of YouTube's suboptimal user experience for people using ad blockers.
Originally reported by Martech: https://martech.org/youtube-is-deliberately-suboptimal-for-people-using-ad-blockers/
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