Commentary

Hey Ad Agencies, Did You Know You Are Stealing Up to 80% of Mobile Users' Bandwidth?

by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 17, 2016

A recent study conducted by Enders Analysis found nearly 80% of mobile data usage can be attributed to advertising. The study took a look at page load data as well as the effect of JavaScript. Between 18 and 79 percent of data was attributed to advertising and another 6 to 68 percent was attributed to JavaScript.

The study was conducted by using a browser that impersonated an iPhone 6 and requested pages from 8 publishers deemed "popular" but were unnamed in the report. Sites were loaded with an ad blocker, without an ad blocker and with both the ad blocker and JavaScript disabled.

Of the findings, the report read, “The data economy is now a live concern, with cost-conscious users getting by on 1GB or less of data per month. Online advertising, often involving video or rich media or multiple image and script loads, is costing users money in a more direct way than ever before. Publisher mobile pages are bloated and advertising is an enormous part of that."

Kids, there once was a time web pages loaded immediately. Even on dial up! The ad industry has clearly put a stop to that with a massive proliferation of bloatware that's simply killing the user experience. Marketers can only tighten the handcuffs on consumers' so tightly before they break free and refuse to play by their increasingly hard to accept rules.

advertising, agency, mobile

3 comments about "Hey Ad Agencies, Did You Know You Are Stealing Up to 80% of Mobile Users' Bandwidth? ".

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Matt Cooper from Addroid, March 18, 2016 at 1:48 p.m.
Stealing? Ads are a value exchange between the publishers and the people to who consume their content. The advertisers sponsor the creation this content because it's been made clear that people don't want to pay for every little thing they view on the internet. So, unless you have a solution for getting publishers paid for the work they do I’m just not sure how productive this conversation is. Also, I think we need ask the question why we’re paying such a premium for bandwidth. In 2015 AT&T was fined $100MM for misleading their customers regarding their bandwidth usage so they could simply change more. These bandwidth caps are not because of a scare resource, they are about making money. Free content means the advertiser is picking up the bill for you. That’s the actual price and it’s a fact of life. Getting over charged by your carrier is another problem. interenet.
Reply

Chuck Lantz from 2007ac.com, 2017ac.com network, March 18, 2016 at 4:16 p.m.

A famous America's Cup sailor once said "If you can't tie good knots, tie lots of them."

The same lesson applies here; ... If the ads that the publishers have to run in order to stay in business are not good enough to convert the viewer into a customer, then the only answer at this point is to just run lots of ads.

How's that for a "value exchange"?

Matt Cooper from Addroid, March 18, 2016 at 4:31 p.m.

Chuck I’m a little confused your reply. Publishers aren't running ads to try and convert them into customers. Publishers simply use ad revenue to play the salaries of the people who create the content: blog posts, videos, etc. People have made it clear they are not interested in paying, even a micro-payment, to view each and everything they see on the internet. So instead, the advertiser sponsors the content, paying the bill for the user in essence. By visiting the site the user agrees that ads will be mixed with the free content. The users get content for nothing (value) and the publishers can make a living (value). This is the value exchange.