Advertising isn't all click-oriented direct response, like mortgage lead generation. Branded display advertising is rarely clicked, but viewing it has a measur

Advertising isn't all click-oriented direct response, like mortgage lead generation. Branded display advertising is rarely clicked, but viewing it has a measurable effect on user behavior later. Fred Wilson's got a decent summary of a comScore study on exactly this: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/12/display-adverti.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/12/display-adverti.html A little searching will dig up additional studies. While many of these are somewhat self-serving, I've also seen some more academic work with similar results. I don't know whether the people blocking ads would've displayed atypical post-viewing behavior - it's an interesting question. We're rarely conscious of the influence of display advertising on our decisions, so I suspect even people who actively resist clicking ads have value to a brand marketer. In any case, it's not the advertisers that worry about ad blocking, it's the publishers. As long as the display advertising is sold on a CPM basis (which is common on larger, higher-quality sites), anything that blocks a request to an adserver reduces their revenue, whether you would've clicked the ad or not.