Understanding the reasons behind ad blocking is vital if brands are to win over their audiences
In 2010, Go.Compare spent £28 million to ensure its ads were seen and heard everywhere. By 2012, its jingle was the most-played piece of music in TV and radio ads.
There was, however, a flip side to this success; it was voted the UK’s most annoying ad in 2015, proving that ad ubiquity is only one step away from ad saturation.
Although the parameters are different online, saturation is as true here as it is for TV. Banner ads, pop-up ads, video ads, ads above the fold, ads below the fold … online advertising offers many paths to consumer attention – but just as many to irritation.
Pop-ups are well-known culprits, with four out of five consumers abandoning a webpage because of a negative user experience. Video ads that play with sound (67%) and without sound (55%) follow close behind in levels of annoyance. This varies across social channels too, with Facebook having been voted the most annoying platform in relation to ads.
This helps to explain why the first ad blocker was introduced only a decade after the internet became mainstream. Today, nearly half (43%) of internet users across the world use an ad-blocking extension, with penetration rates varying between countries – 27% in the US, 35% in the UK, 51% in India, and 57% in Indonesia. Only three countries fall below the 25% mark, namely Japan, Ghana, and Morocco.
There are three main reasons why internet users rely on ad blockers. 22% are doing so to avoid irrelevant ads, 22% are trying to shield themselves from too many ads, and 20% find ads too intrusive. So when it comes to developing a successful campaign, these are the three core areas brands need to optimize: relevance, quantity, and placement.
Make it relevant
The task of balancing privacy concerns with relevance is a tricky one.
Despite a global shift away from invasive behavioral targeting, 76% of consumers still expect personalized digital services and experiences. While some brands have enough first- and zero-party data to tailor their campaigns to their specific audience, this is not an option for everyone.
Contextual targeting has therefore made a comeback as a privacy-first advertising strategy, with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning enhancing text, image, and video analysis. With a deeper understanding of page-level data, brands have been able to leverage these insights to align their ads with content consumed, rather than the consumer themselves.
And the results have been positive. Research shows that purchase intent and brand recall improve by 14% and 200% respectively when a consumer sees a contextually relevant advertisement.
Bridging the gap between privacy and relevance, and keeping ads in line with consumer interests without impinging on their personal data, contextual targeting appears to appeal to consumers as well, with 39% citing this as their preferred advertising method ahead of demographic (31%) and behavioral marketing (29%).
Limit quantity
Interestingly, despite the fact that many people considered its ad to be incredibly annoying, Go.Compare quadrupled its profits in the immediate aftermath of its release.
Nevertheless, most brands do not want to risk irritating their customers – especially since three out of four customers already avoid ads, and 73% admit having negative feelings towards repetitive messaging.
The benefits associated with a high volume of impressions, such as ad recall and action intent, are also shown to plateau once a consumer has seen the ad a certain number of times, and up to 41% of marketers consider frequency capping to be a priority.
Time and time again, the ‘less is more’ approach triumphs over repetitive advertising – and this applies across all digital channels.
Snapchat, Meta, and YouTube – the latter having recently launched global frequency capping – have found a frequency sweet spot of a maximum of two ads per week. One brand advertising on YouTube achieved 93% recall while saving 40% on each lifted user, while one Google-commissioned study revealed that TV advertiser ROI decreased by 41% when frequency surpassed six weekly impressions.
Beyond the frequency of impressions, the number of ads on a webpage plays a significant role in consumer experience. User attention diminishes as ad quantity increases, and a third of internet users would rather avoid websites where online ads interfere with content. Anything over two ads per screen will annoy consumers. This means that, at best, users will avoid the ad completely and, at worst, the brand’s reputation will be damaged.
Place it right
Ads always need to be planned with user experience in mind. If someone engages with a webpage’s content, the last thing they want is an ad to appear and block their view. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pop-up ad is the least popular in user surveys on ad types.
But while pop-ups may be the obvious culprit, there are many other placements that do not serve marketers or brands.
For example, it’s easy to be tempted by above-the-fold ads for the promise of visibility, but if this impacts the user experience – such as by adding extra scrolling time – these are more likely to annoy consumers than grab their attention.
Ads placed below the fold, on the other hand, generate 29% more attention than those above the fold as readers are already engaged with the surrounding content.
The online environment also contributes to how people perceive an ad. As many as 88% of consumers find ads next to low-quality content annoying, with a majority of consumers – 68% in Britain, 72% in France, and 86% in Indonesia – holding brands responsible for substandard placement. Over half (55%) of British shoppers feel less favorably towards a brand with poor ad placement, and 70% would stop buying from them completely.
Optimizing user experience
This should make it clear that a scattergun approach is an unwise approach. Placing a limited number of ads in high-quality, premium environments is more likely to reflect well on brand reputation.
SmartFrame’s technology allows brands to make the most of the content a user is already engaging with, streaming an ad into images placed within a webpage. Image and page metadata also ensure the ad is contextually aligned with the content, increasing the likelihood of relevancy.
Brands need to think about more than just whether or not their ads are memorable. As Go.Compare’s ad proves, memorability does not guarantee favorability. Quality, quantity, and placement are three benchmarks by which brands can set their ads to ensure the optimal user experience, ensuring campaigns are relevant without oversaturating their audience, and only shown in an environment that bolsters their reputation.
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