April 11, 2018

People Believe Ads Are Becoming More Intrusive

Users feel bombarded by too many ads
If you believe ads are becoming more invasive, you're not alone.

In a survey of US internet users by Kantar Millward Brown, 71% of respondents said that ads are more intrusive now than they were three years ago. A similar number indicated theyÕre seeing more ads overall, and even more agreed that ads are now appearing in more places.

US Internet Users' Attitudes Toward Ads Today


Part of the reason people may feel like theyÕre seeing more ads is because theyÕre spending more time consuming media. eMarketer forecasts that US adults will spend an average of 12 hours, 5 minutes with major media this year, up from 11 hours, 52 minutes in 2015.

And not only are people spending more time with media, but the usage of second screens is increasing. We predict that 186 million US adults will, at least once per month, watch traditional TV while simultaneously using a digital device to browse the web in 2018. In 2015, by contrast, there were just 159 million simultaneous internet and TV users.

Consumers who feel ads are becoming too invasive are taking actions that advertisers should take seriously. eMarketer projects that three in 10 US internet users will use an an ad blocker this year. And according to a survey of over 39,400 ad blocking users worldwide by GlobalWebIndex, respondents were most likely to block because they find ads annoying, too numerous and too invasive.

Reasons for Blocking Ads


What if there were a DSP designed for the unique needs of your business? Explore the benefits of an in-house programmatic solution, without the complexity and costs associated with building your own bidder.

The pushback against intrusive ads and companies using data in invasive ways has ratcheted up in recent weeks. The #DeleteFacebook movement has been trending due to the social network's ongoing scandal with Cambridge Analytica, in which data was collected without people's permission for voter targeting purposes. Facebook recently shut down its Partner Categories, a product that enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on the platform, but tea leaf readers believe Facebook may be reconsidering that move.


Copyright 2018 eMarketer inc. All rights reserved. From https://www.emarketer.com. By Ross Benes.

To view all articles, check out the Internet Travel Monitor Archive