71% of Consumers Prefer Personalized Ads

Share:

As digital ad spend and competition continues to rise, advertisers are looking for new ways to grow profitably. At the same time, consumers are demanding shopping experiences that are catered to their unique needs and interests. So how do brands achieve both? The answer is personalization, which tops the list on Forrester’s Top 10 Critical Success Factors in 2016. Personalized ads have a higher click through rate (CTR) than their counterparts, and they reduce wasted ad spend. End consumers benefit by seeing fewer ads which are geared towards their needs and interests at the time.

As with every buzzword, personalization means different things to different people, so we wanted to uncover what it really means to consumers. In our latest study, we sought to find out what consumers want when it comes to personalized marketing, when it makes it better and when it goes too far.

Our research makes it clear that consumers want to see relevant advertising.

• 71% of respondents said they would prefer ads that are tailored to their personalized interests and shopping habits
• 75% prefer fewer ads that are aligned to their needs and interests

The advantages of personalized advertising for consumers is invaluable. Our survey asked consumers to rank the greatest benefits to personalization, which they listed as:

• 46% reduces irrelevant advertising
• 25% a way to discover new products
• 19% making online searching and shopping faster and easier

Personalized ads also boost engagement. We found that people were almost twice as likely to click through an ad featuring an unknown brand if the ad was tailored to their preferences. But there is still value for well-known brands with the biggest difference for men and Millennials. 57% say they would click on a general ad for a brand they know versus 70% if it’s personalized.

Most consumers, 87%, believe personalized advertising means unique content, based on their previous purchases or shopping behavior and delivered at a time when they are looking to buy a product. For marketers, it’s critical to use both customer and transactional history to inform future ad investments.

In order to receive more relevant offers, we asked what personal information consumers are willing to provide brands with. Forty-four percent said they would be willing to provide their name, address, email address or product preferences, but only 29% would engage with ads containing personal information like their name. Consumers are eager to share what products they’re interested in, but protect their home address roughly as much as they do their credit card information.

• 50% would provide product category preferences, and 8% would provide information on major life events like marriage or the birth of a child, while only 3% would provide home address

Check out the article on Marketing Dive to read more about our study and see our infographic below!

Holly Pauzer