Ads are Annoying. Here’s What You Can Do About It
What’s the secret of successful ads?
Pretty sure you’ve experienced or at least have a similar experience to this. You are watching a YouTube video from your favorite channel, but all of a sudden, you’re interrupted by that ad that you’ve seen for the thousandth time. How does it make you feel?
The answer probably ranges from fine, displeased, frustrated, even downright angry (especially when your hands are full, preventing you from clicking the skip button). This situation is nothing new. Ads, by nature, are intrusive.
If you have ever encountered one of these situations: pop-ups interrupting your browsing activity, auto-played videos blaring in the background when you’re about to read an article in a crowded bus, or creepy mobile ads stalking you when you’re trying to shop online; trust me, you’re not alone.
As a marketer, we know how customers feel towards ads: obnoxious and annoying. Why do we still do it then?
Well, turns out customers don’t exactly hate ads. They just hate bad ads.
Digital Ads: Love and Hate Relationships
Imagine this. You enter a store and are browsing from one rack to another. A staff approaches you and pesters you all over the store, constantly trying to sell something. How would you feel? Let me tell you how I feel: irritated. Would I buy something from the store? Most likely not.
The situation is somewhat similar to the current digital advertising landscape. 64% of people found them annoying and intrusive. Adblock software has become the standard protection against them with 30% of internet users worldwide as their active users. It’s clear. Today’s customers are saying “no” to ads. They are being attacked at every website and social media channels.
Still, 83% of people agree that not all ads are bad, with 77% wish to filter instead of blocking them completely. Some customers have found good experiences with online ads. This means, not all doors are closed for content producers and ad publishers to make money through ads.
So, is there a way to create a non-disruptive ad experience for your customers?
The Do’s and The Don’ts
Modern brands are faced with the challenge to figure out how to advertise to consumers who simply don’t want to hear hard-sell ads anymore. The answer thus lies in creating valuable, non-intrusive content.
DON’T Use Tricky Pop-Ups
81% of consumers said they closed a webpage just because of a pop-up, especially the ones where you have to really look just to find that ‘X’ sign to close them. If you really must use a pop-up, at least make them easy for people to close, even providing multiple ways to do so, either with an “X” or a “no thanks” option.
DO Native Ads
Try investing in sponsored native ads. Native ads are primarily considered non-intrusive because they blend in well with the content on the website. Still, make sure your native ads are valuable and informative for your consumers as well as suitable for the website where you place them.
DON’T Spam
Even the best campaign with excellent content can feel intrusive if it attacks the audience too often. You don’t want your customers to feel overwhelmed and bored with your ads, just because they have seen it everywhere online.
DO Choose Suitable Channel
Every social media has its own characteristics, for example, LinkedIn for professionals, Instagram for visual content, etc. Concentrate your efforts on the channel where your audience engaged with you the most, which best showcase the ads. You can also distribute them outside social media, i.e. via personalized email marketing or push notifications.
DON’T Be Disruptive
There’s a reason why I once googled “how to stop auto-played video ads”; they are notoriously disruptive. 82% of users have left a website because of auto-played video ads. Similarly, non-skippable video ads received as much hates from the online community. People don’t like being interrupted when consuming digital content or being forced to watch one.
DO Invest in Inbound Marketing
Instead of shoving content to your consumers, opt for a subtle approach with inbound marketing. Give them meaningful and practical content, the ones that are relevant and they enjoy. Educative articles or handy tips are extremely effective to warm them up to you. Once you get them to learn more about your business, they will welcome you to a longer conversation.
The Future of Digital Ads
Truth to be told, we currently live in the ad-fatigue era. There are simply way too many and too irrelevant commercials that drive marketing campaigns ineffective and create a negative user experience. But it’s not all doom and gloom for the online advertisement industry.
Surprisingly, the majority of digital consumers are fine with seeing digital ads, so long as they’re not annoying. This means there are workable ways for advertisers to reach their audiences.
Successful digital ads make sense in their content, their placement, and the channel they are distributed. Their messages are clear, easy to understand and well-targeted, in a way that they are relevant and speak the consumer’s language. More importantly, they give people a choice: to see or to skip.
With the way the ads industry evolved now, marketers should respond and build their ads strategy by understanding what creates value for consumers. After all, their message is clear.
They want ads that are not disruptive, not intrusive, and are relevant.
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