Consumers attitudes to digital advertising - a decline in response rates!

A new YouGov survey into the attitudes of consumers to digital advertising

has revealed some alarming trends around how the explosion of digital marketing

has jaded many consumers, and hinted that a shift in approach may be required by

digital marketers.

Marketing Tech contributor Marco Veremis is president at

UpStream, the digital response specialist that commissioned

the research, and a front runner in mobile and digital advertising for over a

decade. Speaking to him at the Mobile World Congress recently, we questioned him about the

interesting and alarming shift that's taken place over the last five years as

the numbers of digital ads being served every year rocketed from 150bn in 1996,

to a staggering five trillion today.

The effect, as one might expect, has been general desensitisation and a

decline in response rates. This is the worrying part,says Veremis.

Response used to be a healthy 7%, but today it's below 0.1%. And the

reaction of advertisers over the last five years has been, "well, my response

rates are declining, let's do more, more, more"

But more, more, more can be a risky strategy; not just because of the general

apathy and ad-blindness it lays on the average consumer. As fast as response

rates are declining, the number of consumers staying with a brand and not

actively opting out of communications is on the decline also.

Perhaps more worryingly, disgruntled consumers have the power to wreak havoc

and brand damage like never before. "If you asked asked people 40 years ago whether

they were getting too much advertising, the answer may well have been the same

as today, says Veremis. ,But today they have the ability to go online and be

vocally negative about that brand. So the negative impact is there, there is

such a thing as negative brand awareness.

On the face of it, running less advertising in a more targeted way would seem

the logical solution. A lot of companies have caught wind of this, but many

have fallen into another pitfall, personal data, says Veremis. How are you

targeting?

It's a pitfall elegantly demonstrated by the oft-cited case of the US teenage

girl, secretly searching Google for abortion information, whose family then

learns of her pregnancy through targeted pregnancy ads.

On the one hand you've got invasion of privacy, trying to be more targeted

and advertising less, says Veremis. On the other hand you've got massive

volume. Whereas the middle ground?

The interesting thing here is that none of these are traditional marketing

segmentation metrics that companies use.

Privacy has become more of an issue as people become more protective and

more vocal when it is violated, concludes Veremis. Targeting criteria should

change; one should look for the types of data that are perceived to be

non-intrusive.

However when you use interactive communication, properly executed, all your marketing becomes

totally unobtrusive and, at the same time, totally effective and accountable.