ORC International recently worked with Mirriad, an ad-tech company, to look at the behavior of web users and how they interact with advertisements. They surveyed 1015 adults to gather their data. The report provided a significant amount of information that will be very valuable (and concerning) to marketers who use online ads.
The worst information in the report is that when it comes to pre-roll ads that come on ahead of online video content are skipped 90% of the time. Depending on when they actually hit the skip button and the specific way a given ad-network works, this could mean marketers are paying for a significant amount of advertisements that are not being seen. Even with a best case scenario, marketers are investing in making high quality ads that are constantly being skipped.
Not surprisingly, the behavior changes slightly based on the age group of the viewers. 84% of millennials say they block or skip ads all or some of the time. 73% of Gen X’ers respond in the same way. Baby Boomers say they skip 72% of the time. No matter who you are targeting, however, the chances are your ads are going to be blocked or ignored.
The study also looked at how many advertisements people see per day. Depending on the person and the day, it estimated that people are exposed to somewhere between 4000 and 10,000 ads per day. This includes all online ads, TV ads, billboards, magazine ads and any other type of advertising. While this is a massive amount of ads, the study also found that most people only actually remember about 5 ads per week.
Mark Popkiewicz, the CEO of Mirriad said, “These results reflect what most of us already know as individuals. We skip ads. If we have a DVR, we skip ads. If we have mobiles, we skip ads. If we watch online, we skip ads – and given access to the right apps, we block them altogether. Why? Because they all too often get in the way of the experience we are looking for when we seek out the content we love. Most of us don’t like being sold to, especially by someone we don’t know. It’s just a natural human trait.”
He went on to say, “There must be a better way, because ads are an important part of the way content is funded. In the future, ads must become more respectful of viewers and delivered in such a way so as to add value, be truly helpful at whatever life stage the consumer is at, and not manifest like a stick-up on a street corner at night: ‘Watch me or I’ll take your purse.’”
If you’d like to see the full study, it can be found HERE.
