By mbretous@hubspot.com (Martina Bretous)

A 2019 Edelman study found that three out of four consumers avoid ads. In fact, 47% said they have changed their media habits to see fewer ads while others use ad blockers to prevent them altogether.

The reasons why vary.

Personally, I hate repetitive ads. For about a month straight, every time I would watch a YouTube video, I would see the same ad and it got more irritating every time. Mostly because I wasn’t interested in the brand or its services. But the incessant nature of the ad led to me develop a negative association with the company.

So, how can brands deliver ads that audiences want to see? To know that, let’s first look at what they definitely don’t like.

The Most Annoying Advertisement Types

We surveyed 302 people using Lucid to ask them about what ads they’re most annoyed by.

When we asked the random survey pool, “What’s the most annoying type of digital ad?”, a whopping 58% of respondents said pop-up ads that negatively impact the user experience.

Data Source

While advertising can be unavoidable for brands based on their goals, there are ways to produce ads that don’t annoy your audience. Below, we dive into the two most annoying ads types and explain how marketers and advertisers can navigate.

Pop-Up Ads.

When you think about it, this result isn’t too shocking. We’ve all gone through it. You land on a website and before you can even scroll, you’re hit with a big pop-up ad that takes up the whole screen. You close it, then get hit with another pop-up on the bottom of your screen, making it harder to navigate the site.

At this stage, many viewers just drop off.

This is an issue that affects both publishers and advertisers. The more visitors a publisher has, the higher the rate they will charge for their ad inventory. However, if a site is known to have incessant pop-up ads (looking right at you, recipe websites), visitors may be reluctant to visit that site again. This can lead to lower traffic and eventually less ad revenue.

This is equally impactful to advertisers who want users to convert on their ads. You know how they say journalists should never become the story? Well, ads should never be noticed for their placement instead of their content.

Let’s say your ads are displayed in ways that hinder the user experience. At worst, consumers will start to build a negative perception of your brand and at best, they’ll simply be too distracted by the placement or timing of the ad to care about the content. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation.

Pre- or Mid-Roll Video Ads

When it comes to video ads, things get tricky.

Our study found that the second most annoying ad type is the one that plays before or during a video or show. In addition, a 2019 study by RevJet found that 100% of consumers …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog