What Consumers Think the Most Annoying Types of Digital Ads Are

A recent US survey of digital ad buyers shows which kinds of ads are most likely annoying for consumers. A research firm called eMarketer commissioned Bizrate Insights to survey its panel of digital buyers in the US about the kinds of ads they found either annoying or useful. 

Somewhat unsurprisingly, about two-thirds of the digital buyers in the US thought that autoplay video ads with sound were the most annoying type of online ad. 

In second place was the autoplay video ads that did not have sound, which was followed by music streaming services audio ads. 

The rest of the list is made up of mostly personalized ads in search results, social media, and websites. 

The full list is below, along with the percentage of respondents who say the kind of ad is annoying: 

• Video ads that automatically play on websites with sound – 66.7%
• Video ads that automatically play on websites without sound – 55%
  Music streaming services – audio ads – 47.4%
• Ads that show up based on past online searches – 42.4% 
• Banner ads on websites for products already purchased – 36.7% 
• Social media feed ads targeted to me based on my   and behaviors – 36.3% 
• Banner ads on websites for products I have browsed but not purchased – 34.2% 

A chunk of 10% of respondents replied that they don’t consider any digital ads annoying. 

Based on this data, it is not hard to see that consumers typically prefer ads that are less intrusive, as long as they are not too closely related to their shopping or browsing activity. 

That is a challenging balance to maintain for advertisers, as ad support is crucial in order to keep content free. 

EMarketer notes that more than half of respondents say they use an ad blocker as of the survey in July of this year. It would be interesting to see if they would be less likely to block ads if they became less “annoying.”