Burst Media (www.BurstMedia.com) released results from a survey on ad clutter. The survey was administered to over 4,000 web users and revealed that websites cluttered with ads do a disservice to the publisher, the advertiser and the visitor.
According to the survey results, ad clutter not only annoys the audience but it also diminishes ad effectiveness. An astonishing 75.5% of the respondents who remain on a site they perceive to be cluttered say they pay less attention to ads appearing on its pages.
Additionally, although respondents accept that advertising will appear on a web page, for a majority (52.6%), there is low tolerance for more than two advertising units per web page. More than one-quarter (29.9%) of survey respondents immediately leave a site if they perceive it to be cluttered. Women are more likely than men to abandon a site that appears cluttered – 32.1% versus 27.5%.
Another finding is the negative impact advertising clutter has on a consumer’s perception of an advertiser’s products and services. One out of two (52.4%) respondents has a less favorable opinion of an advertiser when their advertising appears on a web page they perceive as cluttered. One-half (56.4%) of women claim clutter negatively impacts their opinion of an advertiser, versus 48.3% of men.
The survey also found that ad clutter’s negative impact on respondents’ opinions increases with age. Less than half (46.8%) of respondents 18-24 years were impacted negatively by clutter whereas nearly two-thirds (63.2%) of respondents 55 years and older were unfavorably impacted.
