Marketers urged to make ads consumer-friendly

1st July 2008

New research has revealed that consumers are becoming increasingly irritated by certain types of online ads.

Carried out by Opinion Matters for video site HowTo.tv, the study showed that ads featuring loud noises, as well as pop-ups and ads that cannot be closed or minimised, were deemed to be most annoying by respondents, Marketing Week reports.

Ads for companies in the gambling, financial services, car manufacturing and household goods sectors were found to be the worst, while almost three-quarters of web users said they had been forced to exit a favourite site due to intrusive ads.

This compares with a figure of 50 per cent recorded last year. Almost three in five also said that they had never returned to an offending website, up from 16 per cent in 2007.

Despite this, recent research from IDC has suggested that the market for online advertising is set to grow significantly in the next three years.