Articles Generate Highest Consumer Response
By Anna Johnson on April 28th, 2010Consumers are more responsive to online advertising in general, and articles in particular, than they were a year ago. That’s the major take-out of an Opinion Research Corporation consumer preference survey sponsored by Adfusion, an article-based advertising network and division of ARAnet.
The research found that every type of online advertising scored better with consumers in 2010 than a year ago, but consumers were more likely to read and act upon articles containing brand information than they were to respond to banner ads, pop-up ads, email offers or sponsored links.
In the national study of 1,053 adults conducted in March 2010, survey respondents rated their likelihood to read and act upon five types of online advertising: banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers, articles that contained brand information, and sponsored search engine links.
Respondents said they were ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to read and respond to:
- Articles that included brand information: 53 percent compared to 51 percent a year ago.
- Email offers: 51 percent compared to 47 percent last year.
- Sponsored search engine links: 40 percent compared to last year’s 39 percent.
- Banner ads: 28 percent compared to 25 percent in 2009.
- Pop-up ads: 19 percent compared to 13 percent last year.
When asked how frequently they conducted Internet searches for products or services they read about in online articles, 57 percent said they initiated a search ‘very frequently’ or ‘somewhat frequently’ (up from 50 percent last year).
Interestingly, 72 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds said they were likely to conduct a search for products or services based on an article, up from 66 percent a year ago.
Meanwhile, 70 percent of those making more than $75,000 per year (regarded by many mass marketers as the most attractive market demographic) said they were likely to perform a search – 13 points higher than last year’s 57 percent.
