39% of young people are more likely to engage with online advertising if it is relevant to their interests
A report has found that 39 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds are more likely to click on online advertisements if they are relevant to their interests.
Mediasyndicator’s 2012 Vertical Engagement Report also found that 92 per cent of consumers currently visit sites specific to their interests when searching for content on the web.
The research suggests that marketers should be making more investment to ensure they are present on sites specific to consumer interests, with 44 per cent of consumers stating they regard these types of sites as providers of reliable sources of information and 32 per cent believing they feature more interesting content.
It was also discovered that 52 per cent are more likely to click on an ad if it contains some sort of social endorsement, such as ads which host customer and community reviews.
Spyro Korsanos, CEO for Mediasyndicator, said: “Traditionally, when consumers opened their web browsers, the first pages they saw were the home pages of major portals, such as AOL, Yahoo or MSN. As such, these sites were considered as prime inventory for advertisers trying to connect with online audiences. As patterns in consumer online media consumption were transformed, consumers’ reliance on these sites has changed. In fact, recent figures from comScore show that sites such as AOL, for example, experienced a 9.7 per cent drop in unique visitors in just one year between 2011 and 2012.
“While they still hold a prominent position in the internet’s ecosystem, consumers are themselves evolving the different ways they engage with content online. The generic nature of these large portals means they no longer hold the significance they once did. These results help demonstrate that consumers are increasingly more engaged with a wider range of sites relevant to their interests as a source of trusted information and entertainment.”