How is online advertising annoying customers, and what can you do to improve your ads?

Bad practices around frequency, placement and relevancy are common reasons why online consumers are less susceptible to advertising across social media, websites and other online resources.

In fact, a study around social media ads reported users often finding ads “overwhelming, repetitive and irrelevant”.

The steady increase of online adverts appearing across our favourite websites and social networks is certainly a grievance for online consumers. The same social media study found 74% of users think that there are too many ads, which grows to 78% for adults aged above 35.

Other research found 39% of online consumers labelling digital adverts as “excessive” and 27% labelling them as “intrusive”.

Bad targeting and lack of relevancy is another grievance. The social media study reported that 66% of users find ads irrelevant to their wants and needs.

The placement of adverts can also be an annoyance for online consumers, for example ads that interfere with content or make it difficult to read.

After pop-ups which disrupt web experience, HubSpot’s research found the second most annoying ad type to be one which plays before or during a video.

When you start to look a bit further it can get a bit more complex, however. Take retargeting adverts for example, where advertisers can serve ads across multiple online platforms to people who have visited their website or are part of their database.

It can stir up quite a divide with online consumers, with some people finding the personalised ads relevant and helpful, and others finding them uneasy and annoying. However, customers are 70% more likely to make a purchase from a retargeting ad, meaning relevancy could be key.

It becomes clear that not all is lost when it comes to online advertising, and in fact consumer tolerance could be on the rise, especially with younger audiences who are showing higher acceptance of advertising and brand messaging.

For example, 34% of Gen X and Millennials tolerate seeing ads while streaming videos on a smartphone, compared to just 19% of older consumers. And 49% of online consumers agree that they enjoy ads for products they’re interested in.

It’s important to note that while tolerance may be on the rise, this doesn’t correlate with trust. For example, only 22% of younger consumers and 12% of older consumers trust social media advertising.

As mentioned, online advertising still forms a fundamental part of a business’, brand’s or website’s strategy, and this research doesn’t mean that this channel is going to stop working.

There’s research that shows online advertising is still showing positive growth, with social media adverts often being a core part of a consumer’s purchasing journey and display ads still performing strongly in search. In fact, 48% of social media users have bought something after seeing an ad  and PPC ads contribute to 45% of page clicks in search results.

Online advertising done right can help smaller businesses, brands and websites compete effectively against larger competitors, and can still be an effective channel to help raise brand awareness, drive sales, and increase visibility across a variety of targeted channels.

Let’s look at Google Ads as a quick example, these natural looking “sponsored” ads appear at the top of search result pages and are highly targeted via keywords allowing smaller players to appear at the top of Google for a reasonable cost. Most importantly for the consumer, these are mostly relevant, look natural and aren’t invasive or overwhelming.

Image source: www.google.com. August 2025.

The rise of more ‘natural’ looking ads could help see improvements in the perception of online advertising, for example sponsored content, influencer marketing and ads involving content creators thanks to platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. In fact, sponsored content from people like this holds the attention of nearly half of younger consumers compared to 18% of older generations. Also, 45% of online consumers think that content shared by brands online is “interesting”.

Now we’ve determined that online advertising can still be effective, we’ve got four tips to help boost the performance of your online ads.

1. Target your audience

Take some time to think about your target audience including key details like age range, gender, and location. You may already have this for your wider business strategy but don’t forget to revisit these insights to really target your online audience.

You can also take advantage of the useful insights you can get on your online audience from various analytic platforms. For example, you can find data and trends across your followers on Instagram Insights, (once you’ve reached 100) on demographics such as age range and gender. Google Analytics can also provide you with valuable data on who’s visiting your website, and what pages they’re engaging with. You can use this to influence your targeting, so you have a better chance of reaching people who are more likely to engage with your online content.

Most importantly, take your time when targeting and make sure you’re fully utilising all the options available. For example, on Facebook Ads, are there other similar interests that you could also target against your key interest?

Making your targeting detailed means there’s a higher chance that your advert will be relevant to the audience that’s seeing it, meaning that people are more likely to find it interesting and engaging.  Keep an eye on your potential reach however, while you want your ads to be targeted you don’t want to restrict your reach so much that you’re only targeting a handful of people and increasing your cost-per-click (CPC).

You need your ad to be eye-catching, relevant, and compelling. Here’s some top tips to help you when crafting the content of your online ads:

2. Spend time on your advert

• Make it visual – use high-resolution images that are relevant to your message and are appealing and eye-catching. Use ‘real-life’ pictures, such as of products, rather than stock imagery where possible
• Make it relevant – you could write the most engaging copy in the world but if it doesn’t relate to where people are clicking through to it’s going to be ineffective, and could make your brand less trustworthy
• Make it interesting –think about your unique selling point (USP) and don’t be afraid to spend some time writing. Be careful you don’t enter click bait territory though
• Offer something of value – could be a discount, link to a great piece of content, a free ebook etc
• Keep it fresh – experiment with different messages and don’t keep the same advert running for a long period of time
• Strong call to action (CTA) – make sure it’s clear what you want the audience to do, for example “book now”, “download”, or “shop now”

Image source. www.google.com August 2025

3. Understand where your adverts are appearing

To reduce the risk of your adverts being irrelevant, you need to know where they are being shown. This is particularly important with online banner advertising, where your adverts appear on other websites, so make sure you’re clear on:

• What the hosting websites are offering and how relevant this is to your target audience
• Where on these websites your adverts are appearing. Are they next to relevant content?
• Are they appearing as naturally as possible, such as on the side of the webpage, or within social streams as users scroll down?

4. Use data and testing

Once an online advert is up and running it’s tempting to sit back and relax. But keeping an eye on it allows you to make tweaks to enhance the performance of your ad.

You can find lots of useful data on most advertising platforms including:

• Cost-per-click (CPC) – how much each click on your CTA/link is costing
• Frequency and relevance – how many times the target audience is seeing your advert and how relevant it is to them
• Impressions – how many times your advert has been seen
• Engagement – particularly on social media, you can see how many likes, shares, and comments your advert is getting

If you know how your ad content is performing, you can make changes to make it more effective and relevant.

For example, if your cost-per-click is high you could try changing your ad copy or targeting selections before you spend all your budget. And, if your advert is being shown multiple times, you can broaden your targeting or add variations before people start to see it too much.

Alongside monitoring your ads which are running, testing different ads is also valuable. Try setting up two or three different adverts within your campaign with different copy, images and CTAs and see which your target audience engages with the most.