POV: The year is 2020 and you’re aware of the software that is AdBlocker.
Today it is super easy to side-step display advertisements and pop-ups on most webpages users visit. If you do happen to have software like AdBlocker installed on your browser, it usually isn’t until you visit a site that isn’t a retail platform (consider a news website or blog, for example) that you may be asked to ditch your adblocking capabilities in order to use website perks or read content on some pages.
I think due to this phenomenon my biggest exposure to ads in the last several years has truly only come from social media like Instagram and those handfuls of sites that disallow you to block ads. When I do see them, oftentimes they are what we call remarketing advertisements. Whether you recognize them by name or not, you’re certainly aware of the type: targeted ads that will reappear after you abandon a potential conversion on some other website. Say you never officially made an account for that one program, or you never made a purchase on this one website. The fact that you see that same product or service advertised elsewhere, on perhaps the same day, is hardly if ever, a coincidence.
I personally grow really tired of remarketing ads, but I cannot say they aren’t effective in getting me to think consistently about a product, even if I don’t click-through on them. If anything, they can often encourage me to shop around and price compare the advertised products quite often after I leave a site. For me, the most effective ads that I will click-through come down to things that I trust. Things that I don’t consider a waste of time, essentially. These include recurring advertisements like Spotify’s Year-end music compilations and playlists, or any newer ad campaign coming from software/apps/programs that I already use. Because the initial level of trust is already there and I am familiar with the product, I would say that I’m very likely to click-through.
