Consumers no longer want to be tracked by online advertising

According to the study, 51 percent of Germans don't like seeing the same ads multiple times. This negative experience even goes so far that just under half (49 percent) think the industry needs to change. Consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. find "ad stalking" annoying to a similar extent. At 47 percent and 48 percent respectively, they also want the industry to do something about it. 

The picture is different in France. Here, only 38 percent of respondents have problems with this type of advertising and only 40 percent believe that the advertising industry needs to change.

The results from Switzerland:

For example, the figures show that bad advertising has a major impact on a brand's reputation, especially in Germany. More than a third (36 percent) of German consumers rate a company negatively because of bad ads. While consumers are generally open to advertising, just under half (48 percent) would prefer to see fewer ads that are more relevant and useful to them personally. Consumers in the U.S. (45 percent) and the U.K. (44 percent) would also welcome this. In France, however, only 15 percent of consumers are put off by bad advertising from a brand.

"Personalization is the only way to generate relevant ads for the individual user. Truly personalized advertising has been around for some time, but unfortunately many marketers still confuse it with retargeting. Looking at the results at hand, this is a risky mistake. Retargeting often repeatedly shows consumers a product they definitely don't want to buy. Proper personalization does exactly the opposite. But it only takes effect when customers are correctly identified on different devices, on- and offline activities are tracked, and ads are then played out appropriately in real time," Potthast continues.

However, there is also good news. Compared to numbers from the 2017 Holiday Retail Outlook Report, the industry has already learned when it comes to personalization. Two years ago, 65 percent of consumers said companies, retailers and brands sent them too many irrelevant messages.

"While we're already seeing progress, there's still a long way to go for marketers to build those real, close customer relationships. Consumers want companies to connect with them on an individual level, and that means marketers need to really understand their customers' buying behaviors and habits. That means they need to combine online and offline activities and analyze data across all devices and channels and make it work for them," says Potthast.

• 31.7 percent of the Swiss surveyed dislike being followed by ads the most when it comes to online advertising. 45.45 percent say that irrelevant ads bother them the most.
• Fifty percent of respondents said the industry needs to change.
• 45.45 percent of the Swiss rate companies negatively due to poor advertisements.

The following statements apply to the DACH region (180 participants):

• 43.89 percent of respondents in the DACH region dislike being tracked by ads the most when it comes to online advertising.
• 32.78 percent say irrelevant ads bother them the most.
• 48.89 percent would like to see the industry change.
• 40.56 percent of the respondents said that they evaluate companies negatively because of bad advertisements.

"We've all experienced it: the same ad just reappears everywhere. This problem is due to cookie-based retargeting. Instead of incentivizing a purchase, this strategy tends to make consumers increasingly annoyed with the company's advertising, which can have a negative impact on their reputation in the long run," comments Peter Potthast, Country Manager DACH at Conversant. "Our study of the current state of the industry found that marketers are putting off customers by repeatedly playing irrelevant ads, and wasting their marketing budget in the process."