Asked whether they would rather see online ads for random products and services or ads directed towards their interests, 40.5% of respondents to a new survey [PDF] chose the latter (targeted ads), while another 27.6% were content to see both. The study, conducted by Zogby Analytics on behalf of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), found only 16.1% preferring random ads, with another 15.8% unsure. Late last year, a study from Ipsos similarly found Americans giving targeted social networking ads a vote of confidence.
Separate results from the DAA survey indicate that 47.3% of respondents are opposed to a law that “restricted how data is used for online advertising, but also potentially reduced the availability of free content such as blogs and video sites.” Still, opposition to such a law is possibly due more to potential reduction of free content rather than restrictions on the use of data: elsewhere in the study, 9 in 10 respondents said that free content like news, weather, email, blogs and videos are either extremely (68.7%) or somewhat (28.6%) important to the overall value of the internet. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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