In a recent Adobe study on the state of personalization, consumers shared the experiences that frustrate them most when engaging with digital content.
The survey of more than 1,000 adult consumers asked “When engaging with a brand’s content, what experiences frustrate you the most?”
Pop-Ups
Topping the list, cited by 41% of respondents, were pop-up ads, alerts or cookies.
Dislike for this style of interruption shows up again and again in other research — in a similar study from AYTM in 2017, pop-up ads were found to be the most intrusive or unacceptable online ad format as cited by almost 7 in 10 consumers.
And, in an earlier YouGov report, some 73% of respondents claimed to dislike online pop-ups, making them the least liked ad type.
Nevertheless, they persist. Why? Because marketers know they work.
Spam Email
Next on the list of frustrating experiences are spam emails, cited by 37% of respondents. Fortunately for consumers, every year spammers find it more difficult to get their emails into inboxes, thanks to efforts made by email providers.
For marketers, deliverability rate is on the rise; per the latest Validity (formerly Return Path) figures, some 91% of emails from senders with the best reputation scores reach inboxes.
However, this is potentially lowering recipients’ tolerance for spam, with complaint rates more than doubling year-over-year in 2018.
Page Loading Speed
Coming in third, a frustration for one-quarter of respondents, is slow page load. Indeed, research suggests marketers aren’t making page speed enough of a priority, with just 3% of respondents to a 2019 Unbounce survey labeling this their top priority for campaign performance. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
The Rest
The rest of the frustrating experiences include:
- Useless offers
- Websites that don’t remember where I left off
- Wading through too many pages to find what I want
- Irrelevant recoomendations
- Autoplay audio
- Inaccessible content
- Clutter
- Difficult path to purchase
- Site doesn’t remember me
- Non-responsive design
- Read-only content
- Overwhelming navigation
The e-Strategy Academy covers all aspects of digital marketing including search optimization & marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, mobile marketing & public relations.