Abstract
As advertising technologies continue to advance firms have adopted new strategies to more effectively advertise to their consumers. One of these strategies is online targeting. Online targeting is become more and more popular to firms due to its effectiveness. Based on theoretical thought, this research argues that in most marketing situations, targeted advertising is more cost effective compared to non-targeted advertising. To test these theories, this research published 120 advertisement on popular social sites Instagram and Facebook. These ads marketed the College of Wooster as a product to potential college attenders. Then measuring their performance metrics such as CTR and clicks to compare both strategies. The outcomes showed an average CTR of .99% for targeted advertisements and an average CTR of 8.34% for non-targeted advertisements. Therefore, the experiment did not support targeted advertising as a better alternative to non-targeted. However, the overwhelming performance of the non-targeted advertisement could be worthy of further research.
As advertising technologies continue to advance firms have adopted new strategies to more effectively advertise to their consumers. One of these strategies is online targeting. Online targeting is become more and more popular to firms due to its effectiveness. Based on theoretical thought, this research argues that in most marketing situations, targeted advertising is more cost effective compared to non-targeted advertising. To test these theories, this research published 120 advertisement on popular social sites Instagram and Facebook. These ads marketed the College of Wooster as a product to potential college attenders. Then measuring their performance metrics such as CTR and clicks to compare both strategies. The outcomes showed an average CTR of .99% for targeted advertisements and an average CTR of 8.34% for non-targeted advertisements. Therefore, the experiment did not support targeted advertising as a better alternative to non-targeted. However, the overwhelming performance of the non-targeted advertisement could be worthy of further research.
Advisor
Wang, Gang
Department
Business Economics
Recommended Citation
Chien, Will, "Why Companies are Monitoring Your Internet History: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Target Strategies’ Effects on Online Advertisement Performance" (2019). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 8437.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/8437
Disciplines
Advertising and Promotion Management | Business Analytics
Keywords
Facebook Advertising, Targeted Advertising, Online Advertising
Publication Date
2019
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2019 Will Chien