Online Behavioral Advertising Research Articles

Measuring the advertising value of personalised ads in smartphones based on consumer literacy and privacy concerns

Because of the widespread use of smartphones in everyday life and advances in data analysis technology, brands are increasingly focusing on advertising via smartphone while collecting customer data. Advertisements are made to reach customers through two types of data collection: the first is using customer online behaviour to show personalised ads, which is known as online behavioural advertising (OBA), and the second is hearing out customer media usage and providing personalised ads, which is known as synced advertising (SA). The question here is whether personalised ads are useful and project a positive image to customers, which are reliable. The purpose of this paper is to provide a knowledge of how OBA and SA work and why it is vital to address personalised adverts in smartphones that are powered by AI algorithms due to privacy concerns. The purpose of this empirical investigation is to determine is purchase intention is accelerated based on the advertising value of personalised adverts, their literacy, and privacy concerns and to test the effect of personalised advertisement value on purchase intention.

Exploring User Attitudes Toward Online Behavioral Advertising: Insights into Trust, Transparency and Privacy

This study explores the dynamic relationship between user acceptance and Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA). It aims to unravel how trust, transparency, and privacy concerns shape user attitudes and behaviors in the realm of personalized advertising. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research integrates quantitative data from online surveys with qualitative insights from semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that trust in advertisers and perceived transparency play important roles in influencing user acceptance of OBA. Interestingly, while privacy concerns negatively impact trust, they paradoxically enhance perceptions of OBA's effectiveness. The study further explores the nuanced interaction between transparency and trust, indicating that their combined effect differs from their individual influences. These insights are vital for advertisers and policymakers, underscoring the need for strategies that prioritize user-centric values like transparency and trust while addressing privacy concerns. The research contributes to the broader discourse in digital marketing, offering guidelines for ethical and effective personalized advertising practices.
 
 Received: 1 December 2023 / Accepted: 15 February 2024 / Published: 5 March 2024

Online behavioural advertising, consumer empowerment and fair competition: Are the DSA transparency obligations the right answer?

Online behavioural advertising, consumer empowerment and fair competition: Are the DSA transparency obligations the right answer?

Using the FCB grid to understand privacy concerns in social media advertising

Online behavioral advertising (OBA) is now the norm for social media advertising campaigns. Brands use detailed consumer data points to customize product placement, but extant research has found mixed results about the efficacy of OBA given increasing consumer privacy concerns. This research attempts to address this conflict by using the FCB grid to investigate how different product types (high vs. low involvement, thinking vs. feeling) might influence perceptions of privacy and subsequent ad attitudes. Using the Affect Infusion Model (AIM) and accessibility-diagnosticity framework, the authors demonstrate how low involvement ‘feeling’ products generate the highest ad attitudes. Participants in two studies respond more favorably to targeted ads for these products, and diagnosticity of affect-as-information is shown to be the mechanism for this effect. However, this effect only occurred when privacy concerns were low. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Digital Advertising in the Age of Generative AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is significantly reshaping branded content delivery and consumer engagement in the advertising industry. Generative AI, exemplified by ChatGPT, is anticipated to have a substantial impact on all digital advertising domains worldwide. This special issue delves into the exploration of future trends in global digital advertising in the era of generative AI. The research articles within this special issue encompass a diverse array of topics, ranging from consumer responses to AI-generated virtual influencers in the metaverse and livestreaming e-commerce to the influence of anthropomorphic virtual agents, privacy concerns in online behavioral advertising, understanding of AI-driven ethnic affinity targeting, and the role of relational bonds within online gaming communities.

Technology Readiness Motivators and Online Behavioural Advertising: A Perceived Benefits-Risk Assessment Using Privacy Calculus Theory

Purpose: The present research intended to find whether the technology readiness motivators, Optimism, and innovativeness, impact the user's intention to accept Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA), an area that requires additional research. Theoretical framework: Even though these personalized advertisements provide an enhanced user experience, they provide users with advertisements based on their online surfing behavior, and unfortunately, at the same time, it also creates privacy concerns. At the same time, Privacy Calculus Theory (PCT) is considered an appropriate theory when it comes to a rational benefits-costs assessment of the privacy-centred decision-making by internet users. Design/Methodology: Based on an extensive literature review, a conceptual model is being proposed, and a scenario-based questionnaire was developed and pursued on internet users' experience of the subject matter. Six hundred ten valid responses were received, and PLS-SEM was used to analyze the results. Findings: The results show that Optimism and innovativeness have a direct and indirect effect on the intention to accept Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA). Technology readiness Motivators have a detrimental impact on the intention to accept OBA. Research, Practical and Social implications: Based on our findings, we may be able to gain a deeper understanding of the theory behind targeted, data-driven digital advertising and the way in which it pertains to online shopping. Presented here is evidence to support the theory that the predisposition of users toward new technology could be the reason for users ranking perceived benefits higher than risk. Originality/Value: This study attributes original work in the sense that it is the first time that an individual’s predisposition towards technology has been taken into consideration while analysing the acceptance of OBA grounded on the Privacy Calculus framework.

Managed Sovereigns: How Inconsistent Accounts of the Human Rationalize Platform Advertising

Platform business models rest on an uneven foundation. Online behavioral advertising drives revenue for companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, with privacy self-management governing the flows of personal data that help platforms dominate advertising markets. We argue that this area of platform capitalism is reinforced through a process whereby seemingly incompatible conceptions of human subjects are codified and enacted in law and industrial art. A rational liberal “consumer” agrees to the terms of data extraction and exploitation set by platforms. Inside the platform, however, algorithmic systems act upon a “user,” operationalized as fragmentary patterns, propensities, probabilities, and potential profits. Transitioning from consumers into users, individuals pass through a suite of legal and socio-technical regimes that each orient market formations around particular accounts of human rationality. This article shows how these accounts are highly productive for platform businesses, configuring subjects within a legitimizing framework of consumer sovereignty and market efficiency.

Privacy Concerns Matter, Knowledge Does Not: Investigating Effects of Online Behavioral Advertising among Chinese and Dutch Adults

The present study aims to address (1) the extent to which privacy concerns and online behavioral advertising (OBA) knowledge as consumer characteristics create boundary conditions for the persuasiveness of OBA and (2) if their roles in OBA effects differ for Dutch and Chinese individuals. Results from an online experiment (N = 241) show that OBA is less effective for individuals with high privacy concerns than for individuals with low privacy concerns, while level of OBA knowledge does not influence the positive effects of OBA compared to non-OBA. OBA is also more effective for Dutch consumers than for Chinese consumers, which could be attributed to the finding that Chinese consumers have higher privacy concerns than Dutch consumers.

Consumer Responses Towards Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) on Facebook

Consumer Responses Towards Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) on Facebook

Online Behavioral Advertising: Do Awareness and Privacy Concerns Protect the Users

The Internet is subjugated by free web services that use advertising and other marketing tools for revenue generation. Targeted online advertising is among most extensively used tactic by these websites in which selective advertisements are displayed based on user’s browsing behavior, socio-demographics, and interests. This trend has raised concerns due to the serious threats to the privacy. The main objectives of this study were to investigate the association between awareness regarding Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) and Privacy Concerns among Users, the effect of awareness on buying behavior and to seek knowledge gap regarding awareness of OBA between socioeconomic segments. Data was collected via online survey (N=300). Findings confirmed a strong relationship between level of awareness regarding OBA, privacy concerns and effects of this association on attitudes and buying behavior of users (N=300, p < 0.05). Similarly, difference in awareness levels of users belonging to middle and upper-middle class was also found that confirmed the prevailing knowledge gap in the society (N=300,p< 0.05). The study highlights the need to design of recommends the academia to priotize digital media literacy of the users and policy makers in designing strategy related to privacy protection

Quality Assessment and Biases in Reused Data

This article investigates digital and non-digital traces reused beyond the context of creation. A central idea of this article is that no (reused) dataset is perfect. Therefore, data quality assessment becomes essential to determine if a given dataset is “good enough” to be used to fulfill the users’ goals. Biases, a possible source of discrimination, have become a relevant data challenge. Consequently, it is appropriate to analyze whether quality assessment indicators provide information on potential biases in the dataset. We use examples representing two opposing sides regarding data access to reflect on the relationship between quality and bias. First, the European Union open data portal fosters the democratization of data and expects users to manipulate the databases directly to perform their analyses. Second, online behavioral advertising systems offer individualized promotional services but do not share the datasets supporting their design. Quality assessment is socially constructed, as there is not a universal definition but a set of quality dimensions, which might change for each professional context. From the users’ perspective, trust/credibility stands out as a relevant quality dimension in the two analyzed cases. Results show that quality indicators (whatever they are) provide limited information on potential biases. We suggest that data literacy is most needed among both open data users and clients of behavioral advertising systems. Notably, users must (be able to) understand the limitations of datasets for an optimal and bias-free interpretation of results and decision-making.

Privacy concerns and avoidance behaviour towards data-driven online behavioural advertising

PurposeWith the developments of the digital era and considerable developments in ICT, advertisers are leveraging data-driven forms of online advertising to target consumers individually. The present study integrates privacy concerns with the constructs from the persuasion knowledge model to investigate consumer avoidance of online behavioural advertising (OBA).Design/methodology/approachThe study employed an online survey method for data collection using a sample size of 345. Reliability and validity of the measurement scales were ensured, and hypotheses developed were tested through PLS-SEM using SMART PLS.FindingsThe results show that persuasion knowledge is a significant predictor of perceived benefits, perceived risks and privacy concerns. Also, privacy concern was found to significantly mediate persuasion knowledge-avoidance behaviour and perceived risk-avoidance behaviour. On the other hand, the perceived benefit was not found significant in influencing privacy concerns for OBA.Practical implicationsThe present study is one of the initial attempts to understand the level of knowledge Indian consumers hold about OBA and how they evaluate and respond to these data-driven forms of advertising. The current study helps advance knowledge of the field and the theories used. Future studies might look at the effect of various demographic and psychographic aspects on consumer avoidance of OBA.Originality/valueAs the country is shifting to digital, it becomes really important to understand the privacy concerns that people perceive in regard with the current advertising practices.

ATOM: Ad-network Tomography

Data sharing between online trackers and advertisers is a key component in online behavioral advertising. This sharing can be facilitated through a variety of processes, including those not observable to the user’s browser. The unobservability of these processes limits the ability of researchers and auditors seeking to verify compliance with recent regulations (e.g., CCPA and CDPA) which require complete disclosure of data sharing partners. Unfortunately, the applicability of existing techniques to make inferences about unobservable data sharing relationships is limited due to their dependence on protocol- or case-specific artifacts of the online behavioral advertising ecosystem (e.g., they work only when client-side header bidding is used for ad delivery or when advertisers perform ad retargeting). As behavioral advertising technologies continue to evolve rapidly, the availability of these artifacts and the effectiveness of transparency solutions dependent on them remain ephemeral. In this paper, we propose a generalizable technique, called ATOM, to infer data sharing relationships between online trackers and advertisers. ATOM is different from prior approaches in that it is universally applicable — i.e., independent of ad delivery protocols or availability of artifacts. ATOM leverages the insight that by the very nature of behavioral advertising, ad creatives themselves can be used to infer data sharing between trackers and advertisers — after all, the topics and brands showcased in an ad are dependent on the data available to the advertiser. Therefore, by selectively blocking trackers and monitoring changes in the characteristics of ad creatives delivered by advertisers, ATOM is able to identify data sharing relationships between trackers and advertisers. The relationships discovered by our implementation of ATOM include those not found using prior approaches and are validated by external sources.

Consumer response to online behavioral advertising in a social media context: The role of perceived ad complicity

AbstractBrands and social media platforms are two main players in online behavioral advertising (OBA), but the extant literature overlooks the interaction between them. Although advertising brands invest considerable resources to target potential consumers through social media advertising, our analysis indicates that publisher‐platform‐related activities can elicit negative consequences. Thus, we examined the role of perceived ad complicity, that is, consumers' perception regarding advertisers partnering with the social media platforms in the OBA process. We used perceived ad complicity as a moderator to explain the variation in consumers' negative responses to OBA in a social media context. Our results indicate that consumers with high perceived ad complicity experience greater perceived ad intrusiveness. This effect directly impacts their attitudes toward publisher platforms and advertising brands but consumers react more negatively toward brands (vs. publisher platforms) regarding this practice. Furthermore, we found that consumers who are more sensitive to social norms experience stronger perceived ad complicity and that informing consumers about why they are seeing specific ads on their social media platforms does not change their views on ad complicity.

Worried about digital footprint Attitudes toward online behavioural advertising with the AdChoices icon

This study examined the efficacy of using the AdChoices icon, a symbol that indicates the use of online behavioural advertising (OBA) on websites. Despite the increased use of OBA for internet advertising, little is known as to its impact on user attitudes toward websites and advertisements that voluntarily display the icon. This study compared the effects of the icon in individuals with less favourable attitudes toward OBA in general to those in people holding more favourable attitudes toward OBA in general, in relation to their privacy concerns. For those with less favourable attitudes toward OBA, their attitudes toward the website displaying the icon increased significantly when the individual's perceived privacy concern was high. Those with more favourable attitudes toward OBA did not show much change regardless of individual privacy concerns. However, such an interaction effect was not observed for the advertisements themselves on websites displaying the icon.

Whither Free Will: The Biopolitical Imperative of Regulating Online Behavioral Advertising

Whither Free Will: The Biopolitical Imperative of Regulating Online Behavioral Advertising

Effects of Website Credibility and Brand Trust on Responses to Online Behavioral Advertising

Online behavioral advertising that tracks user data has witnessed a dramatic increase in popularity. Using Psychological Reactance Theory, this study examines the effects of brand trust and website credibility on responses to behavioral advertising via privacy concerns. A 2 (brand trust: high vs. low) by 2 (website credibility: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 424). Results suggest that while brand trust influences purchase intention—as mediated via affective reactance—website credibility only exerts modest effects on the dependent variables. Implications for user perception factors and contextual factors—including ad effectiveness in the digital personalized marketing realm—are discussed.

Neutralizing online behavioural advertising: Algorithmic targeting with market power as an unfair commercial practice

Online behavioural advertising (OBA) relies on inferential analytics to target consumers based on data about their online behaviour. While the technology can improve the matching of adverts with consumers’ preferences, it also poses risks to consumer welfare as consumers face offer discrimination and the exploitation of their cognitive errors. The technology’s risks are exacerbated by the market power of ad intermediaries. This article shows how the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) can protect consumers from behavioural exploitation by incorporating market power analysis. Drawing on current research in economic theory, it argues for applying a stricter average consumer test if the market for ad intermediaries is highly concentrated. This stricter test should neutralize negative effects of behavioural targeting on consumer welfare. The article shows how OBA can amount to a misleading action and/or a misleading omission under Articles 6 and 7 UCPD, as well as an aggressive practice under Article 8 UCPD. It further considers how the recent legislative proposals by the European Commission to enact a Digital Markets Act (DMA) and a Digital Services Act (DSA) may interact with the UCPD and the suggested stricter average consumer test.

Data-driven digital advertising: benefits and risks of online behavioral advertising

PurposeThe research aims to investigate how individuals can be persuaded to make purchases through repeated and personalized messages. Specifically, the study proposes a framework of the potential benefits and risks of the online behavioral and data-driven digital advertising (OBA), which can help researchers and practitioners to better understand shopping behavior in the online retailing setting. In addition, the research focuses on the role of privacy concerns in affecting avoidance or adoption of OBA.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach with partial least square (PLS) regression method to test the research hypotheses through data coming from a structured questionnaire.FindingsOBA is a controversial type of advertising that activates opposing reactions on consumers' perspective. Specifically, acceptance of the OBA is positively related to relevance, usefulness and credibility of the personalized advertisements, while the intention to avoid personalized ads is strictly related to the privacy concerns. Consequently, OBA acceptance and avoidance affected the click intention on the ad and the behavioral intention that are decisive for the success of data-driven digital advertising.Originality/valuePrior research came up with complex theoretical frameworks that explain antecedents of OBA focusing only on ethical issues in marketing, on the effectiveness of a single OBA campaign or on how to create a successful advertising campaign. However, no study focuses on the intended or actual behavior of shoppers. Specifically, filling the gap in the existing literature, our research applies an SEM approach to identify both benefits and risks and the antecedents of the actual behavior of individuals in terms of actual purchases promoted by OBA.

Consumer manipulation through online behavioural advertising

Technological progress and the rapidly increasing abundance of consumer data have significantly changed the pervasiveness and effectiveness of online behavioural advertising (OBA). Although the marketing concept of OBA is versatile and holds great potential for companies, it also entails legal risks with regard to consumers’ privacy and autonomy. This article aims to describe the practice and technology of OBA. Then, it aims to outline the possible limits of consumer manipulation by OBA under Swiss law.