Jul 2, 2009 at 11:59am ET by Greg Sterling
Trade magazine AdWeek and pollster Harris Interactive conducted a survey in early June among 2,521 US adults. People were asked what types of ads they found most “helpful” and what types of ads they ignored. Below are the top-line results as well as the age and geographically segmented data.
Most helpful in making purchase decisions:
Ad types that people ignore:
One in ten Americans say they do not ignore any of these types of ads. Interestingly, younger survey respondents tended to find search ads less helpful than older users and ignored them more. That’s a bit counter-intuitive.
Here are the data segmented by age and geography:


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Excellent data! I am actually shocked to see that 46% of people part of this study ignored internet banner Ads, I would think that this would be much lower…
Greg,
Thanks for sharing this data.
No good comes from asking people what ads are “helpful”. People will always say they don’t like advertising and commercials. “It’s annoying”.
I get it every day. “Oh, you do those ads? I ignore those.”
My answer, “Oh, no you don’t. You just think about when you do.”
It’s only when ads don’t feel like ads they work. When someone is looking for widget A and a paid search campaign shows an ad for widget A, that’s no longer an ad. That’s filling the current demand. That’s helpful.
Search ads, if done properly, will be favored by audiences, despite what they say in surveys.