The urgency of the pandemic and its side effects accelerated innovation in the way consumer-facing brands and retailers use the digital landscape to attract and develop loyal customers. Now, as the economy continues to “normalize” after years of crisis, a new problem has emerged: At what point does all this digital promotion start to turn off potential customers and alienate existing ones?
It’s an important question now that consumers, good economic news aside, are becoming more discerning about how and where they spend their money. The promotional techniques that emerged over the past several years may have been competitive at the time. There was a surplus of stimulus funds sloshing around the economy, and work-from-home meant we had lots of extra hours to squander trolling for deals online.
Today, a “Black Friday” sale is no longer exclusive to Amazon, nor is it just the day after Thanksgiving. Every major e-commerce merchant now has not just one, but multiple, such sales each year. Furthermore, if you buy a pair of socks online, you can bet you’ll soon be seeing plenty of ads for socks, even though you’ve already made that purchase. Knowing that companies can discover that you were searching for socks is unsettling enough to create a negative impression of these other me-too brands.
There are endless urgent appeals through social media and sponsored content on news sites urging consumers to hurry and check out the “best of” or “editors’ choice” in almost any product category—while supplies last. Online marketers take advantage of the cultural tyranny of “now” (as in “right now”) that the Internet encourages, pushing potential customers to rush to act.
Email marketing has become an inescapable pestilence, causing anxiety as consumers try to discern which emails are legitimate and which may be phishing attempts. Many people now simply ignore promotional emails, letting them sit unread in their inboxes.
A recent Harris Poll of 2,000 adults, conducted for AD-ID, an advertising industry consultancy, found that six out of 10 streaming viewers reported a negative impression after seeing the same ads repeatedly. Half of these viewers said they decided not to purchase a product from a brand when they saw the ads too often.
The problem is not limited to ads or emails; there’s also password fatigue. According to Dashlane, an application that allows users to store all their passwords in one place, the average Internet user has between 100 and 200 online accounts that require a password. Passwords are not only friction in e-commerce but also a source of anxiety since, one might infer from constant warnings, most of us have accounts with compromised passwords. (Dashlane reports that North America—the U.S. and Canada—has the worst password hygiene in the world.)
This issue has no easy solutions. But some strategies exist, based on an old and fundamental principle. According to the Harris Poll, 76% of consumers want ads that are personalized or relevant to their interests. Repetition is counterproductive, but tailored ads are more likely to engage and influence consumer decisions.
In other words, merchants and marketers need to know their customers in a more specific way and deliver messages that resonate. Otherwise, they risk the challenge famously stated by John Wanamaker (1838-1922): “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.”
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