Coercive Tactics and Web Advertising Performance

sustainability Article Coercive Tactics and Web Advertising Performance Jiwon Lee, Inwon Kang * and Joseph Stanfield Department of International Business and Trade, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, Korea, (J.L.); (J.S.) * Correspondence: ; Tel.: +82-02-961-9182 Received: 11 June 2017; Accepted: 20 July 2017; Published: 28 July 2017 Abstract: By questioning contemporary coercive or intrusive web advertising activities, this study sheds light on the recent conditions of web advertising by focusing on a comprehensive process that leads to web ad performance. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed by the principal investigators of this study. 170 were returned from 200 distributed questionnaires given in South Korea and 100 were returned from 200 distributed questionnaires in China. The responses total 248 out of 400 distributed questionnaires. The relationships among the measured factors are analyzed by the structural equation modeling method. Results show that the use of web ad tactics often leads to negative consequences, creating a user present avoidance behavior condition towards both the ad and ad-hosting website. In terms of the performance of the ad-hosting website, website retention was strongly influenced by content blocking. In addition, the results of the comparative test suggest that the influence of avoidance on advertising performance is stronger among users of newspaper websites than e-commerce websites. Keywords: web advertising performance; ad persuasiveness; website retention; relevance; coercive tactics; discrepancy 1. Introduction Web advertising has become a prevalent form of advertising across the globe, attracting users with new and innovative online content. Compared to more traditional forms of advertising, web advertising has been deemed a more effective format given its wider range of applications (motion, audio, video files, etc.) and the ability of an advertiser to more flexibly control target exposure and frequency [1]. Moreover, web advertising enhances the convenience and immediacy of information searches for online users [2]. Social safety nets that regulate online activities are relatively ineffectual when compared with activities that are present in an offline environment [3]. Social safety nets could be created, not only by laws and regulations, but also by the spirit of responsible participation from each stakeholder of the web-based activities [4]. Additionally, it has recently been noted that online users find online advertising coercive or intrusive, causing disruptions in their intended activity. Such practices as blocking ads may deter access to the desired information as well as diminish the perceived benefit of the web ads. These inducing agents have led to the development of a more discerning user yielding a discrepancy between the user’s perception and the advertiser’s efforts, making online advertising campaign decisions more complicated. Therefore, it is important for advertisers to accurately identify the elements that raise the performance of their online advertising by encouraging responsibility from freedom-seeking stakeholders. Previous researchers identified that advertising performance has been quantitatively measured by click rates, such as cost per click (CPC) [5] or by the price companies’ pay per view, such as cost per thousand impressions (CPM) [6]. However, these studies adopted methods that left several vulnerabilities such as limitations that filter out unintended clicks. For instance, unintended clicks Sustainability 2017, 9, 1317; doi:10.3390/su9081317 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2017, 9, 1317 2 of 18 to advertising links could negatively shape users’ online experience, making them become banner blinded or entirely ignore web ads [7]. Thus, the occurrence of the discussed discrepancy is not assumed in the previous measurement of web ads performance. Moreover, a previously understudied question deserving of further study is how a user’s evaluation of a particular advertisement influences user behavior while browsing the website featured in a web ad. This is an important issue since users who are irritated at one website can easily move to another without much effort compared to traditional forms of advertising. Given the seemingly endless proliferation of new websites combined with established ones, users can easily and freely navigate away from sites they label as irritating. Therefore, a user’s evaluation of a web ad not only applies to the performance of the web ad itself but also leverages the performance of the website [8,9]. By expanding the understanding of the subject of influence of online users’ evaluation to encompass the advertising and the ad-hosting website, a more comprehensive assessment of web ad performance can be obtained. In addition, the discrepancy between advertisers and online users varies according to the type of website because the use of each website embodies different purposes. That is, the subsequent effect on web ad performance could be highly dependent on the type of website to which users are exposed. According to user information-processing behavior in an online environment, goal-directed online users present a lower level of interest towards web ads compared to ordinary web-surfers [10]. For example, online users who visit news websites with the specific purpose of retrieving information are more goal-directed compared to bloggers who are oriented to relaxation purposes such as navigating other people’s posts for entertainment. It is likely that the former would negatively evaluate the website when there are web ads that disrupt their activity whereas the latter would be more accepting to ad exposure [10,11]. Therefore, accepting the underlying purpose of the use of the different websites to the measurement of advertising performance would be a more inclusive research attempt. Such recent web ad conditions raise research questions over the practical use of previous research suggestions (RQs): RQ1: What is the process of advertising performance that consumers evaluate? And how can we measure web ad performance focusing on the online users’ evaluation? RQ2: How does a user’s evaluation of a particular advertisement influence the user’s behavior while browsing the ad-hosting website? RQ3: Which inducing agents should marketing professionals focus on for e-commerce and newspaper websites? This study sheds light on the recent conditions of web advertising, focusing on a comprehensive process that leads to web ad performance. The objectives of the study are threefold. First, this study proposes a research model that explains the influence of discrepancy on advertising performance. Second, the measurement of performance will comprise both the performance of advertising as well as the performance of an ad-hosting website. Third, to accurately examine users’ behaviors in different types of websites, a comparative test will be conducted. Th (...truncated)