go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

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A Dartmouth researcher’s study sheds light on the mobile Web and app users who don’t click on ads. On a high level from the study, here are the top seven reasons they steer clear of the ads on smartphones and tablets (with some Adweek commentary thrown in).

1. The screen is too small, per 72 percent of survey participants. Mobile marketers everywhere will want to bang their heads against the wall over that one. And for tablet marketers, the researcher believes most respondents were thinking of their smartphone usage more so than their time on an iPad or Nexus 7.

2. People are just too busy for ads, according to 70 percent surveyed. You mean on-the-go consumers don’t have time to kill? No shocker here, either—outside maybe actually not being No. 1.

3. After tapping an ad and going to the landing page, 69 percent of respondents hate it that they cannot easily return to the content they were reading or watching. This interfacing problem can probably be successfully addressed by technologists, can’t it?

<st! rong>4. Too hard to get online with cell phones, said 60 percent. There’s a 3G joke in here somewhere.

5. Per 54 percent, it’s too frustrating when mobile consumption is interrupted. From TV to T-Mobile, some things never change.

6. Ads take too long to load, stated 53 percent. Once again, this one seems fixable long-term on a technological level and can probably be creatively circumvented in the meantime.

7. Consumers are just not in the mood for ads, said 42 percent. Fantastic marketing content could change this attitude, couldn’t it?

At the same time, Praveen Kopalle, the Dartmouth marketing professor who put together the study, came to a bevy of other mobile-versus-Web-consumption findings. Many of them suggest that while mobile marketers have more opportunities to craftily target ads, they better hit on-the-go consumers’ sweet spots because those folks won’t be paying attention for very long.