• by Masha Geller , June 26, 2003

Just how much damage can clutter do to your ads? Plenty, according to BURST! Media, which recently surveyed more than 16,000 web users with the purpose of better understanding the impact of advertising clutter on the web users' Internet experience.

According to the findings, 57.6% of respondents said they had a less favorable opinion of an advertiser's product or service when their ad appeared on a web page they perceived as cluttered. What's more, the negative impact of clutter, that opinion is closely connected the respondents' household income - two-thirds of respondents with household income of $50,000 or more said they thought less of advertisers' product or service when their ad appears on a cluttered web page.

"Clutter diminishes the effectiveness of advertising messages and can negatively impact consumers' brand perception. As you plan media, recognize that clutter is a hidden cost that will impact not only the effectiveness, but also the return on the media dollars you spend," BURST! says. "Choose web sites that have a reasonable number of creative units per page and avoid sites where your message will have to battle for consumers' attention. Just as important, consider the relevance of your advertising message to the sites' content and target audience."

While web users are generally accepting of online ads if there is a single ad on the page, a large majority (63%) have low tolerance for more than two advertising units per web page. Interestingly, web users 55 years and older are much less tolerant than other age segments of multiple ad units. Fully one-half of this segment say they will tolerate only a single ad unit per web page. BURST also found that almost one in three (31.0%) respondents say they immediately leave a site if it appears cluttered with advertising. This finding is identical for men and women, as well as all age and income segments. Additionally, 70.9% of respondents who remain on a site they think is cluttered say they pay less attention to ads appearing on its pages. This finding is also consistent for men and women. Clutter, however, does have a slightly more noticeable impact on higher income segments ($50,000 or more) - with three-quarters (76.3%) saying they pay less attention to ads appearing on a page. To break through the clutter, "use high impact creative units along with more traditional banners, cubes, skyscrapers/wide skyscrapers and email products to cut through clutter," BURSY suggests. "These high impact creative options include out-of-banner solutions like Eyeblaster, Ad4Ever, Shoshkeles and site sponsorships. These creative units often dominate a page and may improve the chance of your message winning the battle for consumers' attention."