How Persuasive is Personalized Advertising? An Analysis of User Behaviour and Ad Personalization

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the persuasive effectiveness of personalized advertising on social media among university students in Islamabad, investigating the roles of perceived relevance as a mediator and perceived intrusiveness as a moderator. This Study is limited only to the students of the universities of Islamabad. The sample may not be representative of all demographic variations. Moreover, this analysis is consumer perception-based, as real behavioral data of advertisers or platforms has not been considered. These limitations are noted solely for transparency and will therefore be factored into the discussion of results. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the students of the university in Islamabad using a convenience sampling technique to collect the data with a predesigned self-administered questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale. SPSS was employed to analyse the data collected to examine the hypothesized relationships. The result shows that targeted advertisement has a strong positive influence on consumer persuasion. Perceived relevance fully mediates this relationship while perceived intrusiveness partially moderates it. Findings indicate that although personalized advertising is an effective way of increasing consumer persuasion by means of relevance, over-personalization could lead to perceptions of invasiveness. The findings have significant implications for marketers, social media strategists, and advertisers aiming to refine their personalized advertising strategies - suggesting that in order to influence consumer attitudes and behavioural intentions effectively, the trade-off between relevance and intrusiveness should be carefully managed.