Ads are served for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, they should of course provide traffic, ie guide the visitor to a website or landing page. On the other hand, they are also used for branding, if certain brands are to be stored in the memory of the user. However, the branding effect is difficult to measure and the question arises time and again: what really sticks in your memory?

The advertising platform Outbrain wanted to know how it actually be constituted with the ads and has carried out a study. For this purpose, 1000 consumers from Germany were selected, who were shown several different online ads. The result is not really positive for all those who rely on branding: More than two-thirds of the study participants, or more precisely 69 percent, could not remember directly after viewing the ads which brand was presented there. So, for most, nothing stuck in the memory.

That alone is not good news, but the study came to another result, the online marketers should be interested in: If the Ads interfere with the users, 93 percent perceive the brand – but rather negative. As a company, you spend a lot of money and ultimately make sure your image is not improved. So it pays to look very carefully where the ads are played and whether they affect the user experience or not.

In this study, of course, it could not be determined whether or not the branding on the Ads not perhaps also takes place subconsciously and thus the user is better achieved than expected. But nevertheless it shows that advertising should also have relevance and that the user should initiate the interaction right away. If he does not respond immediately to the Ads, it is questionable whether he thinks again later. You really have only a few seconds to generate enough attention to make an action immediately.