Three out of four Britons receive irrelevant advertising

A new survey shows that British consumers are tired of generic marketing, while brands are finding it difficult to stand out.

Three in four (75 percent) British consumers say they regularly receive marketing that is not relevant to them, according to a survey from Optimizely.

The results come from The Marketer's Survival Guide and is based on a survey of 1,000 consumers and 100 marketers. The survey shows that consumers are increasingly frustrated with generic and poorly targeted marketing. At the same time, marketers say they often work under time pressure, with fragmented data and disjointed systems, making it more difficult to deliver the content and quality that customers expect.

According to the survey receives more than two-thirds (69 percent) of consumers receive the same message or email multiple times from the same company. An equal number feel that marketing is often too general and not tailored to them. A further 61 percent believe they receive too much marketing and 56 percent say it is increasingly difficult to find brands that communicate in a relevant and engaging way.

The result is that many consumers become less receptive to company communications. Almost half (42 percent) say they lose interest when content feels irrelevant, while more than a third (35 percent) unsubscribe from emails and other marketing communications after receiving irrelevant marketing.

The survey also highlights the challenges marketers face. 60% of UK marketers say they are often forced to launch campaigns that they haven’t been given enough time or data to optimise, while 54% jump straight from one campaign to the next without properly evaluating the results. Meanwhile, 66% say managing multiple tools and platforms creates unnecessary overhead, making it harder to deliver relevant and personalised experiences.

– Consumers notice when marketing is not created for them, and our research shows that they are therefore increasingly choosing to ignore it, says Tara Corey, SVP Marketing at Optimizely. The irony is that AI could help solve this problem, but so far the technology has mostly led marketers to create more of the same thing. The real opportunity lies not in more content, but in better content. That means using AI to reduce the mundane tasks so marketers can once again focus on strategy and creativity.

Read more in The Marketer's Survival Guide.