Americans are Fed Up with Bad Ads.

An InsightsOne survey, which was aimed at determining American attitudes and behavior around the ads they see every day, found that fully 87% are now putting their foot down on the number of irrelevant ads they are willing to see before they ignore a company completely. Almost a quarter (23%) of Americans say they will do so after seeing just one spam email or online ad, and 43% say they will ignore a company completely after seeing as many as two.

And annoying ads are pervasive, with 91% of Americans reporting they see them. While email spam and junk mail tend to get the most attention, it was surprising to discover that almost as many Americans are annoyed by website ad spam (52%) as are annoyed by email spam/sidebar ads (55%). Postal junk mail (37%) actually ranked fifth, behind television ads (60%), email spam/sidebar ads, website ads and ads on social media (37%).

The results may create challenges for ecommerce companies that advertise and sell over the web. In fact, 88% of Americans say they have even been “flooded” with online ad spam, and 91% of those say they take action when it occurs. 36% of those who have ever been flooded with online ad spam say they would leave a website because of too many irrelevant ads, and many more would begin to feel that the company doing the advertising doesn’t respect their time (26%). For email, 60% will unsubscribe from future messages, but a surprising 45% will simply ignore future communications.

In some of the more extreme cases, Americans who are flooded with online ad spam say they would:

Stop using the product advertised – 14%

Completely boycott the company doing the advertising – 13%

Tell their friends – 9%

Respond angrily – 5%; and even

Hit their computer or mobile device in frustration – 4%

Men were statistically more likely than women to take certain actions, including stop using the product (17% vs. 11%), completely boycott the company doing the advertising (16% vs. 10%), respond angrily (7% vs. 3%), hit their computer or mobile device in frustration (5% vs. 3%) and especially feel the company doesn’t respect their time (30% vs. 22%).

“The American people are tired of companies that appear to not respect or understand their needs,” said Waqar Hasan , CEO of InsightsOne. “The results of the study show that consumers have a real limit on what they’re willing to put up with, and this very real problem will have a negative impact on a company’s income statement if they don’t do something about it.”

The study looked at where the biggest problems are, and what ads people find more annoying. Overall, more Americans get annoyed by irrelevant pop-up ads and lottery scams (both 70%) than get annoyed by:

Male enhancement ads – 66%

Emails from deceased African leaders who have left them money – 64%

Ads for products and services they do not need – 58%

Female enhancement ads – 54%

Women were more likely than men to be annoyed at both male and also female enhancements ads (71% vs. 61% and 63% vs. 44%, respectively)

A great number of people (83%) also report that irrelevant advertisements are actually getting in the way of their activities, such as web surfing (51%), and in another bad sign for ecommerce vendors: online shopping (37%), further demonstrating that when ecommerce sites fail to treat customers as unique individuals and anticipate their needs, they may be damaging their reputation and losing out on extra sales.

20% also report that irrelevant ads get in the way of working, and surprising percentages believe that irrelevant ads have now started to even get in the way of having sex (19%) and sleeping (13%).

“While the results of the study may seem amusing, they point to a real concern in American life,” said Waqar Hasan , CEO of InsightsOne. “People are fed up with seeing ads and other communications that aren’t relevant to them as individuals.”

For more information at http://www.insightsone.com