• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, July 18, 2013

Ever wondered how consumers feel about retargeting? Adroit Digital teamed up with Toluna to poll 500 people on the subject, and some of the results are telling.

Of consumers that do notice retargeted ads, 70% of them had either "very negative," "negative," or "neither positive nor negative" feelings towards the brand as a result. That leaves 30% of people with "positive" or "very positive" feelings towards the brand after being retargeted by their ads.

The 30% figure is encouraging. It's well above the 11% of "negative" or "very negative" feelings (which means the largest chunk of consumers - 59% to be exact - are neutral). But keep in mind that the above stats only deal with consumers that noticed retargeted ads. Here's the information that had been left out: A whole 42% of the consumers didn't even notice the ad in the first place.

Scott German, general manager, Adroit Digital, spoke with RTM Daily about the poll results. In a spreadsheet, the data stretched hundreds and hundreds of lines, so someone that has been hands-on with the data from the start was needed to sort through it all.

The poll also questioned consumers on their buying behavior, such as research done before buying a product and the tug and pull between brand name and price.

Typically, the older one gets the more money one has, so they might be less worried about spending a few extra dollars for a recognizable brand. At least, that's what one would expect. It turns out the opposite is true.

RTM Daily asked German what he found most interesting from the results. "The older you get the more you bargain shop - the more you shop based on price versus brand." He said the big gaps were seen between the ages of 18-34 and 55-plus.

He also pointed out data that suggests that those who make $65,000 to $200,000 annually do more research before buying a product than those than make less, which is again data opposite of what one might expect.

Toluna has somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 Americans signed up on their site to voluntarily take surveys from time to time, German said. He said that Toluna weighs their surveys to give an accurate representation of the American public. You can download the survey results here.