Sales sell, according to a new report from Unicast, a rich-media and video ad server and service provider for publishers, advertisers and agencies.
Of the 516 American women surveyed for the “What Women Want From the Web” Summer 2010 report, the ads that resonate most with women are for sales or discount codes (46%), followed by prompts for contest entry (31%), an ad with local information like movie listings (24%) and survey and quizzes (22%).
“While entertainment, food and beverage, and health/beauty advertisements continue to build awareness within this group, marketers that focus on targeting and optimizing creative elements within their advertisements to include sales incentives, quizzes, social media and local content will realize higher engagement metrics across female audiences,” said Bryan Hjelm, VP of product and marketing for Unicast, in a release.
The report also found that women notice ads for items they’re already interested in. For instance, 56% of women planning to look up entertainment options this summer have noticed an entertainment ad in the past month and 46% of women planning to research travel have noticed a travel ad.
Women with children at home tend to do more activities online than those without children, such as listening to music (62% vs. 42%), watching TV or movies (56% vs. 46%) and looking up entertainment options (60% vs. 40%).
Online activities include visiting entertainment-focused websites such as aggregators of music, movies and television (30%), sites from television networks or popular shows (31%), gaming pages (31%), and sports-based websites (15%).
According to the survey, 22% of women are attracted to ads that drive to a survey or contain users’ opinions, 12% pay attention to ads that welcome user content and 7% are drawn to ads that introduce a Twitter feed.
One-third of women (33%) could recollect an ad they had recently seen for health or beauty products, while 30% were familiar with pop-ups or banner ads for fashion products or clothing lines.
More than one-quarter of women (27%) noticed a travel-themed banner ad or commercial in the last month, 15% were aware of a web-based ad for the latest auto model, and 10% zoned in on a sports-themed pop-up or banner ad thanks to recent focus on major tournaments like the Stanley Cup and the World Cup.
