Consumer Experience of Online Behavioural Advertising : A qualitative study exploring factors influencing consumer experience of OBA by Swedish online fashion retailers

Sammanfattning: Background For companies operating in the online fashion retail sector, understanding consumer behaviour is vital because of increased competition in the online market. The techniques for acquiring the necessary consumer information have, along with the digital revolution, become increasingly analytical and with this new marketing strategies and technologies have emerged. Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA) is one of these technologies, which give companies possibilities to deeply understand consumers and their online behaviour. Further, this provides advertisers with valuable information of how to tailor online advertisements based on personal data. However, these kinds technologies used in advertising are raising concerns, which is why it is interesting to discern various factors at play.  Purpose  The purpose of this study is to explore the research questions by discovering the influence of advertiser-controlled factorsand consumer-controlled factorscritical to consumers’ experience of OBA ads of online fashion retailers in Sweden. Additionally, how these factors shape the outcomes and effects. The aim is to provide details for greater understanding of the problems related to OBA, as well as the underlying causes of consumer reactance within the field of OBA for the Swedish online retail industry.   Method  A contextual framework was developed, presented, and assessed in order to get a deeper insight and understanding in the subject. This laid as the foundation for the qualitative exploratory study in form of semi-structured in-depth interviews that were conducted for the fulfilment of the purpose of this study. The primary data collection sample consisted of 16 female participants in the ages of 20-35 frequently shopping fashion online in Sweden.     Conclusion  The empirical findings show that advertiser-controlled factors, including ad characteristics such as personalisation and accuracy together with transparency, and consumer-controlled factors, including the individual filters privacy concerns and knowledge and awareness, and the situational filters trust and contextual setting, influence the establishment of the consumer experience of Online Behavioural Advertising as well as the outcomes and effects. Additional findings uncover some of the complex connections between the various advertiser-controlled factors and consumer-controlled factors.