ComScore's recent study involving 12 major national retail brands revealed that a large portion of online display ads aren't being seen by users, Marketing Land reports.
Specifically, an overall average of 31 percent of ad impressions were delivered but never viewed by the consumer. However, individual percentages ranged from just 7 percent to as high as 91 percent.
The primary reasons for this disconnect? Either users didn't scroll down far enough to see ads below the fold or ads placed higher on the page didn't load quick enough before a user clicked on another link.
"The display advertising market today is characterized by an overabundance of inventory, often residing on parts of a web page that are never viewed by the user," said Dr. Magid Abraham, president and CEO of comScore.
Other issues discovered by researchers were the fact that on average, 4 percent of local internet marketing ads were delivered outside of their desired geography, while individual campaigns ran as high as 15 percent. This means that if you were to click on one of these ads not intended for your location, you wouldn't be able to purchase the product, and advertisers would simply be wasting ad spend.