Effective Digital Advertising: The Influence of Customised Ads, Self-esteem and Product Attributes

We investigate consumers’ attitudes and behaviours when receiving customised website advertising, the effect of their psychological beings and content of advertising messages, using a 2 (customisation: customised vs non-customised) × 2 (product attributes: utilitarian vs hedonic) × 2 (self-esteem: high vs low) experiment on 240 participants, aged 16–34 living in Taiwan, to explain their effects on advertising effectiveness and the mediating role of advertising value. High self-esteem consumers have a more favourable attitude and behaviour when receiving a customised ad. For low self-esteem consumers, the customised ad effectively influences purchase intention. In the non-customised advertising condition, a hedonic product attribute fosters greater purchase intention. High self-esteem consumers have a stronger purchase intention when receiving the hedonic product attribute in the non-customised ad condition. Furthermore, customisation influences attitude and purchase intention.