The Relationship Between Mobile In-App Advertising and Consumer Behavior: An Applied Study of Students Enrolled in Ernest C. Trefz School of Business at the University of Bridgeport

Technology has brought about profound changes in the advertising industry, affecting both consumers and businesses. These changes are mainly due to new technological tools that made it possible to target consumers based on their location, interests, age, and many other factors. Today, companies can tailor advertising campaigns based on the behavior of potential consumers from Internet usage, and send messages based on each consumer’s geographical location, areas of interest, history of Internet browsing, and demographic characteristics. In addition, the impact of using smartphones has grown to such a great degree that it has become a necessity not only for communications but also for other things such as game playing and entertainment, reading, writing, shopping, social networking, teleworking, etc. There has been a two-fold increase in smartphone usage in the past three years. Since 2014, smartphones have led the growth in digital media consumption. The average person spends 2 hours and 51 minutes a day on a mobile phone. In 2018, it is expected that the average time spent per day with mobile Internet, among US mobile users, will be 3 hours and 25 minutes for in-app usage versus 51 minutes for mobile web usage. According to Lipsman and Lella, “Mobile now represents almost 7 in 10 digital media minutes, and smartphone apps alone account for half of all digital consumption.” In addition, ads in mobile apps have become an integral part of the apps themselves. However, based on an analysis of the literature, there is a lack of knowledge about the consumer's behavior toward the ads presented within mobile applications. Therefore, the research problem can be summed up in this question: Do ads within mobile applications influence the behavior of consumers