Targeted marketing in social media : A study of how targeted advertising affects the user experience

This bachelor thesis is about how targeted marketing affects the user experience on Facebook and Instagram. This study has both been looking at the number of ads in users' feeds but also the structure of each individual ad because the information architecture behind every information campaign, not only affects the user experience but has also shown that it determines how users view the company behind the ad. The success of social media has resulted in most marketing strategies now being shifted to social media platforms and the newest phenomenon is to target customized ads to a specific audience based on detailed data from users such as age, gender and previous searches in various search engines. In this study a group of a total of six participants was selected to analyze their feed on Instagram and Facebook every day for a week and write down discoveries according to a template with questions related to issues such as number of ads, how relevant the ads were to the participants and general thoughts about targeted marketing. The study finished with an interview with each participant where the participants were asked more in-depth questions about the participants notes and targeted marketing in general. Finally, we analyzed both the daily notes and the answers from the interview and were able to draw conclusions about how ads structure and design in combination with relevance affect the user experience and how users' emotions are affected negative by different targeted ads aimed at the wrong target gr