When thinking about times I’ve been swayed by advertising to buy something, it is usually either clothing or beauty products. I frequently watch YouTube makeup tutorials, which exposes me to not only the products that beauty gurus are pushing, but also the advertisements that are displayed before the videos. These advertisements are usually correlated to products that the specific beauty guru likes, therefore it makes me feel more inclined to buy it and try it out myself. Also, YouTube has a sidebar section where they display ads based on websites I’ve recently looked at or topics I’ve searched. Seeing that I do quite a bit of online shopping, looking at fashion, these advertisements usually feature an array of clothing items that I had previously clicked on when visiting the advertiser’s website. Through this advertising tool, YouTube is essentially able to remind me of the products I was thinking about purchasing. Because of this, I find myself going back to look at items frequently, usually purchasing them if I realize that I really want them.
I would say that this method of advertising greatly influences the way I browse the internet, as it makes it easy for me to remember things I wanted to purchase and do so by quickly clicking the link. Since I spend most of my time on the internet on YouTube, this allows me to have all the content I would want to see in one place in an easily accessible format. Recently, I have found myself purchasing items off of ads quite frequently, which is something I didn’t really do much before. New forms of advertising and cookie tools on the internet are definitely changing the way I shop online.
