The effect of online advertising on the buying behavior of Iranian consumers and providing solutions to improve it

Dissertation for receiving a master's degree in business management, international business orientation

Abstract

The information revolution and network hyperspace has transformed the marketing landscape and its traditional players and new opportunities have been available to business owners. Easy access to information, the possibility of quick comparison of products and many other Internet facilities have made the power of consumers far greater. And obviously, in order to stay in the world of competition, companies are forced to know as much as possible the buying behavior of consumers and try to use these methods in line with the purchasing behavior of consumers. In this regard, this study evaluates the impact of different online advertising methods on the purchasing behavior of Iranian consumers. For this purpose, a conceptual research model was designed using the Chaffee model, and according to a questionnaire model containing 37 questions, each question measures the effect of one of the advertising methods on one of the purchasing stages, and in order to analyze the data, the binomial non-parametric test and the Friedman test were used. The results show that among the types of advertising methods, only the website and search engines have an effect on the purchase process, and the other methods do not have an effect on the purchase process. Key words: e-business, e-marketing, Internet, online advertising, consumer behavior.

1.                   Introduction

Information revolution and network hyperspace has transformed the marketing landscape and its traditional players and will provide new opportunities to the various links of the value creation chain - all those who are involved in the production and distribution of products. Today's consumers are more open in selecting and receiving products (goods and services) than any period in the past. The competition in broadcast channels is very tight and compressed. Electronic distribution channels will soon have the largest share in the field of retail sales. Experts believe that in many fields, electronic broadcasting channels will replace the channels based in physical stores.

Undoubtedly, the conditions that govern many organizations in the world and also in Iran today have found a great difference from the past. Today, organizations are facing many challenges. The trend towards globalization, technological changes and developments, customer orientation, increasing use of the Internet, electronic commerce and factors like this have increased the intensity and variety of competition between organizations. In fact, for many industries, the Internet and e-commerce has become a way to interact with customers and shareholders, provide products/services, and sell electronically.

With the increasing expansion of the Internet, companies from various industries are increasingly thinking about using electronic marketing to gain a competitive advantage. The Internet has been an important factor of change in many traditional sectors. The high speed of Internet penetration in the world, along with the extensive advances in the use of information technology in business and industry, has created many literatures on various aspects of e-business [1] and electronic marketing [2]. Various companies in the private and public sectors have focused on the electronic potential for growth, and now almost all developing countries are implementing a national program for the development of information technology. (Anumba and Ruikar, 2005)

2.                   Statement of the problem

Among the achievements of e-commerce is the presence of suppliers in a global market visible to all buyers, which has many advantages, on the other hand, it also creates the possibility of comparison with other competitors for the applicant and removes the supplier from monopoly.

Another achievement is conducting intelligent negotiations in the Internet environment, by which suppliers can offer different prices for various conditions, and products that have less or no profit can be traded with this type of negotiation at a reasonable price. be sold and sold.Among the advantages of e-commerce, which is an effective way in the economic development of a country whose economy is based on oil exports and wants to follow the path of development, are the following:

Achieving a 24-hour market worldwide

Lower cost of sales due to the mechanization of its process on the Internet

Faster sales due to the existence of mechanized sales and transaction facilities

Lower personnel costs due to the mechanization of the process on the Internet

Possibility of direct contact with customers and getting more satisfaction from them

Increasing sales volume and more production (increasing sales by 2002, ten to twenty percent and reducing costs by 45 percent) (Ahmadi and Ghaffari, 2016)

Today, more than 40 percent of business in the world is electronic. These statistics show the increasing growth of e-commerce in the world, and therefore it is necessary to investigate the impact of various online advertising methods on the buying behavior of Iranian consumers, which is one of the subsets of this type of business. One of the most important factors is not having a business model. Basically, Iranian sites are not created with a commercial vision, and as a result, a specific business model is not defined for them. These sites generally have a personal aspect or only introduce and inform on their agenda. It is obvious that the number of visitors to such sites will not be significant, so attracting advertisements for these sites is very difficult and sometimes impossible. In fact, one of the prerequisites for advertising in any media is to have an acceptable audience in that media, so when a media does not have a significant audience, it cannot expect to attract many advertisements. On the other hand, the number of audience in any media depends on the selection and performance of its business model. For example, if a site chooses a content-based business model, it should make every effort to identify valuable and important content for its audience, thereby increasing its site traffic. In fact, the ability of every internet publisher to attract and maintain their audience leads to creating opportunities to attract internet advertisements. (Bakhtaei and Golchin Far, 1385, p. 25)

3 factors that cause the tendency and attraction of consumers to use internet advertising are:

search to find information in order to choose goods for purchase

the fun of online advertising

economic factors and the impact of online advertising on the costs of advertisers and Iranian consumers. (Ying Wang et al, 2009)

In a research conducted by Moradian and Scott Swan in 2006 entitled "Personality and Culture: National Extroversion and Word of Mouth Advertising", the correlation between the variables of extroversion and reliance on word of mouth advertising was calculated for 12 different countries of the world and the validity of a positive relationship was confirmed. Word-of-mouth advertising has grown faster in cultures with more extroverted personalities. (Mooradian and Swan, 2006)

Another study was conducted in 2003 by Lin Hsiang Talsi[3] at Alliant International University in San Diego[4], America, entitled "The relationship between personality traits and Internet consumers", which examines and compares the personality traits of Internet consumers and its impact on their purchasing behavior in the United States and Taiwan. This research shows that in addition to personality characteristics, demographic and geographical characteristics are also effective in the purchasing behavior of consumers. Therefore, he recommends that similar research be done in other parts of the world. (Lein-Hsiang Tsai, 2003)

Online advertisements affect the buying behavior of consumers and there is a relationship between the types of online advertisements and the behavioral responses of consumers to these advertisements, including clicking on advertisements and purchasing by consumers, and this behavior affects the amount of sales of advertising companies on the Internet. Therefore, investigating the effect of online advertising on each of the purchase stages in the behavior of Iranian consumers has been considered in this research. In this thesis, the types of internet advertising methods will be described first, and then the consumer behavior and consumer purchase decision process will be examined in the traditional and online environment. This research measures the effect or lack of effect of different online advertising methods on each of the purchase stages in consumer behavior.