The rise in usage of the internet in general and social media in particular has spurred an

increase in the amount of spending on digital marketing. This in turn has led to new and

innovative ways of conducting marketing online, one of which is called in-feed advertising.

Visually, in-feed ads share the same features as their surrounding content. In terms of

function, these ads collect data from consumers’ online activities in order to offer

personalized ad content. While this field of study has started to be explored in recent times,

there are still major gaps in existing literature. In particular, little to no research has been

conducted in the area of consumers’ perception of in-feed advertisement, with regards to

privacy-invasiveness and consumers’ willingness to make personal information available

online to marketers for in-feed ads.

The purpose of this thesis is to research consumer perception of the privacy-invasive aspects

of in-feed ads, and examine what happens when consumers’ knowledge of the privacy-invasive data collection methods increases. The research method used was a semi-controlled

field experiment which gathered quantitative and qualitative data from the experiment

participants through questionnaires and group-held discussions.

Our main findings show that consumers accept -sometimes reluctantly- the privacy-invasive

procedures deployed by marketers online due to the added benefits of receiving personalized

content online. Consumers do express concerns over their internet privacy, but seem

unwilling to take measures to prevent privacy-invasive procedures due to a perceived

inevitability towards having online activities tracked.