Relevance to the rescue: Can "smart ads" reduce negative response to online ad clutter?

Search-engine marketing, sponsored-links services, and smart advertisements provide information relevant to content being consumed at any moment by an Internet user. Can they alleviate negative reactions to ad clutter on Web sites? We investigated whether or not relevance of such ads moderates negative effects of ad clutter on consumers' attitudes toward ads and Web sites. All subjects (N = 13) were exposed to all conditions of a 2 (cluttered; uncluttered) X 2 (relevant; irrelevant) factorial within-subjects experiment. Results showed significant main effects for ad clutter and ad relevance as well as interactions of the two on consumers' attitudes.