Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

Economics

First Advisor

Rodrigo Schneider

Second Advisor

Denise Evert

Third Advisor

Smritri Tiwari

Abstract

This research looked at how personalized advertisements affect consumers' willingness to purchase through the moderating influence of privacy consciousness, risk tolerance, and trust in the company. Using a randomized experiment format, participants were randomly assigned to view either personalized advertisements or general advertisements from a fictional retailer, and their responses were analyzed using an OLS regression analysis. The findings of the study suggest that there is no substantive difference in participants’ willingness to purchase due to viewing personalized advertisements. Rather, each of those characteristics contributes individually to consumer behavior, with trust being the strongest predictor of willingness to purchase, followed by privacy consciousness and then risk tolerance. Privacy consciousness was found to have a positive correlation with willingness to purchase, and this could point towards the existence of a privacy paradox compared to consumer purchases. This study demonstrated that the utility of personalized advertising is contingent on individual differences and is not universally applicable. These findings reinforce the importance of consumer trust and heterogeneity within digital marketing.

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