Exploring how information control impacts consumers’ privacy concerns, intrusiveness, and avoidance in personalized social media advertising using dual theory integration

As personalized digital advertising continues to grow, understanding the factors that drive consumer engagement is crucial. This study investigates how information control influences privacy concerns, ad intrusiveness, and ad avoidance among social media users in Pakistan, integrating Privacy Calculus Theory and Theory of Planned Behavior. A survey was conducted with a sample size of 978 social media users, and data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS. The results show that information control significantly reduces privacy concerns, which in turn lowers the perception of ad intrusiveness. This reduction in ad intrusiveness leads to decreased ad avoidance behavior. Additionally, privacy concerns and ad intrusiveness were found to mediate the relationship between information control and ad avoidance. However, information control did not directly affect ad avoidance, indicating that other factors, such as ad relevance and frequency, also contribute to ad avoidance. The study also identifies a sequential mediation pathway where information control reduces privacy concerns, which then reduces ad intrusiveness, ultimately leading to lower ad avoidance. These findings underscore the importance of information control in improving consumer engagement with personalized advertising, offering actionable insights for marketers to reduce ad avoidance and enhance ad effectiveness.