Did I see this ad because of you or me? Exploring the effects of attributional cues and ad-context congruence on advertising effects

Social media platforms provide personalized advertising based on users’ online activities and social networks. These advertisements often feature attributional cues such as “suggested for you because …” to enhance personalization and transparency. According to attribution theory, attributional cues could be either internal (e.g., based on users’ own actions) or external (e.g., based on users’ social networks). The effects of these cues, as well as the possible moderating influence of ad-context congruence, remain underexplored. This thesis aimed to test the effects of attributional cues and ad-context congruence on users’ perceived personalization, selective exposure, and attitude towards the ad through an online experiment. Results showed that self-attributional cues elicit a more favorable attitude towards the ad than friend- and no-attributional cues, and perceived personalization mediates this relationship; however, no difference was found regarding ad-context congruence.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Advertising

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Sun, Ruiheng

Contributors dc:contributor

• Wise, Kevin
• Maslowska, Ewa
• Ham, Chang-Dae

• Personalized Advertising
• Attributional Cues
• Ad-context Congruence

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Ruiheng Sun

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129633

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129633