Q&A: Why does Instagram shopping hit us with guilt more than TV ads?
Every month, I answer a recent reader question. If you would like me to answer yours, shoot me a message or comment on Substack or respond to this email!
Recently, a reader asked me: Why do we feel embarrassed after buying something from an Instagram ad, but not after seeing the same product on TV?
It was especially top of mind because on a family vacation, three of us confessed to buying things we spotted on Instagram, and all felt a twinge of shame: “I fell for that ad.”
Let’s unpack where that guilt/shame comes from and what marketers can do to help buyers feel better about their purchases.
1. Hyper‑personalization can feel invasive
Instagram’s ability to target us so precisely is simultaneously powerful and creepy. Brands don’t need microphones to track our interests; they often know exactly what we want before we do.
Take Target’s infamous pregnancy-prediction algorithm from the early 2000s. Their data predicted whether a purchaser was pregnant, allowing Target to send maternity and baby-related coupons. The story (whether true or not) shares that a father was angry that Target was sending pregnancy-related mailers to his teenage daughter, but later, upon his daughter informing him she was pregnant, he apologized to the store. That kind of predictive marketing crosses a line, and now the algorithms and the data they have access to are even more powerful.
We know that all of our data is being mined, and as a consumer, it’s creepy.
Advice for marketers: Resist the urge to over-personalize. Just because you can retarget someone who’s been near a store or viewed X items doesn’t mean you should, especially if it's not relevant to the ad itself. An ad partner once suggested we hypertarget our creative to a specific store location where our mobile app users have an affinity, mentioning the store in the ad (If you like [store], you’ll love MeetMe). Creepy! And, from a user’s standpoint, irrelevant. My rule: if a message feels invasive, it's better to step back. After Target faced backlash, they mixed in innocuous offers (“Here’s a great crib and a snow shovel too”) to dilute the creep factor.
2. Mobile removes buying friction and can erase control
Buying through Instagram is often a tap away. It’s so easy. Furthermore, bad sleep hygiene often leads to people scrolling when they should not be scrolling. I know from middle-of-the-night nursing session purchases that it’s all too easy to give in to impulse buys when you’re tired.
When we first launched purchasing on mobile, it was astounding how many more users converted because it was friction-free. Everyone with an iPhone had a credit card stored with Apple and was only a few taps away from paying, whereas web users would need to enter their credit card information as new buyers.
Compare that to watching a TV ad—it creates distance. You must remember the product name, open a browser later, and type in the info. That friction gives your brain time to pause. A 2021 paper in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services found that social platforms fuel impulsive purchases and post-purchase regret due to the lack of deliberation.
Advice for marketers: As a brand, you want a friction-free experience, but you don’t want your customers to feel guilty. Focus on making sure your ads are 100% credible. Make them delighted with their choice by having a great product.
3. Credibility is harder to build on social alone
When we see a flashy ad for a nameless brand on Instagram, skepticism kicks in. “Dropshipping” brands and opaque sponsorship disclosures don’t help.
TV ads are often run by big, established companies, which makes them feel more trustworthy. To bridge that credibility gap, the focus needs to be on growing the brand, not just performance marketing.
There is a “Rule of 7” in marketing that says that a potential customer should encounter a brand’s marketing messages at least seven times before making a purchasing decision. This is wildly simplified, of course, expensive items will need many exposures, and even free products may need many.
Still, psychology shows we need repeated exposure before we even consider buying. Think of it like filling a bathtub (a popular comparison in marketing attribution discussions): each exposure adds water. A friend mentioned your product? A few gallons. A banner ad? A few drops.
By diversifying where your ads run, you can build credibility because users then aren’t “falling for that Instagram ad,” they are saying “oh, I’ve heard that!” and more trust is built. The mere exposure effect is your friend. Repeated exposures to a brand across multiple channels take a brand from something you've never heard of to something that is familiar to the user, and they’ll trust it more.
Advice for marketers: Advertise across different channels, including social media, email, review sites, TV, word-of-mouth, and cultivate third-party validation through reviews, endorsements, and user-generated content. Focus on building a brand to complement your performance marketing efforts. A strong brand makes every other aspect of the marketing funnel easier, and it will help tamp down on that guilt from buyers.
Trust is the most important aspect in reducing someone’s buyer’s remorse or guilt. To build that trust, don’t get creepy with the data you have, have a product you can stand behind, and work on exposures across marketing channels to build a brand users trust.
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