The customer is always right, so it doesn’t pay to annoy them. Cia Romano, chief executive officer and founder of Interface Guru, told iMediaConnection this week that advertisers “may be shooting themselves in the foot” as the result of inappropriate placement or presentation of online ads.

Interface Guru is conducting a new study to measure users’ responses to online advertising, ad usability, and overall consumer attitudes. In the iMediaConnection story, Romano said her company felt it was important to do the study in an effort to “provide advertisers an objective look at what works and what doesn’t, in the hope that advertisers and their agencies will come closer to what users really want to experience.”

Romano also told iMediaConnection that until the study is complete, Interface Guru advises online advertisers not to attempt to fool users, but rather to place ads at a relevant point on the experience path while at the same time giving the users some control; accomplish these two steps and users will be more likely to pay attention to your ad.

Bottom line: Relevancy is king in online advertising. Relevancy is the only way advertisers will achieve expected ROI. We certainly have found that to be the case with MetricsDirect, our service for advertisers, where advertisers frequently see ROI beyond their expectations. Perhaps that’s because our unique time-shifted model presents advertisements at, to use Romano’s words, “the appropriate time and place.” For more information on our approach to online advertising, check out MetricsDirect.com.

To read the full iMediaConnection interview of Cia Romano, conducted by Brad Berens, go to: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9541.asp.