This study discusses Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA), which fundamentally consists of collected data about a person’s online behavior. The phenomena are made possible via the use of cookies on webpages and social media, which the user needs to accept to access the platform. The saved information is then used by firms to present targeted advertising, so called Online Behavioral Advertising.

The feeling of being watched over/controlled on the internet might seem intrusive, which studies show may have a negative effect on consumers purchase intentions. How the effect varies between different personalities has not been studied before. Previous studies have focused on studying correlation between personalities and purchase intention and correlation between OBA and purchase intention. Little light has been shed on the effects of OBA for different personalities, to complete previous studies this study aims to find out more by using an acknowledged personality model named Big Five.

This study uses a quantitative research approach, a web survey has been constructed to collect data and enable the composed hypotheses to be tested. The collected data is being analyzed in SPSS into descriptive statistics and Spearman rank correlation between the personality dimensions of the Big Five and the effect of OBA on purchase intention.

The results show that previous theories about the effect of OBA on purchase intention can be verified. The descriptive statistics also show a significant higher effect of OBA on men than women. Furthermore, Spearman rank correlation shows that the effect varies between the personality dimensions of Big Five. A positive correlation was found between the dimensions Openness and Extraversion and OBA's effect, which means that persons scoring higher in these dimensions also has a higher effect of OBA on purchase intention. A negative correlation was found between the dimension Conscientiousness and OBA's effect, which means that persons scoring higher in this dimension is not significantly affected by OBA.