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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
IMC PERSPECTIVE 19-2
VI. Monitoring, Evaluation,
and Control
Eye Tracking Branches Out
19. Measuring the
Effectiveness of the
Promotional Program
The use of eye tracking to measure various aspects of
the marketing communication program is nothing
new. Companies have used this methodology to determine
which labels are most likely to catch the consumer’s
eye in a supermarket and to track how
effective various elements of an advertisement are in
catching viewers’ attention. The technique has also
been used to test television commercials, by watching
where the viewer’s eyes focus and for how long.
Now eye-tracking methodology is being expanded
to help companies in new ways. One of these is determining
the effectiveness of online advertising. As you
would expect, advertisers want to know if their Internet
advertising is being noticed.
One measure, of course, is whether or not the viewer
clicks on the ad. But this tells only that the ad has been
seen (or accidentally clicked on!) but not the impact of
various types of ads or the effect of where the ads are
placed. As noted by Rice University professor David
Lane, who studies the effectiveness of banner ads,
“People don’t know how effective ads are, and there are
so many different ways of advertising. They don’t know
which ones work best.”
Other university researchers have also measured
effectiveness through eye tracking. Stanford University
researchers used this method to see where people
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
focused while reading online news sites and where and
how long they looked at the ads. At the University of
Wales in the United Kingdom, ads were sandwiched
between flashes of puppies and hairy spiders in an
attempt to see what was noticed most.
University researchers are not the only ones interested
in determining advertising effectiveness
through eye tracking. AT&T is just one of the companies
that employ this methodology to determine the
impact of their website designs. By tracking the eyes
of viewers for 30 minutes, the company was able to
document viewing patterns and to uncover exactly
what people looked at as they visit home pages. The
results were then used to design AT&T’s sites to be
more user-friendly and to be more effective than competitors’
sites. IBM is also using this method to watch
what users look at on the screen.
So what do researchers find out by watching our
eyes? The Rice study showed that many Internet users
largely ignore banner ads. A study at the University of
Indiana, which used electrodes to measure heart rate
and GSR activity along with eye tracking, produced
results that were consistent with those at Rice. The
study further indicated that static banner ads elicited
no reactions in the additional physiological measures
and animated ads elicited a mild response, with both
types being less effective than television advertising.
The Stanford study showed that viewers’ eyes first
went to the text on news sites, ignoring graphics and
ads, but they later viewed as many as 45 percent of the
banners—though only for an average of one second. In
essence, the studies concluded that banner ads aren’t
very effective.
As a result, like AT&T, companies are exploring new
ways to make online advertising effective. New forms
of ads, new placements, and other creative ideas are
being explored to try to catch your eye. Maybe if they
just had more creative ads?
Sources: Sharon Machlis, “See Me, Hear Me . . .”, Computerworld,
Aug. 26, 2002, p. 34; Adam Geller, “Online Advertisers Are Looking
for Ways to Catch Your Eye,” San Diego Union-Tribune, Feb. 2, 2001,
p. C1; “Eye-Tracking Helps Fine Tune AT&T’s Customer Service Site,”
Quirks, July–August 2001, pp. 21–30.
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