Using Viewport Logging to Measure Gaining and Holding Attention Toward Social Media Ads: A Validation via Mobile Eye-Tracking
(A2024-119815)

AUTHORS

Daniel Bruns, University of Wuppertal; Julian Kopka, University of Wuppertal; Lennart Borgmann, University of Wuppertal; Tobias Langner, University of Wuppertal

ABSTRACT

With the rise of social media, gaining and holding attention has become an ever more competitive bottleneck of ad effectiveness. Monitoring both aspects of attention toward social media campaigns is pivotal and requires valid measures. Viewport logging emerged a standard to measure viewability of online ads. It presents an alternative to eye-tracking, which is often impractical, resource-intensive, and thus suffers from small sample sizes. Using a mock-Instagram newsfeed and mobile eye-tracking, this work provides the first validation of viewport logging in a social media context. Moreover, it introduces the differentiation of measuring gaining and holding attention to viewport logging. Results indicate concurrent validity, as viewport logging correlates with established eye-tracking metrics, and predictive validity, as it forecasts brand recall. Viewport logging provides researchers and advertisers a fast and scalable tool for measuring gaining and holding attention in social media.