(The) effectiveness of ad personalization based on real-time visual attention

Abstract

Along with the growth of market share of e-commerce, the increase in availability of personal information and the development of state-of-the-art algorithms have led firms to relentlessly investigate ways to enhance effectiveness of personalized advertising. In this paper, we focus on previously unexplored possibilities: Can we utilize consumer’s real-time visual attention in the course of ad personalization? More specifically, is there a relationship between visual attention and click-through intention in a video advertising context? Is it more effective to advertise products that capture consumer’s visual attention while watching video contents? The results of our lab experiment using eye-trackers and an object detection algorithm reveal that there indeed is a positive relationship between visual attention and advertising click-through intention. We further show that ad personalization based on visual attention has the potential to substantially increase click-through rate of post-roll ads. We hope to open up a new approach in personalized advertising that can be applied in VR environments.