Advertising Visual Attention to Facebook Social Network: Evidence from Eye Movements

Traditionally, previous studies computed the click-through rate (CTR) to estimate a number of people who reviewed the advertisements placed online or used a self-report indicator to measure the effectiveness. However, these research results couldn't reveal potential customers for lack of valid common view on Internet advertising. This study recruited 65 participants whose eye movements were tracked and recorded by the eye tracking system, of which 35 were assigned to Facebook friend group and the other 30 were assigned to non-Facebook friend group according to the interpersonal relationships with the researcher. Eye tracking measurements, including total fixation duration (TFD) and latency of first (LFF) on the defined regions of interest (ROIs) of Facebook page were compared to indicate their visual attentions. The experimental results showed that 1) participants of the two groups spent less time viewing the ads at the right hand side (RHS) of Facebook based on TFD and 2) participants of non-Facebook friend group spent much time than participants of Facebook friend group while viewing the ads in the desktop news feed (DNF) of Facebook based on TFD. 3) Participants of the two groups have the same sequences of viewing ROIs placed ads at the right hand side (RHS). 4) Participants of the two groups have different sequences of viewing ROIs placed ads in the desktop news feed (DNF).