The female gaze: Content composition and slot position in personalized banner ads, and how they influence visual attention in online shoppers

With the overload of information on the internet today, consumer attention is becoming increasingly precious. Online retailers often use banner advertising for products that consumers have previously viewed so as to achieve retargeting. This study examined the attention that female consumers paid to product-based personalized banner ads for online apparel retailers, and how this attention was influenced by visual content composition and slot position. Using a screen eye tracker, we analyzed the interaction effects of ad slot position (content relevance, top-center or right sidebar slot on portal site) and the content composition (image-text ratio, discount information, use of models) of personalized banner ads on relevant eye movement data. This data allowed for increased understanding of the combinations of ad content/layout composition and slot position that gain the most attention. The results revealed that placing apparel banner ads next to articles associated with apparel and fashion increases the overall amount of attention that consumers give the ad. Furthermore, ads in the top-center slot on portal sites receive greater total contact time and number of fixations than those in the right sidebar. We further found that adding discount information and using models to display the garment in banner ads can effectively increase the total contact time and number of fixations. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.