Yahoo! Tracks Internet Ads Using Biometrics

05-11-2011 • Huffingtonpost.com

"The Eyes Have It" when it comes to garnering insights about Internet content and advertising interplay. Or, maybe better: "It's all in their eyes." Pupil dilation and eye tracking are supposed to tell consumer packaged goods companies and other larger advertisement spending entities (Vonage, AT&T and Verizon are the largest online advertisers) where the buyer is going. And so the advertiser may now glean information or portray brands from contextual ad insertions, branded entertainment with embedded messaging, or "priming" a consumer by leading one's thinking toward a pre-disposition for a product or service. Yahoo! recently commissioned a research campaign with its research partner Innerscope on the "personal" and "contextual" formulas so the reader notices the ad more quickly and takes it to heart -- or brain. "The Power of Relevancy: The Biometric Impact of Online Advertising" full study was released at the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF ) in New York this spring. "In your ad campaign, contextual placement helps the browser gain a long-term memory response," said Lauren Weinberg. "What we found is that the combination of the two (personally relevant and contextually compelling) is the most impactful. The numbers were very high."