Eye Tracking Study Helps FindLaw® Improve the Value of Its Ad Units

Eye Tracking Study Helps FindLaw Improve the Value of Its Ad Units

Eyetools is a company that provides tools and services to measure eye movement as people view Web pages to learn what people read, what they don’t read, what they glance at, what they skip, and what they never look at. The company’s slogan—“See yourself through your customers’ eyes”—appeals to companies that focus on offering high value placements on their Web sites for their customers.

FindLaw is focused on making sure its advertising customers effectively reach the largest legal professional audience on the Web. After conducting an Eyetools eye tracking study earlier this year, FindLaw launched new ad placements throughout the legal professional channel. These ads are placed where most viewers will see them and are consistent with ad sizes on leading-edge consumer Web sites. The before and after ad placements are shown below.

Before

After

The initial results from these placements have been significant. Click-through rates for FindLaw banner ad customers have risen dramatically. In addition, studies have shown that users are not only clicking on the ads more often, but also viewing them more often.
Below you can see the before and after results of an eye tracking study. The results are shown in a heat map; the red areas indicate that almost all visitors looked at this spot, while the black and dark blue areas indicate that few or no visitors looked at this spot. As you can see, the results are dramatic.

Before

After

A study of Google search result pages found that Web pages often have one anchor, usually located in the upper-left corner of the page. The anchor draws traffic in this corner and little traffic everywhere else. Because Google is relatively skilled at placing the best listings at the top, viewers restrict scan activity to the area of the page most likely to have the best listings. They take the time to scan the title and sometimes the description to ensure that it’s relevant. Top-sponsored results get high visibility and a reasonable number of click-throughs because they happen to catch viewers’ attention while looking for the top listing.

This creates an interesting dilemma for search engines. Users rely on search engines for relevant organic results but search engines make money through their paid placements. So search engines must maintain a fine balance between giving users what they’re looking for, while at the same time presenting sponsored listings in key locations in hopes of enticing a click-through and generating revenue. It appears that the Google time-tested formula (a few sponsored ads on top and clearly designated sponsored ads down the right side) seems to strike the right balance.