Did you know the global advertising industry is worth over 500 billion US dollars as of 2023?
However, not all ads are successful. Not all advertisers implement proper marketing strategies or hire marketing specialists to handle this for them. It is a shame because this would save them more money as they would spend less on endless trial and error.
Keeping that in mind, it is no wonder that there has been an increase in marketing courses, certifications, and degrees. Of course, there are numerous marketing types, but it can be agreed that most are visual and digital. Be it social media marketing or web advertising, a large portion of what people are influenced to purchase is fundamentally dependent on what they see. Marketing specialists spend much time in online and real-world simulations to understand what works best for different audiences and clients.
Different simulation tools, such as Stukent, provide training in calculating and using KPIs, allocating budgets, campaign evaluation, keyword optimization, and other SEM and SEO management. However, there is a gap in page analytics and eye tracking, with tools for web tracking being hard to outsource or eye tracking being ignored altogether in favor of traditional methods such as A/B Testing. While these methods are functional, they can be enhanced, which is where METRIC comes in.
Incorporating METRIC into integrated marketing courses can provide enhanced insights into traditional SEM and SEO studies, focusing on not only what the observer is clicking but also what they are looking at, what they are fixated on, and what they think might be clickable, all while allowing the test to pick the areas of interest on the test page.
For instance, incorporating METRIC into a course might take the form of a midterm project and appear as follows:
Assignment: Landing page optimization using Metric. Report and presentation, 20% of final grade.
Goal: Find the best position for the CTA button to land a local brand.
Note: Insights from METRIC must justify positioning and include graphs and statistics. 10% of the grade is for the final positioning, another 10% for a presentation, 30% for setup and execution, and 50% for analysis and justification (a report). Work in groups of 3 – 4.
- In class: Students go to https://metric.qcri.org/ and create accounts. The instructor explains all features and gives step-by-step instructions on setting up, participant criteria, and grading rubric.
- Students: login, create their study, select areas of interest, and test it.
- Recruit their participants and handle the paperwork (consent forms, etc.).
- Send links to all participants over the course of 2 days.
- Analyze and interpret data over the course of 2 days.
- Prepare a report of no more than 15 pages and presentations of 10 slides.
- In class: Students present their final project findings.
Such projects would generally help students by improving their collaboration skills, which are necessary for a career in marketing as it is a highly collaborative field. The project would also be an excellent opportunity to gain insights into the world of user studies. Metric would also allow students the flexibility of working with remote participants. Overall, the tool would greatly amplify the need for visual testing and introduce students to a real-world tool they can use in their careers after graduation.
Try out METRIC now!
Read more research about eye tracking!
Azem, J. Y., Salminen, J., Jung, S.G., and Jansen, B. J. (2023) Measuring Engagement Through Remote Interactions of Customers: Introducing METRIC, 2023 International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications (ISNCC), Doha, Qatar, 2023, pp. 1-7, doi: 10.1109/ISNCC58260.2023.10323669.
Salminen, J., Jung, S.G., Santos, J., Kamel, A. M., and Jansen, B. J. (2021) Picturing It!: The Effect of Image Styles on User Perceptions of Personas. ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI2021), Yokohama, Japan. 8-13 May. Article No.: 430.
Jung, S.G., Salminen, J., and Jansen, B. J. (2021) Persona Analytics: Implementing Mouse-tracking for an Interactive Persona System. ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI2021), Yokohama, Japan. 8-13 May. Article No.: 342.