In 2025, Daniel Bruns, Julian Felix Kopka, Lennart Borgmann, Steffen Prior and Tobias Langner published their findings on measuring the attention of social media posts in the Journal of Advertising. A great success in itself: the journal, published by the American Academy of Advertising, is currently number one in the ranking of over 200 specialist journals in the field of communication research.

This was followed up at the end of March: as one of seven nominated study teams, the marketing researchers from Wuppertal were able to travel to Texas to take part in the award ceremony for the best article published in the Journal of Advertising in 2025 as part of the AAA annual conference.

"We were overwhelmed by the nomination alone. The fact that we actually won the award in the end took us completely by surprise. Attention has become the hardest currency in today's media world: Without it, every message fizzles out ineffectively. We are all the more pleased that our research can contribute to measuring attention more easily and cost-effectively in the future," emphasises Professor Tobias Langner.

Study looks for an alternative to the gold standard

For social media posts to be effective, they need the attention of the audience. Competition is particularly fierce on social media platforms. For companies, this increases the pressure to know their own performance.

"In advertising research, eye-tracking methods are considered the gold standard for measuring user attention," explains Steffen Prior. Study participants wear special glasses that record the movement of their eyes while they look at the screen. This provides important insights into which content is viewed for how long and therefore how advertising budgets can be utilised more efficiently.

The problem is that this method can usually only be used in studies with a small number of participants. Large-scale studies to test attention are hardly possible.

Data in real time

This is where computer-aided methods such as viewport logging come into play. "Put simply, they can be used to determine how long certain content is displayed on the screen until it disappears from the viewing window, i.e. until it has been scrolled away on the smartphone, for example," explains Julian Kopka. These processes run automatically in the background during a website visit or when a social media feed is accessed and provide data in real time, without the need for a complex study design with glasses.

With the award-winning study, the Wuppertal team tested whether the computer-aided method can keep up with the eye-tracking method and allow reliable statements to be made about gaining and retaining attention. "Just because something appears on my screen doesn't mean that I notice it and interact with it," explains Lennart Borgmann.

Who scrolls here and how?

In their study, the researchers focussed on social media environments. Due to their structure, these have special characteristics that make the use of computer-aided processes particularly attractive. In addition, data on the use of the method in conjunction with social media content was previously lacking.

For the study, the team recreated an Instagram feed. The test subjects were then asked to scroll through the content on their own smartphone, just as they normally do in their everyday lives. They wore eye-tracking glasses, with the Viewport method running in the background. At the end, the participants were asked which messages they remembered, among other things.

The results

The comparison of the data shows: The Viewport method is practical, reliable and useful for social media communication. It is not as accurate as eye-tracking methods, but delivers similarly meaningful results and is therefore a cheaper and faster option that makes larger attention studies possible.

"The viewport method does not replace eye-tracking, but it does offer a practical alternative. There are still some unanswered questions. Our study shows that it is worth investigating them in order to better understand and further refine the method for measuring attention in social media environments," summarises Daniel Bruns.