Marketing & Consumer Psychology Research with Labvanced
There are so many fascinating topics in marketing psychology and consumer behavior that can be addressed with both controlled and live-website studies and experiments.
As leading experts and researchers ourselves, we have developed the following solutions that you can add to your toolbox when conducting marketing and consumer psychology experiments and research:
Powerful Methods for Marketing and Consumer Psychology Research
Researchers from all over the world are using these approaches for addressing their consumer behavior research questions and conducting marketing experiments with our technology:
- Controlled studies – ideal approach for clearly defined questions for marketing experiments and consumer behavior studies. There are plenty of features to utilize for such controlled studies, including webcam-based eye tracking. These are essentially controlled experiments where all content is created within Labvanced which then also controls the entire flow of the study. Further down, we describe a few research scenarios and methods.
- Live-websites - Studies that are conducted and run on your website while activating features like webcam-based eye tracking. No hard control is enforced as the user can freely navigate across the site. Further down, we describe a few research scenarios and methods.
Examples of Marketing Psychology Research Scenarios and Consumer Behavior Research Questions
Based on your objectives for your marketing psychology and consumer psychology research, there are many research scenarios that you can create based on these two approaches (controlled studies vs live-website studies), such as:
| Controlled Study (Labvanced) Research Scenario Examples | Live-website Study (Live-Site) Research Scenario Examples |
|---|---|
| Compare different product designs. Ask questions about preference & value perceptions. | Identify what parts of the website users are looking at first, longest, and identify if important sections are being overlooked. |
| In a study of simulated shelves of products, study which item is looked at first, the longest, scan path & how then it predicts consumer choice. | Find out which website element was looked at most across all subjects just before an important decision (e.g. click on buy) is made. |
| Alter prices in gradual increments and determine at what point the price becomes perceived as “expensive.” | Understand how many clicks are needed, and how much time is spent on a predefined task such as finding an specific element in a list. |
Controlled Studies: Research Methods
Below are a few examples of research scenarios and methods that marketing psychologists and consumer behavior researchers use in Labvanced for address their experimental questions.
| Research Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Image Analysis | Our image analysis will reveal what images attract most attention and what packaging style, visual design, or product presentation is preferred by your target customers utilizing our peer-reviewed webcam-based eye tracking. |
| Text / Slogan Analysis | Text/Slogan analysis will identify the most powerful slogans, mottos, and other text-based information for your brand. |
| Video Analysis | Our video analysis will reveal how your customers view your videos while identifying the video parts and objects that attract the most attention. |
| Complex Scene Analysis | A complex scene analysis evaluates how different types of content (images, text, buttons, videos) interact by directing the customers attention and influencing purchasing decisions. |
| Pricing Optimization | With our Pricing Optimization or Pricing Sensitivity Analysis you can identify the optimal pricing strategy for your product. |
| Interactive Shopping Simulations | Used to simulate a webshop, a supermarket shelf, or custom interface. Display realistic stimuli and record the entire virtual shopping experience. |
| Questionnaires | Using our powerful questionnaires, you can gain quantitative and qualitative data directly from participants about their perceptions, preferences, opinions, and experiences related to your products, services, or marketing campaigns. |
| A/B Testing Scenarios | Compare two or more versions of a webpage, interface elements, images, videos, or other marketing assets to determine which is more impactful. |
Live-Website Studies: Research Methods
Assessing behavior on live-website requires more advanced methods, such as those described below, for addressing consumer behavior research questions.
| Research Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| Free Website Browsing | Participants are prompted to explore a website freely. Their attention (gaze, etc.) and behavior metrics (clicking, etc.) are collected as reported data. Free browsing studies enable you to directly test the effectiveness and likability of your website without any additional work. While testing on a real website is slightly less controlled, it is also more realistic and hence often the most impactful testing scenario for marketing. |
| Usability Testing | Participants are prompted to perform a specific task. Their attention (gaze, etc.) and behavior metrics (clicking, etc.) are collected as reported data. Usability Tests are an advanced form of live website tests. They typically rely on an A/B scenario, requiring subjects to perform a predefined task that’ll be evaluated for performance and user feedback. |
| A/B Testing | Two versions of a website are presented and the participants’ attention (gaze, etc.) and behavior metrics (clicking, etc.) are collected as reported data. This approach is relevant for marketing psychology studies and can answer consumer behavior research questions as it can help you determine what elements are more attractive, engaging, etc. |
Example of collected data from a consumer psychology research study:
Labvanced Library Studies
When working with Labvanced, you can use existing studies from the Public Experiment Library and import them into your account, using them as the basis of your next marketing psychology experiment.
Check out these highlighted studies and examples from the Labvanced Public Experiment Library which relate to various aspects of marketing psychology and consumer behavior:
- Virtueller Supermarkt: In this study, the participant navigates through a German supermarket with a shopping list of 5 items and a budget of 12 euros. The challenge is to purchase everything on the list, thus a complex variety of decisions must be made. This consumer behavior study is shown below:
Marketing Choices: In this study, participants are given two choices and must make a purchasing decision. After that, they must select a reason for their decision such as financial or willingness to try something new.
Consensus and Quantity: In this study, participants must read passages about the psychology of decision making and synthesize marketing information over time. This study is a nice example of many areas of psychology and many design features of Labvanced.
Spotlight on Marketing Psychologists and Researchers
What kind of studies are marketing psychologists and experts on consumer behavior conducting with Labvanced? Here are a few examples of publications of marketing and consumer behavior research papers where Labvanced has been utilized:
- How Dark Patterns are affecting online consumers booking behaviors: In this innovative research, the aim was to find out if using two specific dark patterns (urgency and falling price) in a hotel room booking scenario would lead to an increased likelihood of choosing these options over controls. Doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16153.34409 (SKEMA Business School)
- Unconscious Frustration: Dynamically Assessing User Experience Using Eye and Mouse Tracking: This study wanted to see whether combining and anlyzing eye and mouse tracking data together would be a valid approach for detecting friction points in a video game-based menu navigation task using Labvanced. Doi: 10.1145/3591137 (Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2023)
- Finding Goldilocks Influencers: How Follower Count Drives Social Media Engagement: To determine if influencers’ follower count affects engagement, these researchers used Labvanced’s eye tracking to define an AOI around follower count on Instagram profiles and see whether how many followers an influencer has plays a role in engagement motivation and likelihood. Doi: 10.1177/00222429221125131 (Journal of Marketing, 2022)
Labvanced Researcher Interview with Dr. Alexander Edeling
In this interview, we have the opportunity to learn more about Dr. Edeling’s latest research which examines the relationship between social media engagement and influencers’ follower counts. Dr. Edeling shares with us details about this study, his experience using our webcam-based eye tracking, next steps, and advice to students and aspiring researchers!
How can participants access your Labvanced study on marketing and consumer behavior?
With Labvanced, you can administer the study yourself with the desktop app. But you can also have it remotely (through the browser or phone app). These options give you flexibility in how you conduct your marketing experiment and consumer behavior study.
- In-lab (desktop app)
- Online (remotely)
- Phone app (ideal for longitudinal studies)
The following benefits are also liked by our fellow marketing psychologists and consumer behavior researchers when working with Labvanced:
Easy to present stimuli: Since marketing and consumer psychology are all about perceiving things, such as visual branding or product packaging, online experiments make stimuli presentation easy and simple to include, all which you can control with a few clicks.
Convenient: Online experiments are convenient not only for researchers, which won’t need to learn to code to execute complex studies, but also for participants who can access and participate in studies whenever or wherever they want.
Access many populations: Marketing and consumer psychology benefit from accessing many populations and a diverse demographic which is exactly who online studies can reach.
Advanced Webcam-based Eye Tracking: Record gaze to better understand participant preferences with our peer-reviewed, webcam-based eye tracking feature. For example, you can display banners or other marketing materials and assess attention by determining what areas the participant spends the most time fixating on! You can use shape elements to trace complex areas and use them as experimental triggers.
Note: We are the only company offering webcam-based eye tracking that did a formal peer-reviewed comparison study as opposed to an internally published white paper.
- Multilingual: You can also present the experiment in multiple languages to reach more populations. For example, you can use this feature to assess how language across various cultures plays a role in evoking certain emotions in a product campaign.
- No coding required: Regardless of what your study design may be, you can implement almost any kind of marketing experiment or consumer behavior study with Labvanced, all without having to code! But if you want to add your code, you can definitely do that as well!
- API Integration: If your marketing experiment or consumer behavior study requires the use of APIs or connecting EEG devices, that is also supported, so this is another option that you have when working with Labvanced.