• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, February 10, 2010

Picture a 2,100-square-foot facility, providing observers with seven different hidden camera angles, a one-way mirror, a control center for better tracking and higher quality, and real-time audiovisual monitoring from three separate camera views on projected and flat-screen displays. Sound like a place where Jack Bauer would feel at home?

Not far from it. But instead of catching terrorists, the new research lab opened by Metrics Marketing helps Web publishers, brands and agencies gain insight into consumer decision-making through eye-tracking technology. That includes testing across media such as Web sites, email, mobile devices, TV and print ads as well as in-store displays.

"Our clients -- and many other business owners -- want to know where users are going and what they are first seeing" said Dan Rose, a partner at Cleveland-based Metrics Marketing, which specializes in automated marketing research and interactive services.

Rose said the facility is being used by agencies and other companies to run focus groups, usability testing and one-on-one interviews, among other types of research. The MetricsLab typically costs $1,800 to $2,000 a day to rent, he said.

He pointed out that meaningful eye-tracking research can be derived from relatively small numbers of consumers. "You can start making realistic and reasonable recommendations with as few as two or three dozen participants," he said.

In the online realm, eye tracking has been used to discover which parts of a Web page users gravitate toward, which ads they see on a page, and how people interact with paid advertising on social networks. One eye-tracking study by a different company, for instance, found that only 25% of viewers see ads below the fold. Rose said the new research facility was especially well-suited to optimization of Web pages, ad landing pages and other online media.

In addition to its state-of-the art gear, the company's announcement about the MetricsLab also describes creature comforts like "catering, unlimited snacks and a 'candy wall' to keep observers fueled throughout testing days." It doesn't mention anything about goodies for the human lab rats being observed.