The authors introduce a new method, prospective meta-analysis in marketing (PMM), to estimate consumer response to online advertising on a large and adaptive scale. They illustrate their approach in a field study in the U.S., China and the Netherlands, covering equivalent ad content on social media, online video, display banner, and search engines. The authors tested a conceptual framework based on attention and engagement using a technological solution that allow them to observe participants browsing and clicking activity in depth from their own residences, offices, or places of choice to use the tested media platforms, e.g., Facebook, Weibo, Google, Baidu and others. The authors show how consumers respond differently to the same ad depending on how distant they are from purchase, and uncover which channels are most appropriate to which user at different stages of the funnel. They also show how engagement and attention strengthen consumer response to advertising. The authors show how PMM produces exploratory findings, confirmatory findings, and replications by systematically organizing the incremental exploration of complex phenomena with cycles of discovery and validation
