Measuring the Quality of Attention: A Formative Composite Index of Advertising Emotional Impact on Social Media, with a Validation Protocol

Digital advertising is evaluated mainly through exposure counts and behavioral outcomes such as impressions, click-through rate (CTR) and return on investment (ROI). These indicators reveal little about the attentional and affective processes through which an advertisement works, and the instruments that do capture those processes (gaze tracking, electro dermal and cardiac recording, text analytics, self-report) are usually applied in isolation. This paper specifies the Advertising Emotional Impact Index (AEII), a formative composite of five components: behavioral engagement, gaze-based attention, physiological arousal, semantic valence and brand perception. A valence-gated alternative prevents aversive arousal from being scored as impact. The index is placed in a three-layer measurement chain that separates exposure (reach, frequency, Gross Rating Points, GRP), intermediate response (AEII) and marketing outcomes. Each component is defined at an explicit unit of analysis; weights are to be estimated by nested, cross-validated procedures; and five falsifiable hypotheses are formulated, including a quadratic frequency–response model for advertising wear-out. A synthetic example demonstrates the computations and a Monte Carlo weight-sensitivity analysis. No empirical data are reported, so AEII is a candidate instrument whose reliability and validity remain to be established. The proposal is developed for the Albanian social media market but is relevant wherever small advertising budgets and scarce language resources constrain measurement. Received: 02 September 2026 / Accepted: 30 October 2026 / Published: November 2026