Trainline has partnered with Lumen Research, the global attention technology company, to measure how advertising across the Trainline app performs against wider media benchmarks. The results show that Trainline offers brands a high-attention, high-impact environment that significantly outperforms standard mobile display.

Lumen’s analysis finds that ads on the Trainline app generate twice more attentive seconds per 1,000 impressions than the mobile display norm. This performance is driven by both strong visibility and engagement: users viewed 88% of Trainline ads and were 1.5 times more likely to view ads on the Trainline app compared with standard mobile display ads.

The study also shows that Trainline advertising performs strongly at the moments that matter most for brand effectiveness. Compared with standard mobile display, Trainline holds attention well past the optimal one second threshold, increasing the likelihood of driving memorability.

A standout result comes from Trainline’s Journey Ads within the On Trip Travel Companion environment. These are larger, in-content Native Cards embedded naturally within the app experience customers use while they are travelling to follow their journey and access relevant trip information. Lumen finds that ads in this environment deliver nearly four times more attention than the mobile display norm, alongside stronger brand outcomes, making it the best performing environment in the study. It even outperforms premium social and full-page press benchmarks on attention.

The data also challenges the assumption that higher ad frequency necessarily creates fatigue. In a test using creative across multiple exposures, a full brand takeover delivered six times more attention than a single ad exposure, alongside a 10% uplift in brand favourability and a 19% uplift in brand choice. Audience responses remained positive across higher frequency levels, with no evidence that repeated exposure harmed how ads were received in the Trainline environment.

Sam Eads, head of ad sales and operations at Trainline, said: "Trainline gives brands access to customers during highly engaged, high-intent moments throughout the travel journey. This study gives us robust, independent proof that our advertising doesn’t just appear in-view, it captures real attention and translates that attention into stronger recall, favourability, and choice. For advertisers looking for context, quality, and measurable impact, Trainline is delivering on all three."

Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research, added: "Advertising attention is a journey - from noticing to recognising to remembering to acting. What’s interesting about the Trainline Journey ads is that they themselves are a journey. Across a typical session, users of the app will make multiple 'stops' with advertising. Each ad might receive quite a short glance, but they add up to an impressive whole of 'aggregate attention' which delivers market leading levels of recall and persuasion. And that, after all, is the destination we’re all aiming for."

Explore more insights from Lumen Research and Trainline Advertising on driving brand impact by requesting the whitepaper via trainlinemedia@thetrainline.com.

Lumen

Lumen Research is an eye-tracking technology company that is expanding our understanding of human attention, and helping brands to turn attention into action.   The company initially developed patented eye-tracking technology for creative attentio...

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