Articles by: "Tatevik Mkrtchyan, Product Marketing Manager – Equativ"

Media execs can’t afford to sleep on attention

June 20, 2023 Tatevik Mkrtchyan, Product Marketing Manager – Equativ

As publishers and advertisers look for privacy-compliant metrics to help evaluate performance and engagement, everyone’s talking about attention – and for good reason. While it may seem easy to view the topic as just another passing fad, attention is likely here to stay.

A 2021 Microsoft study revealed the average attention span is just eight seconds. It has also been estimated that the average American is exposed to anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day. Ads that hold attention for at least 2.5 seconds have been proven responsible for a 50% increase in sales.

If stats like that aren’t enough to convince you, note that attention metrics can also serve as part of a solution to many of the industry’s ongoing shifts. For example, attention measurement solutions are generally cookieless, which provides an option given inevitable cookie deprecation. Attention metrics can be used to serve more relevant ads, thereby reducing the environmental impact of campaigns. They can also be used to help prove the impact of marketing spend in times of economic uncertainty.

With attention looking likely to become industry-standard, publishers need to truly understand attention metrics and how best to leverage them. Those who are able to prove the quality of their inventory stand to gain in the short and long term.

A quick refresher on attention

Traditional metrics like Video Completion Rate (VCR) and Click Through Rate (CTR) no longer provide a comprehensive way to track engagement. Viewability, as defined by the Media Rating Council, only ensures an ad is in the viewable area of a user’s screen for a set duration – typically one second. Attention metrics offer a more detailed understanding of how users interact with ads and provide valuable insights into engagement.

By analyzing attention metrics, advertisers can evaluate the effectiveness of different elements within an ad, such as specific visuals, headlines, or calls to action, as well as the probability of a specific placement to capture user attention. This data can inform iterative improvements in creative design, supply targeting, and placement strategies to optimize audience attention and engagement.

Lab-based methodologies and panel-based eye-tracking technology are two of many approaches used to capture attention metrics. Ultimately, these attention metrics and measurement approaches give publishers and advertisers a more nuanced understanding of audience engagement, ad effectiveness, and brand impact.

What you need to know now

Attention measurement allows advertisers to target inventory that generates attention and campaign outcomes. Publishers can use it to guarantee advertisers increased visibility and brand recall, which isn’t possible with traditional clickthrough and impression metrics.

Some say attention refers to an ad’s ability to: successfully engage a user, measure the quality and quantity of attention, and measure media and creative effectiveness. However, at present, there’s no uniformly agreed-upon definition of attention.

As a result, no standard measurement methodology exists yet either. Many big industry providers like MOAT, IAS, and DoubleVerify (as well as new grassroots attention measurement providers) have developed multiple KPIs and technologies for measuring attention. While there are many applications and use cases, attention vendors often focus on measuring media quality and predicting which placements (a combination of domain, device, and format) are likely to generate more attention.

However, the IAB recently gathered a group of key stakeholders to focus on the measurement landscape, increasing the chances that attention will soon become the new standard industry metric.

How publishers can benefit

It’s true that the attention trend is driven by demand, and mostly delivers buyer-driven benefits. However, media companies can also use attention metrics to benchmark their inventory to understand what’s driving quality engagement to inform pricing to increase revenue and improve the audience experience.

Attention metrics can be used to track the site user’s journey. Time-in-view, scrolling behavior, and mouse-over-data can all be used to determine time spent interacting with page elements – including ads. This allows you to analyze placement on your pages through eye-tracking panels and follow-up questionnaires to determine which ad formats generate more attention and the correlation to brand awareness/purchase consideration.

The findings allow you to adjust your monetization strategies accordingly to charge more for placement generating attention. Being able to prove your media has a direct effect on ad impact and performance will allow you to attract high-quality advertisers. They will be willing to pay a premium for ad placements in environments where users are highly engaged.

Finally, attention metrics contribute to a better ad experience for your audience. Consumers want to avoid sites featuring intrusive or irrelevant content. Understanding the formats and placements consumers prefer to engage with creates a seamless user experience and ultimately builds trust. Performance metrics around contextual advertising have illustrated this, proving consumers will accept additional privacy-compliant intelligence when it is used to serve the most relevant content.

While it will take time for attention metrics and measurement to become standard, there is potential for an ad attention measurement currency in the future. Publishers who pay attention and start experimenting now will be ready to lead the way when that time comes.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

Why publishers should champion seller-defined audiences

January 4, 2023 Tatevik Mkrtchyan, Product Marketing Manager – Equativ

It remains to be seen when third-party cookies will be fully phased out. But it’s clear that the priority should remain building a solid and flexible first-party data strategy that can withstand constant shifts in privacy and audience accessibility. Publishers who do so will be best positioned to help advertisers fill the gap between privacy and personalization while uncovering new monetization opportunities. The Seller-Defined Audiences strategy is emerging as a way to reinforce the connection between publishers, advertisers, and the consumer.

Seller-Defined Audiences, commonly abbreviated as SDA, is the latest addressability specification created as a privacy-friendly alternative to replace third-party cookies. Collaboratively designed to drive the adoption of publisher first-party data, SDA is a cohort-based targeting approach that leverages well-established advertising standards to allow for scalable audience targeting without compromising data privacy and security.

Despite being proposed almost two years ago, the IAB Tech Lab has just released standardized taxonomy and transparency guidelines for SDA. And while cohort-based targeting isn’t new, SDA offers exciting privacy-first opportunities for publishers who wish to monetize their first-party data.

As it addresses common bottlenecks, such as data scalability and operational overhead, SDA empowers publishers to market their data to multiple buyers across all major advertising environments, including browsers, apps, and OTT/CTV. It does so without relying on third-party cookies and IDs and doesn’t risk data leakage along the way.

How SDA works

Instead of sharing sensitive user-specific identifiers and personally-identifiable information with advertisers, publishers can leverage SDA to organize their anonymized first-party data into standardized audience cohorts based on user interactions and other data points gathered on owned sites, apps, and platforms. This way, SDA allows publishers to easily assemble and curate their first-party data while maintaining complete control over it.

The process can be summarized in four steps:

1. Audience Segmentation

Publishers, with or without the help of their DMP, must map their first-party data into standardized demographic, purchase intent, and interest audience segments following the IAB Tech Lab’s Audience Taxonomy 1.1.

Source: IAB Tech Lab’s Audience Taxonomy

This includes 1600+ tiered segments that provide a common naming convention and taxonomy, allowing normalization, uniformity, and comparability across SDA from different providers. In addition to audience signaling, SDA can also support contextual and content signaling, but both use cases have yet to be standardized for industry use.

2. Documenting SDA Metadata

Publishers include the segment ID and taxonomy ID in the ad call using their ad server or the header bidding wrapper following IAB’s Data Transparency Standard (DTS). Or then can leverage a prebid RTD (real-time data) module created by a data provider.

3. SDA Activation

Publishers can activate SDA on the SSP level for buying on both open auction and PMP. In the first case, the SSP must relay the SDA metadata in the bid request. In the second, SDA can enrich direct deals and cross-publisher auction packages.

4. DSP Bidding

Upon receiving the bid request, the DSP will be able to read the included SDA metadata, segment, and taxonomy IDs and decide whether to bid on the ad call or bid on an SDA-enabled Deal ID.

On the advertiser side, SDA allows buyers to leverage publisher-standardized first-party data without the need to contact each provider to create one-to-one deals. Streamlined and scalable access to pre-packaged cohorts through deals or via Open Auction will drive the usability of publisher first-party data, ultimately making it more appealing for advertisers.

Opportunity exists, but publishers will need to be a driving force

By offering standardized, scalable, and easy-to-activate audiences, publishers can unlock new revenue streams and efficiently monetize their first-party data. However, the benefits of SDA will only be fully tangible when there is significant adoption of the IAB-sponsored specification across both publishers and advertisers.

The adtech platforms also play a big part in driving the use of SDA. As mentioned, SSPs need to be able to transmit SDA in the bid request, whereas DSPs should be trained to recognize SDA metadata to allow the selling and buying of data-enriched inventory.

Publishers can enlist help from DMPs to segment and map their user data to standardized cohorts. And the rapidly evolving data clean room solutions will further empower data collaboration between providers bringing cross-publisher SDAs to the market.

Curated marketplaces may prove to be indispensable in further streamlining SDA adoption. It offers publishers an easy yet controlled channel for distributing data to many advertisers. Given its advanced deal management capabilities, curation will lower the entry barriers for publishers who are not yet ready to share segments transparently on the open market but want to access large-scale demand for their SDA.

Publishers, with support from their SSPs and other tech vendors, will serve as the main driving force for educating the market and driving the adoption of SDA. This is an exciting new addition to existing addressability solutions and embracing it will benefit the entire industry. When paired with other solutions, SDA can significantly ease the transition to the soon-to-be cookieless world and help publishers maximize ROI while remaining in control of their first-party data.