Tags containing: "Attention Economy"

4 challenges to leveraging attention in a programmatic world

August 15, 2022 Navid Nassiri, Head of Marketing – Switchboard Software

Attention economy is arguably the ad industry buzzword for 2022. Publishers and brands have realized that they need to move beyond traditional viewability metrics to focus on how a user is interacting with content in the moment.

In simple terms, there’s a measurement gap between what is viewable and what is viewed. But how simple is it to leverage attention through programmatic data?

Here, we take a look at four common challenges to extracting programmatic insights.

1. Analyzing metrics that matter

Let’s imagine a line graph, with a steadily increasing curve representing the volume of online content over time, while a flat line represents the time a user has to consume it. The gap between those lines describes the attention deficit.

A few years ago, viewability metrics (e.g. video completion rate, dwell time) became the accepted way of measuring the performance of online content. However, as Playground xyz’s CEO Rob Hall describes, as the attention deficit widens, standard viewability metrics are fast becoming “preconditions for [online content]. But really, they’re more hygiene factors.”

And while hygiene factors are important, publishers are now looking to dig deeper into engagement by using attention metrics, such as attention time or active time in view.

Attention metrics can be measured in different ways. These include as scroll rate, scroll depth, touch rate and cursor position. All of these can show how the user is interacting with the page when the content is in view. Crucially, they also reveal whether they are interacting with the content itself.

Taking this one step further, publishers are also beginning to use advanced image-streaming technology that detects when a user is zooming in on content, or viewing it in full-screen mode.

Just like viewability data, attention data can have a significant steer on programmatic advertising. By making the leap to include attention metrics in the mix, publishers can serve more relevant content programmatically, optimizing the experience for users.

2. Getting close enough to real-time data

According to Lumen Research, the key to analyzing engagement is to create a predictive model of attention to content that can be used to inform programmatic bidding in real time. By collecting huge volumes of impression data on visual attention, they have created a powerful model that can project how much attention an ad or a piece of content is likely to receive.

The reality is that many publishers are still reliant on data platforms that refresh data sources once a day at best. But by switching to more advanced tools, they can get access to much fresher data than ever before. For instance, they might use software that refreshes the data every few hours. Once they have real-time attention data, they can then look to build more advanced data models based on predictive analytics.

Armed with this vast (and ever-growing) pool of fresh data, publishers can extract more relevant insights for more effective programmatic advertising based on user attention. However, analyzing data at scale can be laborious and error prone without the right tools in place.

3. Extracting programmatic insights at scale

Some larger publishers handle petabytes of impression data each day. That’s a heck of a lot of data from which to extract useful insights. Until now, publishers have faced the daunting task of building out their own strategic data asset. But this can take months, if not quarters, before their business teams can get to the data they need.

Thankfully, there are heavy-duty data unification tools on the market that can handle growing volumes of data with ease, providing business teams with the bespoke reports they need, while freeing up engineering teams for other business-critical projects.

But, of course, it’s not just about scale. It’s also about versatility.

4. Blending different reports for a holistic view

Having access to large data sets is no use if they remain in silos. For instance, while drilling down into programmatic data is important, so too is having a holistic, blended view of all ad spend. Likewise, inventory yield reports should provide up-to-date reporting across all digital revenue channels including display, mobile, CTV, social, DOOH, etc.

However, for many publishers, generating these high-level reports is still a challenge. It takes too much time and effort to manually aggregate the disparate datasets. And then it takes even more time to build custom reports that are accurate and speedy enough for business teams to act upon.

Get the tech to do the heavy lifting

The speed at which today’s media teams are expected to build, measure and optimize programmatic campaigns to remain competitive is daunting. But it is not impossible.

Whether choosing the right metrics, accessing the data in real time, or bringing together disparate data sets at scale, implementing automation tools to do the heavy lifting will give publishers the confidence – and the time – to focus on user attention. Only then will they start to drive more meaningful ROI for their brand advertisers.

About the author

Navid Nassiri joined Switchboard as Head of Marketing in 2021. Switchboard’s data engineering automation platform aggregates disparate data at scale, reliably and in real-time, to make better business decisions. In his role at Switchboard, Navid is focused on driving growth and brand awareness through innovative marketing strategies. Navid is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive, including leadership roles at PwC and NBCUniversal.

Advertising | Supporter Spotlight

Leverage audience attention to maximize ad value

July 27, 2022 Rebecca Cole, Director of Content and Communications – Sovrn

Speculation about the future of digital advertising abounds, now that the end of third-party cookies is almost certain — whether that’s in 2024 or years down the road. Most predictions focus on the negative: how an inability to target ads will lead to a less personalized experience, more paywalls, diminishing ad value, and loss of revenue. In fact, the IAB’s most recent State of Data report suggests that advertisers could lose up to $10 billion in annual revenue.

However, there’s another side to the story. For publishers who recognize the opportunity, the coming loss of third-party cookies may provide a way to take control of ad rates and even increase ad revenue by capitalizing on one of their most valuable assets: audience attention.

Attention creates an opportunity in a cookieless future

In the current ad marketplace, ad buyers hold all the cards when it comes to ad pricing. But with the loss of third-party cookie IDs, advertisers will be forced to rethink how they execute ad targeting, optimization, and measurement. Without a universal way to identify and authenticate users across the web, ad buyers will become more reliant on publishers for audience data that ties back to useful performance metrics.

This represents a pivotal change in how advertising is bought and sold. Rather than simply selling ad space to the highest bidder, publishers will be uniquely positioned to identify highly desirable audience segments, broadcast audience data to ad buyers, and set appropriate prices on valuable ad properties. For those who can get out ahead of the coming changes, there is a real opportunity to shift the balance of power in the ad marketplace back to publishers.

Attention puts publishers in control

Smart publishers have long understood the importance of audience engagement. Engaged readers are more likely to become repeat visitors — and over time, repeat visitors who trust your content are more likely to generate revenue by clicking an ad or making a purchase through an affiliate link.

Ad buyers are beginning to embrace this connection, and there’s an increased willingness to pay premium rates for ads that reach relevant, engaged visitors. Advertisers even appear ready to move on from viewability — which fails to consider whether a reader interacts with or even notices an ad — as the standard metric for ad performance.

This trend toward attention was evident at the recent Cannes LIONS event where the “attention economy” was a key theme. Speakers there noted that buyers are looking for new, attention-focused metrics and technology to scale their campaigns, and advertisers show a clear preference for publishers who can demonstrate high levels of reader engagement through clear attention signals.

Capturing the signals of audience attention

To capitalize on this opportunity, publishers need a reliable way to capture, measure, and broadcast engagement data to ad buyers. But the fact is, there’s currently no universal definition for audience attention — much less a widely accepted methodology for measuring it.

*Engaged Time compared to viewable time. Sovrn, Avocet, and Lumen study, November 2021*

As the IAB’s Elizabeth Lane stated in our recent ebook, Capturing the Signals: How Reader Attention Can Drive More Revenue, “Advertisers are excited about using attention to measure [ad] effectiveness, but they’re confused about all the different definitions being used in the market. The risk is that this confusion will lead to them not using attention as a metric and not taking advantage of the insights it can offer.”

The need for a scalable measure of attention is clear. Yet today’s ad marketplace isn’t set up to reward user attention. As a result, publishers often miss out on potential ad revenue because they struggle to identify, target, and broadcast valuable audience segments to ad buyers.

The power of engaged time

Engaged time combines viewability with 45 distinct on-page reader interactions — including clicks, scrolls, mouse movements, and more — to help publishers truly understand when visitors are paying attention to their content.

*Engaged time delivered an average of 2.7x higher CTR. Sovrn, Avocet, and Lumen study, November 2021*

To analyze the correlation between engaged time and the current attention metric, viewability, Sovrn partnered with demand-side platform Avocet and attention technology company Lumen. Using Lumen’s eye tracking data and predictive modeling, the study identified that engaged time is a truer measure of a reader’s attention, capturing more than double the attention and three times greater CTR than viewability alone

Pay attention to attention

Change is coming, and players on both sides of the ad ecosystem will need to adjust. But change often brings opportunity for those who are prepared to embrace it. And just as the loss of one sense can heighten those that remain, the absence of third-party data may clear the way for new and innovative ways of evaluating audience segments, measuring ad performance, and driving ad revenue. Luckily, with the right tools and mindset, publishers have the power to use attention to identify and target their most desirable audience segments, and broadcast that value to buyers.

About the Author

Rebecca Cole is the Director of Content and Communications for Sovrn, a publishing technology platform that provides advertising tools, technologies, and services for content creators to build their businesses, remain independent, and thrive on the Open Web. Rebecca has more than two decades of experience driving increased attention through purpose-driven content. She has held communications positions in tech, energy, and consumer brands and was a journalist and editor. Rebecca has an undergraduate degree from The University of Iowa and a master’s degree in journalism from The University of Colorado Boulder.

Industry-Research

Evaluating audience engagement post-pandemic

December 8, 2021 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

The Covid-19 pandemic drove a surge in digital media usage. However, as consumers slowly return to work and to everyday life outside the home, digital media consumption been impacted. New research from GWI, Connecting the Dots, finds that the gradual shift to our pre-pandemic habits has downshifted digital consumption.

However, GWI sees the present as an interim period. For now, it remains unclear whether consumers will return to their previous content consumption levels — or perhaps reach new heights. This report offers an early look at consumer’s media behavior and attitudes as they slowly resume post-pandemic life.

Consumer attention serves as a commodity in today’s media marketplace. The attention metric took on new importance during the pandemic. Marketers and advertisers seek digital properties that offer large viewer and reader data that exhibit high levels of time spent. However, the attention economy concept as currency is only part of the advertising equation. GWI believes understanding consumer attitudes and feelings is a necessary part of the calculation and offers insight into their behavior.

Multiple streaming services add up

Television consumption increased during the pandemic and so did consumer spending on subscription services. Though GWI’s research finds that some consumers think they spent too much money. Over one-third (34%) of consumers state that TV services are too expensive in Q2 2021 compared to 27% in Q2 2020, an increase of 26%. In addition, in May 2021, a quarter of consumers were thinking of canceling or already canceling a streaming service.

Gaming grabs consumer attention

The pandemic ignited a period of exceptional growth for gaming. GWI cites a Google Trends’ analysis that compares the popularity of video gaming to a TV program, a theatrical release, and a new album release. The analysis tracks the popularity of Animal Crossing, a social simulation video game series, Tiger King, a popular Netflix program, Tenet, a new movie release, and Folklore, Taylor Swift’s album release — from January 5, 2020 to September 27, 2020. Tiger King, Tenet, and Folklore each had short-lived peaks, while the popularity of Animal Crossings, after an initial peak, maintains relatively steady interest.

Gaming is a strong contender for consumer attention, especially among Generation Z. According to GWI’s survey in Q2 2021, more than half (54%) of Zers are interested in gaming compared to 42% in Q2 2020. In contrast, Gen Z’s interest in television declined from 44% in Q2 2020 to 42% in Q2 2021.

Audio is screen-free

GWI’s report also shows audio entertainment, including streaming music and podcasts, is an integral part of consumers’ lives, especially when at home and during exercising. Interestingly, based on Q2 2021 data, streaming music is the only media type outperforming its Covid peaks that took place during lockdown.

GWI suggests that one of the reasons for audio’s success is that it doesn’t compete for screen time. Audio streaming offers an escape from screen fatigue. Using different screens all day may boost usage of audio media at the expense of visual media platforms.

Attention retention

As out-of-home activities become the norm once again, media channels need to think about re-engaging consumers. Transitioning from a pandemic mindset to a new normal is not easy for anyone. Media companies need to rethink their success and sales metrics and move beyond consumer attention. Offering quality content, positive experiences, a relatable community, opportunities of fandom, and possibilities of escapism, can present new opportunities of engagement.

Industry-Research

3 Things standing in the way of engaged time metrics

March 31, 2017 Clare Carr, Vice President of Marketing—Parse.ly

The idea of the “Attention Economy” as a currency on the internet goes back to at least 1997. So, 20 years later, we should have this engaged time metric figured out, right?

From a technological perspective, we do. We can accurately measure the time a reader spends actively reading a page, versus measuring how long a browser tab was left open with a page. Ads can measure engagement or time spent viewing.

However, we need to separate the technical ability to measure engaged time from the adoption of the metric as a valuable evaluation construct. Has the reality on the ground changed when it comes to using time to understand an audience?

Adoption at an Individual Level

We attempted to answer this question by partnering with Digiday’s CUSTOM studio on a research survey. Based on responses of almost 300 members of the Digiday audience, engaged time has gained a great deal of traction with journalists and reporters.

Time-on-page (the broader term we used in the survey questions) ranked the highest for what people use to evaluate their own work. If you interpret this chart another way, it indicates that 50% of people working in publishing see time spent with their audience a personal goal for their work.

However, we also asked about which metrics people were responsible for reporting back to their company. When asked this way, time-on-page dropped to the sixth position – out of nine total choices.

While individuals may understand and value time-on-page as a way to show that an audience cared about the work of a piece, organizations are still prizing pageviews, impressions, and social sharing.

The disconnect between these two sets of responses emphasizes the gap between how writers view their relationship with their audience and that relationship’s value to the business. If the writer’s goal is to engage the reader, but the business still makes money from impression numbers, how can those two align?

Barriers to Organizational Adoption

In addition to the data from the survey, the report revealed specific challenges that companies face in trying to adopt any new metric or goal. Here are three takeaways:

Inconsistent messaging from leadership. Though executives are usually not immersed in analytics every day, leadership still sets the tone for how employees view company success. According to one of participant in the research, inconsistent messages from management can make things more confusing: “It shifts with whoever is in charge. Some new person comes on and says, ‘This is our prime metric. This is what we’re shooting for.’ And then they go off and work somewhere else and someone else comes in.”
The right vs wrong metric mentality. Conversations need to stay away from “the right” metrics and lean more towards what success means. Employees want their work to be successful; focus on that first and then connect the metrics to how to get there.
A lack of expectations and benchmarking. With new metrics, you have to indentify the status quo in order to tell if something is performing better or worse than expected, or to show improvement over time. For metrics that aren’t as intuitively understandable as pageviews or visitors, what kind of benchmarking or expectations can be set?

Over the coming years, which organizations will ensure that the goals for their audience relationships, employees’ work and business models will align? And which will be able to adopt time as a measure of how their audience values the work they do? I suspect we’ll be able to tell soon enough.

The full research cited in this article can be found on Parse.ly’s website.

Clare Vice President of Marketing at Parse.ly, which partners with digital publishers to provide clear audience insights through an intuitive analytics platform. She writes and speaks about all the ways companies can use digital analytics to improve their operations and reach their audience goals. Prior to joining Parse.ly, Clare spent five years on the publishing side as the Director of Marketing and Online Operations at Greentech Media. Previous to that, she did digital marketing and business development at ThePoint.com, the precursor to Groupon, and Venus Zine. Originally from Ohio, she graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in Environmental Sciences.

Brendan Spain, Financial Times, Digital Content Next Summit

Innovation | Perspectives

Getting Attention in Miami: Tweet-Wisdom from DCN Summit 2015

January 26, 2015 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

It’s no surprise that photos of sunshine, swaying palm trees and shots of the shoes-optional networking on the beach were highlights of the tweet stream from this year’s Digital Content Next (DCN) Summit, held January 21-23 at the Mandarin Oriental in Miami.

However, in addition to lovely weather and networking, this year’s members-only DCN Summit generated non-stop discussion of the event theme: The Attention Economy. From the kick off by OKCupid Founder (and author of Dataclysm) Christian Rudder, who looked at the relationship between data and dating, to the closing session in which EVP Rick Allessandri showed how deeply Univision understands and connects to its customers —speakers, DCN Members and special guests alike, remained engaged and attentive, despite the lure of the sandy beaches.

In case you missed this year’s Summit, here are three key takeaways:

1. Relationships Matter. When seeking to attract and engage audiences, understanding them and catering to their interests and needs is a top priority.

Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, set the tone for the importance of trust in the age of data, pointing out that, given the ever-increasing competition for user attention online, trusted sources will move to the front of the line. That trust requires building a personal relationship with audiences; data allows us to do so, when ethically collected and skillfully applied.

Ray Wang, author of the forthcoming Harvard Business Review Press book Disrupting Digital Business urged attendees to strive for “mass, personalized scale for segments of one.”

Editor-in-chief John Avlon demonstrated his understanding of The Daily Beast’s millennial-dominated audience: “Don’t bottom feed to attract millennials… offer a high-low mix that doesn’t taste like medicine.”

Vice President of eCommerce Rhonda Crawford spoke about Delta’s content strategy, which strives to optimize content for different “stress-levels” of the traveling experience (from planning to boarding passes). “When balancing content and functionality, ask yourself if are you enriching the experience or getting in the way?”

Rick Allessandri discussed Univision’s customer-centric philosophy, which has led to a successful series of brand extensions all arising from its close audience relationship and a desire to maintain their trust by serving their needs.

2. The Need for Speed. Throughout the event, speakers emphasized the need for continuous experimentation and innovation without fearing the fast-failure.

Julie Fleischer, Director of Media and Consumer Engagement at Kraft, may have summed it up best when she said, “The pace of change will never be slower than it is today.” She discussed Kraft’s agile approach to marketing, which emphasizes creativity and fresh thinking over tried-and-true.

Kendall Aliment Ostrow, Digital Agent at UTA, offered a Hollywood’s-eye view of the transformation that’s taking place in the entertainment industry and, in particular, the pace at which younger consumers adopt and drop social media and technology tools. Keeping up, according to Ostrow, is essential in order to identify the best channels and formats to reach audience younger audience and also to identify talent, suggesting “…find a 14-year-old to follow—one that won’t make you feel creepy for doing so.”

Noble Ackerson, co-founder and CEO, LynxFit, shared that
while wearables ”launched” in 1780 with the first pedometer, the pace of development has ramped up exponentially of late. Rather than chasing the next thing, Noble encourages companies to focus on creating useful wearable content experiences.

DCN CEO Jason Kint echoed the “need for speed” mantra when he spoke about DCN’s focus on the business issues of today and the future for digital content companies noting the change in its board structure voted in at the event which will better reflect this evolution and surface creative ideas from the breadth of its members.

3. Quality, not Quantity. Another recurring theme of the Summit was that, in an Attention Economy, it is important to make the most of customers’ valuable time through excellent content experiences.

Edward Felsenthal, Managing Editor of Time.com pointed out that the tension between content we want to consume and the limited time we have to consume it is not new: He kicked off his talk with a Henry Luce quote from the 1923 prospectus for TIME: “No publication has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able to spend on simply keeping informed.” And while his publication continues to attract and engage audiences almost a hundred years later, TIME’s continued focus is on high-quality journalism that respects the value of its reader’s time.

Brendan Spain, US Commercial Director of the Financial Times and Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat, offered a candid look at what it’s like to transact ad-sales based on time. As Haile pointed out all ad views are not created equal: “impressions are not a commodity. There is a difference between one that gets a lot of attention and one that doesn’t.” Spain spoke about the FT editorial team’s focus on writing deeply-engaging content to support the time-spent monetization model. Their paying subscribers spend 10 or sometimes 100 times more minutes with content and that, in their beta tests, “the shift to attention over impressions yields more engagement and more value.”

Frank Igrec, Brand Director of Dick’s Sporting Goods pointed out that engaging content can be branded, yet as interesting to the viewer as editorial. He played some of Dick’s Hell Week series to hammer home the point that native advertising can add value to a publisher’s site when well-executed.

Ray Wang, author of the forthcoming Harvard Business Review Press book Disrupting Digital Business, summed it up when he said that “We’re moving from selling products and services to selling brand experiences….You are competing for time and attention; focus on delivering experiences and outcomes to succeed.”