Attention metrics, which measure the attention consumers pay to advertisements, are growing in importance to marketers who want to know more than just how many people were exposed to their ad. A new partnership between DoubleVerify and Attain aims to connect attention metrics with actual sales outcomes.
DoubleVerify (DV) is a software platform for digital media measurement, data, and analytics. Attain provides sales transaction measurement and purchase-based data activation. The two companies say their alliance will enable global advertisers to optimize for attention in order to improve campaign performance and drive measurable business outcomes.
“Advertisers are not just looking for views, they are seeking tangible business outcomes,” Daniel Slotwiner, Senior VP of Attention at DoubleVerify said in the announcement. “This partnership provides them with actionable insights to optimize campaigns in real-time, driving enhanced engagement and, ultimately, sales.”
DV’s MRC-accredited Authentic Attention service assesses the exposure of a digital ad and consumer engagement with a digital ad and device, in real time, by analyzing more than 50 data points at the impression level. It does so without the use of cookies.
For exposure, DV measures viewable time, share of the screen, video presentation, audibility, and other variables. For engagement, DV examines user-initiated events that occur during ad exposure, such as user touches, screen orientation, video playback, and audio control interactions. It uses these measures to formulate an attention index – a gauge of attention offering insights into campaign performance.
Attain’s platform analyzes half a billion dollars of purchase data in real-time, daily. Its permission-based panel of 6 million users offers insights into how, what, when, and where consumers currently spend, and are expected to spend, their money – down to the product level.
Advertisers working with both companies will now be able to connect attention metrics with sales outcomes, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of the consumer’s path from ad exposure and engagement to purchase. “Advertisers can now close the loop, connecting campaigns to real-time purchases and sales, ensuring not just reach and engagement, but measurable business impact,” said Brian Mandelbaum, CEO at Attain.
Price Glomski, Senior VP of Global Media and Partnerships at Digital ad agency PMG, says their clients are increasingly focusing on attention as a key metric for their campaigns. “As this trend evolves, brands require greater clarity on outcomes, specifically whether attention leads to a purchase or sale.”
While attention metrics have mostly been utilized to measure digital media ad campaigns, their use is spreading to audio. The agency network dentsu recently showed how the attention consumers give audio ads stacks up to other media channels as part of the Attention Economy Project. Audio wasn’t included in the project until this year when dentsu and Lumen Research worked with some of the nation’s largest audio companies to expand its attention metric to include radio, podcasting, and streaming.
As earlier reported by Inside Radio, the first-of-its-kind study found that audio performs better than video in grabbing people’s attention and generating brand recall. On average, 41% of audio ads generated correct brand recall compared to the 38% norm for other advertising studied by dentsu. Brand choice uplift for audio ads was 10%, nearly double dentsu norms of 6%.