How Much Attention Should Marketers Give to "Attention"?

What’s all the fuss about?

In 2021, we saw a sudden burst of articles around the “attention economy” for marketing. Advancements in eye-tracking technology have triggered the emergence of a slew of vendors who all are using new data points to redefine attention and understand performance of ads. But whichever data partner you may have read about, there was one thing in common in every publication: the success of attention metrics over existing media metrics that we use today. But exactly how important are attention metrics to evaluate performance and how do they interplay with the existing measurement strategy for brands?

Is attention the holy grail of performance?

The buzz around using attention to measure media performance makes one think that attention might be that perfect silver bullet that advertisers have been waiting for. We have bad news. It’s not it. And in our opinion, we don’t think there ever will be a single silver bullet for performance. A lot of advertisers seem to think that sales is the end all be all and focus all their energy on understanding its drivers. However, anyone who has seen long cycles of marketing for any product knows that marketers often would compromise short term sales for long term branding, especially with new audiences. The idea of a single metric is like the idea of the perfect parent. It doesn’t exist. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get close enough. It takes a village to raise a child. And every parent knows that sometimes the teacher, the grandparent, the nanny or even the neighbor could be the right guardian for their child depending on the situation. So why not take the village of data we have at our disposal and ensure that the right metric is used for the right decision. The only thing to keep in mind is that the metrics are linked to each other. After all, no child is thriving if the parents are not in sync. This is not a new concept, but I do think it’s one that is very rarely put into practice. And attention has the potential of connecting some datasets and bridging some gaps that have proven to be very difficult in the past.

How can I use attention to refine my plans?

One of the big pain points that have existed in our industry is a quicker assessment of the impact that traditional channels have on a business. The reality of today is that most marketers are still using traditional metrics like TRPs to assess performance in the short term. Attention allows for a quicker and more evidence-based read for these traditional channels. However, the challenge is the inherent ability to optimize these channels in flight. So, until attention becomes a widely accepted currency, attention measurement in traditional channels applies more to future planning and potentially also to replace the older metrics like impressions that are fed into MMMs to make those models more accurate.

How do I use attention to measure performance?

Addressable media has always prided itself on the ability to measure success directly. That begs the obvious question. Why do we need to measure attention? If ads drive attention and attention drives sales, then do we need the middleman? Can’t we just straight measure sales and keep optimizing towards that? Simple, right? Not really. The problem with most sales metrics is that the cycle of sales can be very long based on the industry, especially when there is an offline store. And this lag doesn’t allow for real time optimizations. Now that would make attention sound like a perfect solution given every study out there saying that it’s a real-time leading indicator of business impact. However, most vendors say that attention is better than viewability. That might be true, but it hasn’t been compared with every other digital metric that is available. So, say you have a 14-year-old who sees a car ad and can’t take their eyes away from that ad. Attention metrics would say this ad worked very well but was that the attention we wanted? That kid isn’t buying that car, at least not right now.

At Zenith, we have a hypothesis. Attention is only 1 part of the puzzle. But other metrics can further refine this leading indicator into relevant attention or, as we call it, “quality attention”. And to do that, we need to look at other information. Let’s bring in the village. We believe we need 3 elements to define quality attention. 1) Quality audience: Data that ensures your media is capturing the right intended target 2) Quality inventory: Metrics from existing attention vendors that help us understand if it was the right time and right place for our ads 3) Quality response: KPIs that capture behavior change that we can track. All these metrics can be tracked in real-time for most addressable media, and if agencies can combine them to understand which ones and to what degree they drive future business impact, then we have a true leading indicator to work with. And that’s exactly what Zenith is working on right now.

Maybe attention will prove to be the strongest and most overpowering metric that we have in our arsenal. But that must be an evidence-based decision, so we can truly drive incremental business outcomes.

What do I do next?

What every marketer should be doing today is understanding which aspect of their advertising will benefit from this emerging dataset (creative, media, verification etc.). And then work with your agencies to identify not only the right vendor but also the right approach to bring attention to your overall measurement approach.

So to answer the original question, how much attention should we pay to attention? Treat it like your in-laws. It’s a part of your family and can sometimes be the best thing that happened to you (especially on date nights). But it won’t be choosing what’s for breakfast every day!