With 20 years’ experience in digital advertising, Stevie has primarily worked with premium publisher brands such as The Telegraph, LADbible, and Spectator. She recently joined Adnami as UK MD.
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For years, digital ad performance has been optimised around viewability, clicks and conversions, but these metrics only tell part of the story. In my new role as UK MD of Adnami I have been talking a lot more about attention and it got me thinking, how can you optimise towards something that you can’t see?
Don’t get me wrong, many folks across the industry have been championing the relevance and importance of attention in recent years but without an industry standard in place it’s still arguably the new kid on the block when it comes to measuring advertising effectiveness. Perhaps, the fact that there are many different interpretations of what attention is, isn’t helping much either.
I also worry, that with the growing prevalence of AI, mastering attention – something intrinsically based on human behaviour – may become even harder.
Attention, more specifically visual attention as a concept, is something we all instinctively understand. We’ve all had moments where an ad caught our eye and ultimately influenced us to buy a product, book a trip, or try something new. Therefore, it easily translates that attention should help shape media planning and buying practices but from a practical perspective, it’s still being largely ignored.
For too long, the industry has relied on viewability as a proxy for success but it’s no longer enough.
The IAB found that attention is seven times more effective at predicting awareness and six times more effective at predicting brand recall than viewability. After all, just because an ad is technically viewable doesn’t mean it was actually seen, let alone remembered. Coupled with the with the reality that viewability can be gamed, it’s time we move beyond outdated metrics and stop wasting money on ads unlikely to drive meaningful results.
So, where do we go from here?
What does a media ecosystem that truly values attention look like? One of the biggest blockers is the lack of standardisation, but waiting for a perfect definition or methodology shouldn’t mean standing still. Everyone in the ecosystem; brands, agencies, publishers, and tech partners have skin in the game. It’s incumbent on all of us to ideate, test, and learn our way forward.
For brands, it starts with asking better questions. Don’t just ask, ‘Was it seen?’, ask, ‘Did it hold attention?’, ‘For how long?’, and ‘Did it drive impact?’ If we agree that attention is a proxy for outcomes, then we need to ask: “How can attention-based signals be integrated into media mix modelling?” Multiple studies have shown attention correlates strongly with key outcomes like brand recall, purchase intent, and long-term sales – far more so than impressions or clicks.
One of my biggest bugbears is seeing high impact formats left off media plans, often because traditional models focus too heavily on impressions, CPMs, and total spend. This issue has been compounded by the rise of programmatic managed services and a preference for open marketplace buying, where cost often trumps quality.
At Adnami, we saw a different path emerge in the Nordics, where the CPM gap between standard and high impact formats is far narrower. The Nordics offer a glimpse into a more mature attention economy, where advertisers increasingly plan for attention outcomes, not just delivery, and where high impact formats are foundational, not optional. There, both agencies and publishers already leverage these formats more strategically because they understand the value of driving greater attention, not just more impressions.
The role of publishers and agencies
For agencies, it’s about guiding clients through the noise and challenging outdated assumptions. Start bringing attention metrics into planning conversations and hold media partners to higher standards, not just on delivery, but on quality. Be brave enough to test emerging formats and measurement tools, and make sure those learnings inform how you optimise campaigns moving forward.
For publishers, now is the time to prove the value of premium environments. Attention data can help you differentiate your inventory and site layout and move the conversation away from price alone.
The smartest players are already pricing based on quality, not just volume, and they’re showing advertisers that high-attention placements deliver stronger results. Equally, closing the pricing gap between your lowest and highest yielding placements will make buying high impact formats more enticing to your customers and potentially offer a more desirable user experience.
Collectively, let’s start paying more attention to – well, attention!
