Dive Brief:
- Publishers would like for advertisers to use attention as a performance metric, but ad buyers are still relying on more traditional key performance indicators (KPI) such as clicks and impressions.
- The idea behind attention metrics is time spent on a site might be a better indicator of an ad’s performance.
- The Financial Times began offering the ability to buy ads on a cost-per-hour basis in May.
Dive Insight:
Marketers and advertisers are always looking for new KPIs to track success, but so far attention metrics aren’t catching on with ad buyers. “We’re not buying that way," Barry Lowenthal, president of Media Kitchen, explained to Digiday. "We’re buying clicks, impressions, audience. That’s the criteria we’re looking at when we’re evaluating performance.”
The Financial Times began offering attention based ad pricing in May providing advertisers the ability to buy ads on a cost-per-hour basis. According to its U.S. commercial director and global client relationship director, Brendan Spain, the publisher has run dozens of campaigns from top brands this year. At the same time, Steve Carbone, chief digital and analytics officer for Mediacom North America, said that he hasn't "bought anything on a cost per hour. GroupM (parent company of Mediacom) doesn’t care about time on an ad; GroupM cares about whether an ad’s 100% in view.”