Less than two out of 10 advertisers are open to adopting attention metrics in Hong Kong, writes freelance programmatic advertising expert Jenny Tsang.
Historically, for even longer than the existence of the World Wide Web itself, the attention economy has been a crucial part of marketing.
In the digital advertising sphere, where metrics dictate strategies, a pivotal shift is underway in the Hong Kong market. Traditional measures of success are being challenged by a new, sophisticated metric: Attention Targeting.
What is Attention Targeting? Attention Targeting leverages advanced technology to measure the likelihood of viewer attention. It utilises a vast array of media quality signals, eye-tracking data, head movements, and outcome data to generate a numerical score that categorises attention levels. This moves beyond traditional viewability, offering a refined approach that correlates more directly with consumer engagement and campaign results.
This approach promises to redefine how advertisers engage with their audiences, focusing on genuine viewer engagement over potential visibility.
There is a known gap between visibility and attention. Traditional viewability metrics offer an ‘opportunity to see’ but don't guarantee viewer engagement. This has led to a critical realisation: what is seen is not always observed. Attention Targeting bridges this gap by ensuring that ads not only appear but also captivate the audience.
Apart from viewability, metrics like click-through rate (CTR), return on ad spend (ROAS), cost per acquisition (CPA), and cost per click (CPC) have become commonplace. Still, they often fall short for marketers seeking to holistically report and optimise across all advertising channels.
The granular insights promised by attention metrics may finally meet this need, offering a comprehensive understanding of how consumers truly interact with ads across various platforms.
Attention Targeting is a game-changer that serves as a boon to both advertisers and publishers.
For advertisers, it provides a more granular analysis of ad performance, allowing for optimised adspend and enhanced programmatic performance. It enables advertising dollars to be invested in high-quality, attentive impressions. This also represents a transition towards a privacy-centric advertising model, reducing reliance on cookies and other personal data.
For publishers, it's an impetus to create content that is not just viewable but truly engaging. The implication: it is superior content and not placements, that will achieve higher attention scores in the new era of privacy.
The technology behind attention measurement is innovative and offers insights into consumer behaviour that are significantly deeper than traditional metrics can provide. For instance, eye tracking can elucidate consumer preferences and affective states, thus informing more personalised ad experiences.
Here is the challenge. With a variety of vendors developing proprietary metrics for attention, such as the IAB’s attention per thousand impressions or TVision’s attentive seconds, the industry is confronted with a standardisation challenge. Comparing results across different platforms remains complex, and without standardised measurements, using attention metrics as a universal currency for ad deals remains a future goal.
Conclusion
Within this evolving landscape, some notable players offer pre-bid attention segments that enable advertisers to target varying levels of placement quality via DSPs. These attention segments, categorised into high, medium, and low sets, allow advertisers to efficiently allocate their programmatic media investments towards the most effective attention outcomes, without the overt pushiness often seen in impression-based advertising.
Attention Targeting stands at the forefront of a new era in digital advertising in Hong Kong. By prioritising viewer engagement over mere visibility, it offers a more authentic, effective, and privacy-conscious approach to ad targeting.
As the industry continues to adapt, embracing this new metric could be the key to unlocking unprecedented levels of audience engagement and campaign success.
