The cost of attention

6. The cost of attention across media

Combining attentive seconds per thousand impressions (‘aPM’) with the cost per thousand impressions (‘CPM’) to create the cost per thousand attentive seconds (‘aCPM’)

Advertising in different media creates different quantities of net aggregate attention. A 30-second TV ad will generate more than one thousand 15-second YouTube ads, which will in turn generate more than a thousand digital display ads on a desktop computer, and so on.

But the cost of buying a thousand impressions in each of these different media (known as the ‘cost per mille’ or ‘CPM’) is also different. For instance, CPMs for TV are far higher than for display advertising.

Combining the attentive seconds per thousand impressions with the cost per thousand impressions will help us create the cost per thousand seconds of attention, or ‘aCPM’. We can use this to understand the true cost attention across media. To illustrate this process, we have taken the mean average CPMs for a single UK client, and applied them to the attentive seconds per thousand impressions (aPM) data. Before we begin the analysis, we should remember that this is just a worked example, and suffers from many limitations:

The attention data set: the TV data comes from the US only; the digital data is an amalgam of data from the US, UK, France, and Germany
The media price data set: your CPMs may vary from these, and of course, there will also be great variation within the media
Audience and contextual targeting: the cost of some media includes fees for targeting information, while others are more broadcast

Despite these limitations, we nevertheless believe it is still useful to compare the quantity of attention your campaigns generate with how much you are spending to buy this attention. When you combine the two datasets, you see the true cost of attention. TV – one of the most expensive media to buy on a CPM basis – generates so much more attention per thousand impressions that it is actually an ‘attention bargain’. Desktop display – often one of the cheaper media – isn’t cheap at all.

COST PER 1000 ATTENTIVE SECONDS

These ads generate so little attention that their aCPM is far higher than their comparators, including TV. There can be a high cost to low-priced media. In between these extremes are social media, which offer a range of possibilities, depending in part on how much you spend on targeting data. An attention currency, when combined with a real currency, has become a powerful analytical tool for marketers.

How long will it take for marketers to use attention metrics as a signal of media quality?

The best are already doing it
3-6 months
Longer
Never

*These figures take into account that when an ad appears, people’s eyes often focus on it for little or no time and this varies by medium.
**Costs are illustrative based on averages from one big spending company. Production costs should also be considered.

SECONDS OF ATTENTION VS COST OF MEDIA

30” TV ads cost about the same per impression as Facebook infeed ads but the average exposure lasts nearly 5 times longer (6* seconds versus 1.3*). Facebook, however, allows very specific types of people to be targeted.