Publishers are all looking to level up their revenue and audience engagement, and in-game advertising is the power-up many have been looking for. 

The gaming industry has entertained all demographic types for quite some time and is now filled with opportunities for advertisers, marketers, and publishers. Comscore’s State of Gaming 2024 report reveals that 62% of adults are now actively engaged in video gaming, with a significant portion playing across multiple platforms. 

In-game advertising is gaining traction, with 45% of gamers showing openness to rewarded ads. This shift and the notable success of video game-themed movies at the box office reflect gaming’s deepening cultural impact. Brands that recognize the potential within this space can unlock new avenues for reaching a diverse and highly engaged audience.

Furthermore, the report emphasizes the unique advertising formats available within gaming, such as in-game product placements and livestream sponsorships. Amplified by the strong social connections nurtured through gaming, these options empower brands to forge meaningful connections with consumers.

What are the Demographics? 

The online gaming community continues to expand, encompassing millions of homes and devices across the United States. 40% of U.S. households are active on a gaming console within a month. 

Among adults aged 18 and older, 62% play video games, illustrating the widespread appeal of gaming today. Moreover, a significant portion of gamers — 77% to be exact — are engaging with more than one platform, whether PC, console, or mobile. 

This is a significant audience ripe for the picking. 

Millennials dominate online gaming, representing 49% of gamers, while Gen Z accounts for 13%, Gen X for 28%, and Baby Boomers for 11%. This diverse gaming population spans a wide variety of annual household income ranges, with 16% of gamers earning less than $24,999, 25% earning between $25,000 and $49,999, 20% earning between $50,000 and $74,999, 18% earning between $75,000 and $99,999, and 20% earning $100,000 or more. 

In layman’s terms, this is a significant amount of spending power to direct advertising campaigns.

New Gaming Formats, New Advertising Opportunities

Thanks to its unique formats and diverse ad types, gaming offers numerous opportunities for advertisers and marketers. These include in-game or product placement ads, rewarded advertisements, and livestreams, each providing distinct ways to engage with gamers.

Among gamers who have encountered product placement ads, 34% agree that these placements make the gaming experience feel more authentic. Additionally, 45% of gamers who have seen regular or pop-up ads agree that they don’t mind the ads if they receive rewards for watching them.

Nearly two-thirds of gamers say that advertisements positively or neutrally impact their gaming experience. Specifically, 64% of primarily PC gamers and 75% of both console and mobile gamers agree that ads don’t detract from their gaming experience.

And the reviews from consumers are:

Consumers are paying attention to these ads at a high rate, making attention metrics for a campaign more important than ever as publishers and advertisers work to improve audience engagement.   

For example, Tommy Hilfiger used in-game ads to showcase its latest designs to drive awareness among a new, untapped audience and generate buzz for their Classics Reborn Spring campaign. The results included a 14% lift in ad recall after exposure, a 20% in brand favorability, a 24% in brand recommendation, and a 23% lift in purchase intent.

Unlocking the Potential of In-Game Advertising: Targeting Multiplatform Gamers

If you are thinking, what next steps can I take to make sure you have the right strategy to level up your in-game advertising efforts, here is Comscore’s final advice:

Embrace Multiplatform Targeting: With 77% of gamers engaging across multiple devices and 40% playing on all available platforms, brands must leverage multiplatform strategies to maximize their reach and effectiveness.

Harness In-Game Advertising: The growing importance of in-game advertising offers advertisers a unique opportunity to achieve incremental reach that traditional methods may not deliver.

Optimize Reach and Engagement: By integrating in-game ads, brands can tap into the vast and diverse gaming audience, ensuring their messages are seen by users across various platforms and enhancing overall campaign performance.

The post Level Up Your Revenue With the Exploding Potential of In-Game Advertising for Publishers appeared first on AdMonsters.

Susie Stulz: How has the concept of attention evolved over the past decade, and how will it continue to evolve?

Greg Wester: Attention has always been the most important metric for publishers, but now it’s increasingly important for advertisers as well. Dollars have always followed the eyeball, which in turn are measured by the time spent in a particular bucket–whether that’s a website, app, or TV station. So that hasn’t changed. What has changed, however, is that where attention once focused on time spent consuming media, it now focuses on time spent actually visually engaging with ads.

SS: What brought about that evolution?

GW: The shift is largely due to the change in how attention is created for many publishers. Most media measurement systems will tell you that social media is where consumer attention is now. Those further down the chain — publishers and app developers — have had to evolve their models around the walled gardens and adapt to the fact that their attention is more bite-sized and funneled in from social media.

For publishers, the challenge has been to generate the same level of revenue, from typically shorter sessions, which, in turn, has led to a variety of creative advertising experiences.

SS: Like reading news on a mobile device and seeing a ton of ads?

GW: It’s not uncommon to see sites that have more ads than content. This experience is a direct result of publishers dealing with the reality of walled gardens and smaller bites of attention, all on top of the financial pressures that most publishers have to shoulder these days. 

This is the essential challenge in today’s landscape: how do publishers generate the revenue they need yet still provide a good experience for both users and advertisers?

SS: I get that. Sometimes, I’ll click away from a site because the abundance of ads is too distracting. How can publishers avoid people like me clicking away?

GW: Well, I don’t have a crystal ball to know what would work for everyone or what the future holds, but we can picture an idealistic future state and then figure out the steps for the industry to get there, i.e., how we get from point A to point B.

Point A is the experience you just described, and the advertisers aren’t seeing much efficacy in that scenario. They won’t see click-through rates or conversions. Consequently, the price publishers can get for that inventory normalizes down. Publishers then respond by creating and selling even more ad units to make up the revenue, and some ad providers tweak the advertising in that artificially inflates engagement to drive up revenue.  It’s a downward spiral. So, how do we get to point B?

We’ve seen the emergence of new attention and modeling solutions, which demonstrate that it’s possible to provide cooperation between the publisher, advertiser, and the user to deliver better ad experiences and greater brand impact, even if consumers don’t click on the ads. Point B is where the market recognizes that reality and responds by creating new floors and greater demand for those more cooperative experiences. 

We can change the dynamic of the industry by reducing the noise of the ads, while simultaneously driving a greater signal in the advertising. The result will be more value for the advertiser, more revenue for the publisher and a better experience for the consumer.

SS: That sounds like the Holy Grail. How do we get there?

GW: The first step for publishers and the industry that supports them is to lean into attention and get a much better understanding of what attention means for their sites, down to the level of the ad unit.

The first step for publishers and the industry that supports them is to lean into attention and get a much better understanding of what attention means for their sites, down to the level of the ad unit.

To a certain degree, this isn’t new; publishers are constantly changing their ad experience, trading off demand sources, ad experiences, ad units, rate floors, and everything else — it’s a daily activity. Experimentation is endemic to monetization.

But I do think there are certain classes of publishers that have distinct advantages in the nature of their content and placement of their ad spots. When they go through the audit process, they’ll discover their highly attentive spaces. From there, they can begin to explain their attention benefits to advertisers and command higher prices.

SS: So you’re suggesting that publishers conduct audits to discover where their most attentive spaces are rather than cram as many ads into the experience as possible?

GW: Yes, that will allow publishers to charge more for their inventory and show fewer ads. Keep in mind, not every type of advertising goal requires the same amount of attention. Brand-building through a 30-second spot requires publishers that can hold the user’s attention for those 30 seconds. But if you’re a brand and you just want to blast immediate top-of-mind awareness of a company name, you don’t need a 30-second spot.

SS: What are the scenarios in which consumers are most attentive to advertising?

GW: Well let me start the other way: when are consumers least attentive? It’s a question we at Digital Turbine have spent a fair amount of time studying (with attention research partners Lumen and Amplified Intelligence), and we found that it is when users are attempting to do something, or are mid-task, that an ad interrupts the experience.

Now, compare that to the ad experiences on traditional broadcast television. Television stations crafted Soap operas for ad experiences. Similarly, you could just listen to a Seinfeld episode and know when an ad is coming by the rise in applause or drama, the soundtrack, or the outro jingle. 

Broadcast TV produced the ad experiences at the same level of quality as the Seinfeld episode itself, so it’s an edge-to-edge entertainment experience crafted to maximize attention. There are few equivalent experiences on the web or mobile devices. Ads are placed programmatically, and the publisher doesn’t really have a chance to curate them.

SS: So you’re saying that with TV, there was almost a contract, if you will, with the consumer, or an understanding, that I know when an ad is coming, I know when to expect an ad, and that an ad will be worth my attention because it is well done?

GW: That’s right, it’s a cooperative moment, and it’s cooperative for everybody. But cooperative moments are too rare in the digital universe. 

We’ve all had the experience of streaming content when it’s interrupted randomly to show an ad. Are we going to give that ad 30 full seconds of attention? Of course not. That’s why those ads are skippable and why consumers generally opt to skip them. 

The same ad on broadcast TV, programmatically inserted at the wrong time in connected TV, or inserted into a website feed will have wildly different levels of attention and, therefore, results for the advertiser.

It’s the same experience with social media. Consumers are quickly scrolling through content, so a 15-second spot is less likely to grab their attention and will deliver lower returns for the advertiser.

For the publisher, the question is: How do I create an ad experience that is the least interruptive to the user, and allows for an edge-to-edge ad, in order to drive attention?

SS: What advice would you give to ad ops teams to create more cooperative moments?

GW: I don’t think there is a prescriptive solution I can give. I’d advise you not to be the last person to learn that your site’s inventory is viewed by advertisers and sold by the markets as low-attention. Take the time to do an attention audit. I don’t work for an attention auditing company, so I won’t recommend one here. In general, the audits are for advertisers who want to understand which publishers deliver the highest quality attention. It’s worth knowing where your site stands and why.

Second, understand the implications when cost-per-attentive second becomes the more important metric to focus on. This goes back to what we were talking about earlier. If your advertiser wants to build their brand via storytelling, they’ll pay a higher cost-per-attentive second, but if they just want to blast out their name, they won’t pay as much. So, publishers need to understand what they have in terms of attentive seconds and lean into it. They may need to do a bit of work in order to understand how to calculate the cost-per-attentive second, but it’s well worth the effort.

Lastly, seek out those more cooperative moments where users receive clues that an ad is coming so they won’t feel interrupted. This way, it’s a better user experience, the advertisers get more attention, and the publisher earns higher revenues. 

You know, there’s a whole class of publishers that my company works with that have high attention to their advertising because they are naturally cooperative. Those are the gaming apps. It’s like the TV of old in that the players’ actions trigger the ad, such as when they reach a specific level. This creates the same mindset of the person watching the Seinfeld episode on TV, giving you attention levels as high as television.

SS: And once publishers figure out where the unique cooperative moments are on their sites, and master the art of attention-per-second, advertisers will compete to purchase their inventory, rather than seek the lowest cost ad units possible?

GW: That’s right. That’s the future publishers need to work towards.

The post Capturing Attention, Not Space: Why Quality Ad Experiences Will Drive Publisher Revenue appeared first on AdMonsters.

As the holiday season draws near, delving into this market becomes all the more crucial. Josh Qualy, VP of Digital Turbine’s East Coast brand business in the U.S., presents compelling research underscoring the significant disparity in holiday ad frequency between in-mobile gaming (13.6%) and more conventional channels like T.V. (29.6%) and social media (17.1%).

According to their research, mobile gaming captures consumer attention and surpasses the time spent on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. Despite these compelling statistics, U.S. advertisers significantly trail the rest of the world in investments in mobile game ads, ranking eighth out of the top 10 global markets. 

We spoke with Josh Qualy to understand these data points and explored how advertisers and publishers can win the attention game. 

Andrew Byrd: Why is attention so critical in digital media?

Josh Qualy: Attention matters because, simply put, viewability doesn’t mean viewed. Without a better metric, advertisers will continue to invest in costly channels and campaigns with little or no ROI. 

Attention has proven to be 6x better than viewability in predicting brand recall. With screens jammed with content, users are used to scrolling past or skipping things with just a passing glance. Advertisers must measure attention over viewability to get a better indication of campaign success.  

AB: Why do you believe U.S. brand marketers are not fully capitalizing on the abundant attention available in online gaming channels?

J.Q.: First, I see U.S. brand marketers catching up in 2024. Right now, brand advertisers are still navigating new privacy regulations and changes in consumer behavior. These influences have forced advertisers to rethink and re-evaluate their campaign strategies. 

Chief among those has been the understanding of the shift from viewability to attention. With them now armed to take advantage of these insights, 2024 is where they put these learnings into practice – seeking to find formats that maximize attention, which will include in-game advertising. 

AB: Could you elaborate on the ad frequency data for in-mobile gaming compared to T.V. and social media and what implications this might have for publishers and advertisers as the holiday season approaches?

J.Q.: The holiday season is make or break for advertisers. Optimizing ROAS is complex, but one factor is undoubtedly advertising share of voice. Compared to media channels such as TV and social media, the data show that U.S. consumers do not see brand ads nearly as often in mobile games. There’s less competition and more opportunity to achieve a greater share of voices and drive higher ROAS. 

In contrast, in other countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, and China, the data show that advertisers are already taking advantage of the growing in-game opportunity and are likely driving a greater share of voice and ROAS. 

This gives U.S. advertisers an advantage this holiday season since they can place their relevant ads in mobile game environments that will be less cluttered. And let’s face it: Advertisers always blitz consumers with holiday campaigns. Finding an environment where your ad can easily reach eyeballs can make all the difference.

Attention is still a new concept. And it's still something advertisers are learning to measure, understand, and harness in their campaigns

AB: The statistics indicate that mobile gaming surpasses Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram regarding the time consumers spend playing. Why do you think U.S. advertisers are not investing as much in mobile game ads despite this significant attention?

J.Q.: Attention is still a new concept. And it’s still something advertisers are learning to measure, understand, and harness in their campaigns. Taking a step back, the advertisers currently investing in mobile games are performance advertisers. They are taking advantage of the opportunity because they are more in tune with the metrics of success that games offer. Brand advertisers are just later to the party. The same trend happened with social platforms like Facebook. As the market matures, you’ll see a tipping point for brand advertisers. 

AB: Your data highlights the attention-grabbing potential of interactive video advertising in mobile games. Can you share insights into how this format outperforms non-skippable YouTube ads in terms of consumer attention and brand impact?

J.Q.: In-game advertising uses a model similar to network TV, where they weave ad breaks into natural breaks in the content. While TV used the model of crafting ads into scene changes, games put ad breaks after a natural pause in play – after players complete a move or a level. This properly sets the consumer expectation that an ad is coming. 

Compare this to YouTube or other social platforms, where they place ads at awkward times in the consumer experience. Mobile games find that sweet spot of cooperation between the publisher and advertiser. Advertisers get a format that maximizes attention to their video spots, while publishers can offer ad spots that don’t disturb or interrupt the user. 

The key to driving brand impact is harnessing attention into action where a consumer can seamlessly learn more, engage with the brand, configure a product, sign up for an offer, find the closest retailer, or even buy an advertised product. Many Advertisers today attempt to do this by placing QR codes in their TV or YouTube advertising. But engagements with these are low because TV and YouTube are passive activities – your fingers are at rest. In mobile games, consumers use their fingers to tap and engage with stimuli. 

Digital Turbine seamlessly integrates brand engagement interaction for our clients into these highly attentive moments, and the results are phenomenal. Adding post-video interactivity not only doubles the attentive seconds of an ad but also has a massive multiplier effect on brand impact.

AB: The figures indicate that many U.S. gamers remember brand advertising through mobile advertising. What strategies or elements in mobile game ads contribute to this high recall rate, and how can publishers and advertisers leverage this information?

J.Q.: Mobile games are immersive and engaging experiences, while social platforms are more passive. When viewing social feeds or reels, people are actively searching for content. While this may put their eyeballs and fingers to work, the mind is activating them to skip or scroll past things to find interesting content. 

Meanwhile, in games, the mind activates the eyes and fingers to find ways to win a game. With the mindset trained on engagement rather than skipping, putting a video ad with post-ad interactivity is the perfect way for brands to build awareness, engagement and convert users all in one spot.

AB: As we approach the holiday season, what advice would you give to brand marketers looking to make the most of the mobile gaming market?

J.Q.: Don’t neglect this opportunity. With concerns over inflation, consumers will be judicious about their brand choices. Mobile games offer a unique opportunity to build brand awareness, engagement, and conversions in one fell swoop. Using rewarded video ads in games can elevate your brand to the next level. In the U.S., 54% of people agree that an in-game rewarded ad experience creates a “halo” of more favorable brand opinion.

The post In-App Mobile Game Advertising Is the Perfect Gift for Getting Consumers’ Attention This Holiday Season appeared first on AdMonsters.

To get a sense of publishers’ plans, for a life without third-party cookies AdMonsters surveyed a mix of national and small, web and mobile publishers about a range of issues.

To see the results and gain insights from The Attention Playbook, created in partnership with Emodo, please enter your business email to download your free copy of The Targeting and Metrics Evolution: Are Publishers Ready for Attention’s Dominance? below!

The post Targeting and Metrics Evolution: Are Publishers Ready for Attention’s Dominance? appeared first on AdMonsters.

Audio advertising may take the ad spend throne soon, at least according to Dentsu’s findings. In collaboration with Lumen Research, Dentsu conducted a study to measure attention in audio advertising and the medium is 56% higher than Dentsu’s traditional targeting metrics.

This comprehensive study delves into the booming audio advertising industry, exploring its effectiveness across different formats and environments, including podcasts, radio, and music streaming. The findings are poised to reshape how advertisers perceive and leverage the power of audio ads, shedding light on their ability to capture attention and drive brand outcomes.

Participants interacted with audio environments in line with their native experiences, such as podcasts or radio stations. Afterward, they participated in Dentsu’s Attention Economy Survey to gauge ad recall and brand choice uplift. The study hinged on Lumen’s attention score which is based on audio listening data, survey results, and ad exposure types.

The Journey into Audio Attention

Credit: dentsu

Dentsu has been at the forefront of the Attention Economy for over five years, emphasizing the value of engagement in video and display channels. Now, with their foray into audio attention, they aim to redefine the industry’s understanding of the impact of audio ads on consumer behavior and brand recognition. 

Doug Rozen, CEO of Dentsu Media Americas, emphasizes the importance of this milestone: “This enables us to uniquely serve clients by proving the value of their audio, video, and display ads based on real engagement measures that drive growth.”

Impressive Findings: Audio Ads Take Center Stage

The studies conducted by Dentsu and Lumen unveiled remarkable insights into the potency of audio advertising. The data speaks for itself:

Average Attentive Seconds: Audio advertising, spanning podcasts, radio, and music streaming, achieved an impressive average of 10,126 attentive seconds per (000) APM (Average Persons Measured), surpassing Dentsu’s established norms of 6,501 APM for attention.

Brand Recall: 41% of audio ads exhibited correct brand recall, outperforming the 38% benchmark for other ad platforms, mostly video-oriented.

Brand Choice Uplift: Audio ads generated a remarkable 10% uplift in brand choice metrics, surpassing the 6% norm for other ad formats.

Unveiling Strengths Across Audio Formats

The study’s depth extended beyond these general statistics, revealing the unique strengths of various audio formats:

Podcasts: The podcast realm, encompassing participants like Audacy, Cumulus Media, iHeartMedia, Spotify, and SXM Media, emerged as a powerhouse regarding attentive seconds per thousand impressions. Host-read ads within podcasts exhibited superior brand choice uplift compared to traditional audio ads.

Radio: Audiences engaged significantly with radio advertising from Audacy, Cumulus Media, and iHeartMedia, with higher attentive seconds per thousand impressions than benchmarks in digital, social, and TV domains. Moreover, radio proved ten times more efficient than online video ads in generating brand recall.

Music Streaming: Amazon Music’s study provided insights into the efficacy of audio ads in this domain. The highest brand recall was associated with ad-supported streaming music on Alexa-enabled devices, and 30-second ads on these devices produced heightened brand choice uplift.

Transforming Audio Advertising Landscape

As the advertising landscape evolves, this study marks a pivotal moment. Joanne Leong, global head of planning at Dentsu, highlights how this research arms the agency with the ability to elevate conversations around audio ad spend and justify investments in this oft-overlooked realm. The study’s implications also extend to video ads, underscoring the value of “sound on” for impactful engagement and brand recall.

By tapping into the unique strengths of audio formats and harnessing their attention-grabbing potential, brands can forge deeper connections with their audiences and pave the way for an innovative era of advertising. Dentsu’s study serves as a reminder that audio deserves a spotlight in the oversaturated advertising landscape.

If Dentsu successfully changes the market’s perceptions, publishers who have yet to dip their toes in the audio arena might want to catch up quickly. Audio could soon be on the heels of the video regarding ad spend. 

The post Unlocking the Power of Audio Ads: New Research Reveals Their Impact on Attention and Brand Outcomes appeared first on AdMonsters.

Attention metrics are gaining traction, but one fundamental aspect that continues to hold significant value for advertisers is viewability. While advertisers recognize the importance of capturing users’ attention, ensuring their ads are viewable remains a top priority.

Viewability refers to the measurement of whether users see an ad. In the past, publishers could generate revenue solely by placing ads on their websites, irrespective of whether those ads received any views. However, the landscape has transformed dramatically, and advertisers now emphasize viewable impressions. Publishers need to comprehend how the costs of impressions are measured to monetize their digital ad inventory effectively.

To be considered viewable, an ad must meet specific criteria. According to industry standards, an ad is viewable if at least 50% of its pixels are visible on the user’s screen for at least one second. 

But how do you measure viewability correctly? 

vCPM: The Cost of a Thousand Viewable Impressions

Calculating the value of viewable impressions is where vCPM (viewable cost per mille) comes into play. vCPM represents the cost of a thousand viewable impressions, indicating the number of people who see the ads on a web page. It provides advertisers with a clear understanding of the value they are getting from their advertising investments.

While CPM measures the cost per thousand impressions, regardless of their viewability, vCPM focuses solely on viewable impressions. By leveraging vCPM, advertisers can make informed decisions and allocate their budgets more effectively, optimizing their ROI.

To bid on vCPM, advertisers must be aware of the ad’s visibility percentage and the count of viewable impressions, as these factors determine the resulting vCPM. The total vCPM is determined after deducting any portion of the ad that remains outside the screen, rendering it invisible to viewers.

Attention Vs. Viewability

As the industry ushers in the cookieless era, publishers and advertisers also preach the importance of attention metrics. While creating viewability for your ad is essential, some argue it’s losing relevance because it “simply represents a measure of an opportunity for an ad to be seen – not whether a viewer actually saw an ad.” 

Attention metrics grew in prominence because of the lessening popularity of identifiers and the increased difficulty of gaining consumer attention because of the oversaturation of ads online. Brands measure attention metrics through viewability, creative size, interaction, ad position, time of day, publisher or program, audibility, page clutter, device frequency, and eye tracking. Viewability metrics are still vital to understanding attention metrics, so brands need robust measurement tools for viewability. 

The Publisher Benefit

Enhancing viewability and vCPM is a crucial objective for publishers aiming to maximize ad revenue. Several strategies can help improve viewability metrics: 

• Ad Placement Optimization: Placing ads in strategic positions on a web page, such as above the fold or within the user’s natural line of sight, increases the likelihood of viewability.
• Responsive Design: Implementing responsive website design ensures that ads adapt to various screen sizes and resolutions, allowing for a seamless user experience across devices.
• Ad Formats and Sizes: Choosing ad formats and sizes that align with the website’s layout and content enhances visibility and engagement, driving higher viewability rates.
• Page Load Speed: Optimizing page load times reduces user abandonment and increases the chances of ads being viewed before users navigate away from the site.
• Ad Fraud Prevention: Implementing robust ad fraud detection and prevention measures safeguards viewability by eliminating fraudulent or non-human traffic that artificially inflates impressions.

By implementing these strategies, publishers can elevate their viewability metrics, positively impacting vCPM and attracting higher-quality advertisers to prioritize viewable impressions.

Understanding the concept of viewability, measuring it through vCPM, and implementing strategies to enhance viewability benefit publishers in terms of increased ad revenue and ensure advertisers receive the value they seek from their digital advertising investments. As the industry continues to evolve, keeping a keen eye on viewability will be instrumental in driving success for both publishers and advertisers in the digital advertising ecosystem.

The post What is vCPM and How Does It Relate to Viewability? appeared first on AdMonsters.

To date, however, “attention” has been thought of as site placement + ad unit. Should the creative format itself be considered in attention calculations? What is the impact of creative innovation on critical attention metrics, such as brand recall, ad recall, and attention rates? 

To answer these questions, Emodo teamed up with Persuasion.Art to create a new attention metrics methodology, called Creative Attention Effectiveness. This methodology allows advertisers to measure the impact of both ad slots and creative formats on ad effectiveness.

Let’s dig in.

The partners began by testing the effectiveness of animated ads and found they delivered strong performance on key metrics:

Digging deeper, the researchers tested the animated ad format against static units across three different ad sizes. The animated format outperformed static ones across all units.

Next, the researchers tested the impact of creative format by site category, looking at four categories: gaming, news, weather, and productivity properties. 

The chart below shows that animated ads consistently did better on all Attention and Memorability metrics, across the site categories. The highest lifts were seen on brand recall (61.8% lift) and ad recall (56.4% lift) in the News category.

Ad Format vs. Site Selection: Which Affects Campaign Performance More?

Current attention metrics tend to focus solely on the impact of site and ad unit, not the actual ad format. This, according to the researchers, misses a critical opportunity to drive campaign performance with innovative creatives.

The chart shows that site selection had a modest  impact on performance, as there were small variations across site categories:

Next, the researchers compared the best and worst performing creatives and the best and worst performing sites. The results show that creative formats play a critical role in optimizing all metrics.

“Our tests conclusively show that creative has an impact on attention and memorability, often more than site. Optimizing only for ad slots, not creative, is a missed opportunity. While optimizing creative formats boosts performance, the real opportunity to drive Memorability and compound effectiveness lies in a combined optimization of creative and media,” said Megan Saunders, SVP of Global Marketing & Growth at Emodo.

The Connection Between Attention and Memorability 

Finally, the researchers wanted to explore a potential correlation between attention and memorability at an ad and campaign level. Unsurprisingly, the study found that the more time a consumer spent looking at an ad, the greater the likelihood of recalling the brand.

The data showed a consistently positive correlation between attention and memorability at a campaign level. Specifically:

• We see a strong 0.6 correlation between time spent on an ad (attention) and brand recall (a key measure of Memorability) across all 9 tests at the campaign level 
• We also see a 0.52 correlation between attention and ad recall.

This means that by driving attention, advertisers will consistently drive better brand metrics. Even if the lift itself is modest, such as when the creative format is held constant (as the chart above illustrates), it is consistent. When optimizing to creative formats that are more attention-grabbing, however, the lift in recall is far higher.

Learn More

Download the complete report here.

The post Memorability Matters: The Role of Creative Innovation in a Post-cookie World appeared first on AdMonsters.

Given the push towards refinement in consumer targeting, data clean rooms, the Twitter implosion, the rise of retail media, and legislations set to remap leveraging data, the buying universe is quietly scrambling for alternatives with data integrity at the core.  

Who is better than a long-term industry darling that has coveted the consumer better than anyone in its private digital sanctuary – the Apple ecosystem.

Why Apple?

Since its inception, Apple has operated one of the most respectable “ecosystems” in the modern era of technology.  

Their “experience design” acumen has orchestrated one of the most consumer-friendly operating environments, from hardware to software to peripherals, based on a singular aim of mastering interoperability at the highest threshold.  

While Apple has stayed the course in its core commitment to seamless consumer experiences, blame it on the push for 1st Party Data and the industry backpedaling on the reliance of Walled Gardens, signaling its time to enter the DSP business. Recent big tech data lawsuits and CPRA stipulations have created a slow-burning dumpster fire, only accelerating Apple’s market opportunity.

Apple’s Value Proposition to Ad Tech

Apple’s true value stems from the ownership of mindshare, or what we are now terming the Attention Stack. And if attention is the ultimate real estate, Apple owns most of the prized oceanfront properties with millionaire-style mansions.   

Given that their ecosystem is a user-driven community where product development is core to the “user experience,” the expectation will be that their DSP solution will be less about SAAS. An Apple-operated DSP should be centered around their ability to allow brands to effectively connect with consumers given the intimate knowledge they possess about them – an advantage they have all to themselves now.

The Lost Consumer View Created by Apple

Apple set the digital universe on fire with their iOS update, which introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention and App Tracking Transparency (ATT) changes in 2021.  

The update kneecapped ad tech’s ability to target and measure performance, creating a significant ‘signal loss’ (or data attributed to the amount of web browsing and ecommerce behavior). 

Now, Apple can offer its own solution for that by launching its very own DSP. How convenient of them.  

Furthermore, consider other statistical factors such as 30% of global traffic is unaddressable because of cookieless browsers such as Safari. Or that another 20% are unreachable due to match-rate issues between platforms and users refusing cookies on publisher websites. Apple is also likely to accelerate the data graph conversation (i.e., music graph for Spotify, movie graph for Amazon) and architect one that merges content consumption, app behaviors, software usage, hardware purchase, etc., in a way ad tech has never seen before. They gear their experience design philosophy towards openly acknowledging all the technology gaps in the marketplace and closing them. Checkmate.

Apple Powering the SPO Conversation

Apple’s DSP launch may evolve into a page from the forthcoming Supply Path Optimization conversation, where sellers and buyers are becoming more selective about which ad tech partners they allow to participate in programmatic auctions and setups. 

The SPO movement stems from the need by brands to get closer to 1st party data (and proprietary data) offered through partners. Apple’s DSP could serve as the engine for a larger PMP framework, which would have substantial appeal to buying agency options.

Apple in the Data Clean Room Conversation

While the data clean room conversation is all the rave, much of the results still need to be conclusive.  

Clean rooms are environments where tech platforms mix their first-party data with others to gain insights without violating user privacy – which is paramount at Apple. Even mapping other data signals outside of content consumption patterns (location, social, search) onto my audience profile is something Apple is poised to do fluidly. In contrast, others pontificate and stumble around in similar endeavors. 

Why Apple is Poised to Succeed

Apple long existed as the North Star for industry reasons ranging from profit margins, product efficacy and integrity, Steve Jobs factor, management and leadership, retail experience, product design, and so on.  

The ad tech community will assume the same potential in launching a DSP which will translate into the sector granting them grace (while they make missteps) as they carve out a new chapter in their business model. 

Above all else, Apple is very prudent in studying the mistakes of its frenemies in the business while solving consumer points of friction as an operational mantra.  

The post The Lost Consumer View Created by Apple Solved Through Their Own DSP appeared first on AdMonsters.

But user behavior across these channels couldn’t be more different than cats are to mice.

Suffice to say, measuring the full value of mobile advertising has been a great challenge. What with the varying screen sizes, ad formats, functionalities and contexts, there hasn’t been a true way for marketers to understand how to measure customer attention.

A new Yieldmo-commissioned report, “Attention 2.0: Enhancing Ad Measurement Beyond Clicks & Viewability—How Customer Attention Metrics Can Improve Mobile Advertising Outcomes,” from Forrester Consulting highlights the glaring gap between what marketers know how to measure in mobile advertising versus what they wish they could measure—and more importantly, how those metrics could impact advertising performance.

84% of marketers said their organizations are not capable of measuring customer attention with mobile ads. And, even the marketers who claim to measure customer attention can’t say which metrics they have or how they’re being used.

AdMonsters spoke with Lisa Bradner, General Manager of Data & Analytics, Yieldmo, to learn more about the report’s findings as well as gain more insight into the role publishers could play in helping marketers solve this Rubik’s Cube we know as mobile metrics. For their part, Yieldmo believes the report’s data underscores the company’s hypothesis that attention analytics will be the next evolution of viewability.

Lynne d Johnson: Why is it so complicated to understand consumer interest and intent on smartphones?

Lisa Bradner: It’s complicated to understand consumer intent PERIOD—we are not always linear and logical creatures and decoding those signals is a big part of what marketing insights and data teams are all about.

As smartphones are rapidly becoming people’s first screens where they do everything from watching their favorite shows to doing their online banking it becomes even more critical to understand the mobile piece of the puzzle…and it’s complicated by the size of the screen, the number of functions of the device and an ad ecosystem that’s still figuring out how to design for a mobile world.

LdJ: An issue highlighted in the report was the lack of a consistent understanding or definition around what customer attention in mobile means. How do you define customer attention when it comes to mobile and what can be done to create a common understanding across the board?

LB: Interestingly a lot of our survey respondents used metrics like traffic and viewability as proxies for attention—we think it goes a lot deeper. We define attention as “all the discrete behaviors a consumer exhibits on their mobile devices to signal involvement while looking at an advertisement.” Examples of attention might include tilts, horizontal swipes, scrolls, views and other ways that people engage on their mobile devices.

LdJ: Attention analytics is an emerging area as advertisers are beginning to realize that just because an impression was viewable or brand-safe doesn’t mean someone actually saw it.

LB: We’re working with a number of partners in the industry toward developing a common approach to attention metrics and best practices for using them appropriately.  We’re excited to be at the forefront of evolving digital advertising metrics.

LdJ: Which events or signals should marketers be tracking to get a full view of the consumer journey in mobile? And, how will this view help to improve retargeting and reengagement efforts, as customers move further down the funnel?

LB: It’s not a one size fits all answer: we work with our clients to understand the KPIs that matter to them and use our data to find and model the signals that deliver on their goals. We then use these signals to optimize targeting of users, creative and inventory. We find commonalities across campaigns and categories but creative and media matter.

As marketers start to understand what messages are breaking through, where and with whom in real-time they can start to optimize things like frequency, message sequencing, retargeting and create ad experiences personalized to user behavior.

98% of respondents believe that attention metrics would drive value for their organizations.

LdJ: How important is it to create mobile ads for engagement vs conversion and how can brands and publishers accomplish this?

LB: Both engagement and conversion are important—one of the misconceptions about mobile is that it’s just a direct response medium but our survey respondents use mobile for both brand and demand activities which just makes SENSE.  If I’m streaming a show on my mobile device while on my commute I’m in a completely different state of mind then if I’m shopping for a pair of shoes—most of us do both but we’re going to be receptive to a different type of ad message in each of those scenarios.

Content and context always matter in media and it’s about matching those to the right environments.  Our attention signal can help advertisers understand when they’re getting it right and when maybe they aren’t and our machine learning models can help advertisers and publishers match inventory and opportunity.

LdJ: As mentioned in the report, investing in the right ad tech is definitely one way that brands can get a clearer picture of mobile ad effectiveness, but is there also a way that publisher partners can better help brands to understand customer attention metrics?

LB: Absolutely.  Publishers are in an increasingly strong position with valuable first-party data that can help them differentiate audiences and inventory.  We’re working with our publisher partners to connect our attention signal to their audience and placement data to help deliver the most relevant audiences to advertisers and the most compelling advertising experience to consumers.

Nearly 80% of marketers are hungry for better customer attention data, while 63% of respondents said they plan to invest in customer attention metrics.

A majority of respondents said they were interested in gaining deeper insights around customer behavior and interactions with mobile ads (e.g., the attention your customer gives an ad)—30% said they were extremely interested, while 49% and 13% said they were very and moderately interested, respectively.

Could attention analytics be the next mobile metric?

The post Beyond Viewability: Marketers Seek to Master Mobile Attention Analytics appeared first on AdMonsters.

The eagle has landed: Adelaide offers advertisers a dashboard with insights for frequency, creative, awareness and more  based on real-time measurement of user engagement and a proprietary slice of machine learning. Horizon Media has signed on on as the company’s first client.

“CPMs are valued as if all exposures are equally helpful toward brand building—yet this has never really been the case,” says Adam Heimlich, the recently named President of Adelaide. “If you advertise to build share-of-mind, attention is what matters.

I passed some questions Adam’s way to hear more about Adelaide, optimizing toward attention, and what’s next for transacting on time.

GAVIN DUNAWAY: So is this is a pretty big re-imagining of Parsec or simply a new offering?

ADAM HEIMLICH: It’s an expansion and upgrade of the Parsec vision. Instead of ad units that maximize attention, Adelaide helps you shift investments toward attention across all direct and programmatic placements. Like when aQuantive spun off Atlas, we’re making our in-house measurement a standalone SaaS product so everyone can learn what we learned.

GD: What does “optimizing to attention” actually entail? What are key components?

AH: They are duration, coverage, and clutter. It’s difficult to weigh these factors, so scores predictably correspond to brand lift. We have four years of experience with this. When we say, “attention” we’re talking about precise quantities that drive incremental lift.

GD: What metrics do you think advertisers not pay enough attention to? How can they better leverage these?

AH: The share of a target audience that sees your optimal frequency. If 5 is optimal and your global average is 5, you might have a huge problem—everybody is at either 0 or 20. We built Adelaide to help brands advance from optimal frequency to optimal attention, and to put their entire target audience in that zone. Lift will spike.

GD: Is there still hope for scaling transactions based on guaranteed time or attention? What are the biggest roadblocks to adoption?

AH: Yes, Parsec continues to serve brands with our premium guaranteed-attention product. The biggest roadblocks to adoption are the inertia behind less precise metrics, like viewable impressions, and challenges comparing the value of Parsec to other media sellers.

Though it’s not our goal, the value transparency Adelaide brings might help mitigate this second obstacle. That said, Adelaide is 100% partner-agnostic and we never pitch Parsec in response to Adelaide inquiries.

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