Attention metrics set for further growth as cookie departs

Can attention metrics replace cookies? New research on attention measurement suggests marketers need to prioritise segmentation, context and relevance as marketing moves away from cookie-based targeting.

Dr Karen Nelson-Field, the founder and CEO of Amplified Intelligence and Stacy Malone, the vice president of global business marketing of Pinterest

The end of cookies and third-party data will usher in a renewed focus on marketing segmentation, with new research on attention metrics helping boost its role as a crucial baseline for marketers, according to Karen Nelson-Field.

Dr Nelson-Field, a research pioneer and expert on attention metrics, told The Growth Agenda that the industry was poised to return to a focus on marketing segmentation models, with context and relevance to take on greater importance as marketers seek more effective and efficient marketing activity.

“We’re going back to the future with segmentation, back to targeting ‘like types’. Attention will be the baseline, but there’ll be layers of context within the framework, and that’s where I see it going. So attention, context, relevance is exactly where I see the future, because it amplifies so much,” Dr Nelson-Field said.

Her comments come in the wake of Google announcing yet another delay in third-party cookie deprecation, which it has pushed back to 2025.

Her view aligns with the findings of new attention-based research, conducted by Dr Nelson-Field’s business Amplified Intelligence in partnership with global social media app Pinterest to explore the link between audience attention and business outcomes.

Amplified Intelligence undertakes attention research using biometric data that is collected from eye tracking technology and device cameras.

The company films people using formats and platforms in real time to understand the relationship between advertising messages, ­advertising formats and platforms. The research has identified three key attention measurements. These are active attention, which is looking directly at the ad, passive attention, which is looking nearby but not directly at the ad, and non-attention, where the face is not ­detected or even in the room.

While attention measurement has been a huge growth area within marketing, the focus has been largely on capturing active attention. However, the latest study with Pinterest aimed to explore the role of passive attention, and the role both active and passive attention can have on marketing performance and business results.

The latest findings revealed passive attention can be equally important to active attention because despite operating on a more subconscious level, it can still drive meaningful results for businesses.

Both passive and active marketing tactics were found to drive actions, such as site traffic, indicating that combining the two tactics was also beneficial and cost effective.

When a return-on-investment metric was applied to calculate the amount of seconds people paid attention to a particular ad for each dollar spent, the study found that media plans targeting passive ­attention drove 6.7 times more attentive seconds per dollar, when compared to strategies targeting active attention.

“There’s a solid understanding around active attention and most people kind of understand that, but there are different ways to look at something. Sometimes it’s about looking directly at it, and sometimes there’s still an impact around not looking so directly at it because we are multi-tasking but we can concentrate on more than one thing at a time,” Dr Nelson-Field said.

Pinterest vice-president of ­global business marketing Stacy Malone said the findings of the study were significant for marketers and businesses in general ­because they showcased the value of both types of attention and how this could be employed within the customer journey.

“We like to think of it like a flywheel, where active attention is about sparking awareness and active learning and passive attention is reinforcing the memory,” Ms Malone said.

“So this idea of introduction and reintroduction is really valuable, because you have the ability to teach people new things with active attention and then remind them and maintain recency when they are at different points in the purchase funnel. That flywheel creates a velocity that you can’t get if you break it up; it’s more effective and efficient as a total play.”

The research is particularly pertinent in the current advertising landscape as the diversification of the cookie and third-party data forces businesses to change the way they target consumers online.

Against this backdrop, the importance of context and relevance are set to increase, said Ms Malone pointing to research findings that found Pinterest ads that were seen in relevant context increased active attention by more than 60 per cent, and this figure surged as high as 240 per cent in fashion categories.

“As an industry we’ve got away from context with things like programmatic media, where you’re buying the person and the impression, instead of the context. I love that this research showed the power of context because as an industry we have underestimated the power of it,” Ms Malone said.

The research also reveals that emotion is a powerful amplifier of attention. Advertisements that ­create a higher positive emotional response, such as happiness and surprise, can produce a 50 per cent increase in active attention.

“We created a formula that is active + passive attention = total ­attention. And when you multiply that by these emotional amplifiers, then you get better business outcomes,” Ms Malone said.

She pointed to the platform’s strength in this, which she claimed was supported by the finding that Pinterest ad formats helped drive 1.7 times more total attention than other social media platforms, with users scrolling ads at a rate that is 1.5 times slower than the rate on other social media platforms.

“One of the biggest challenges marketers face is how to capture attention. There’s just so much noise in the system, and it’s not just advertising, it’s family, work, friends, there’s so much going on. This research was so critical because people want to understand attention and how to capture that mindshare. And then to see that there are amplifiers, there are things you can do, like be in a contextually relevant environment or have creative with the happiness and surprise high arousal-type emotions. The research shows there is something you can do to help boost your brand and attention.”

Dr Nelson-Field said: “Marketers need to understand this is our new normal and this is what is real. Most people still think that you can change how I view something, and that is not real. (Marketers) need to understand how attention works and how to capture it but in reality that yes, I love Pinterest, but I also love my dog, and I also have to cook for my family. So I might be looking at a food page, but I’m also doing other stuff, which is why the passive piece really works.”

The study, which incorporated 60,000 views and six countries, provided a “missing gap” in attention metrics. “What’s really valuable here is we were able to consider attention at such a scale. And moreover, its value is directly linked to outcomes, and how that interplays for big and small brands,” Dr Nelson-Field said.