Supply-side platforms have it pretty rough right now.
Take Sharethrough, which is zooming in on attention metrics to differentiate itself from the masses. On Monday, the SSP announced a partnership with attention metrics provider Adelaide to curate ad inventory packages based on attention.
Sharethrough was already working toward boosting attention on client campaigns by building new ad formats. But Adelaide fills a “pretty massive hole” in actually rating that attention, which should improve outcomes for advertisers and draw in fresh demand, said Frank Maguire, VP of insights and strategy at Sharethrough.
And a good chunk of that opportunity lies in television. Connected TV is one of Sharethrough’s biggest growth drivers from both a revenue and inventory standpoint, Maguire said.
Center of attention
Sharethrough’s foray into attention started with creating ad formats designed to grab viewer attention with visuals such as captioning, QR codes and sports tickers.
But the SSP’s formula for capturing attention wasn’t as exact as Adelaide’s, which uses software that ingests information from a client’s online platform, including session duration, the number of ad units and genre and time of day for TV.
The company then pours all this data into an algorithm, which spits out a score that predicts the probability that a viewer’s attention to a particular ad will result in a conversion or sale.
Adelaide’s attention unit (AU) metric is also channel-specific.
For example, an ad that elicits high attention on television is more likely to result in a business outcome than its counterpart on an online platform, such as Facebook, said Marc Guldimann, founder and CEO of Adelaide. And that also means AUs skew higher for TV ads.
And with Adelaide onboard, Sharethrough can tag all its inventory with AU scores.
Programmatic pragmatics
Based on Adelaide’s AU indexes, Sharethrough plans to package inventory with above-average attention scores in a “high AU” private marketplace (PMP).
“Now, we’ll be able to curate inventory down to the placement level for brands so they’re only targeting placements that index higher for attention on a particular channel,” Maguire said.
Up until now, sorting inventory by viewability was the closest Sharethrough got to attention-based supply. By refining its focus, Sharethrough is in a better position to help clients avoid ad placements that don’t drive outcomes, such as made-for-advertising sites that have high viewability but low attention.
Sharethrough plans to make its high-attention inventory available as an “off-the-shelf” PMP package that’ll be available a range of DSPs, including Xandr, The Trade Desk and DV360.
The SSP is starting with PMPs to capture attention for its attention-based bundles. Buyers in open exchanges are typically already shopping for something specific, whereas buyers in PMPs are more reliant on SSPs to curate inventory package deals.
Tuning in
Sharethrough is also focusing more on TV as a channel, which still has a serious viewability problem despite captive audiences.
According to Sharethrough’s research, about 78% of viewers don’t pay attention to TV commercials, which obviously aren’t effective if viewers don’t absorb them.
Part of the reason why Sharethrough chose Adelaide as a partner is because it licenses panel data from TVision. “What we’re trying to do is bring people’s attention back onto the TV screen,” Maguire said.
To measure attention of TV inventory, Adelaide ingests eye-tracking and ad exposure data from TVision to generate an AU score. It also analyzes pod placement, genre, time of day and show title – “if we can get it,” Guldimann said. (Show-level transparency is still an issue because of privacy concerns.)
The question now, according to Maguire, is whether Adelaide’s AU scores will help the SSP improve business outcomes for connected TV to the same degree as the rest of the digital landscape. Stay tuned.
