Here’s what our report found:

1. Up to 55% of ad inventory is spent on made-for-advertising websites. 

Lumen and Exchangewire found that, on average, advertisers estimate that about 15% of their ad inventory is delivered to made-for-advertising websites. But on the high end, some media buyers are still delivering ads to inventory where made-for-advertising websites make up more than half (55%) of the ad inventory.

When ad budget gets spent on MFA websites, most of the media spend goes to waste on impressions that aren’t seen.

“MFA websites appear at a surface level to provide great value — impressions are typically

‘viewable’ and low cost – what’s not to like?” says Katie Hartley, managing director at dentsu.

“In reality, all brands are really looking to achieve something beyond simply being delivered.

Just because an ad is viewable, it doesn’t mean that it will be viewed. Our research with

Lumen showed us that on some sites most digital display ads go entirely unseen.”

A lot of this has to do with a broken system of advertising metrics that optimize for potential reach, instead of real attention.  

2. Brand Metrics Drive Higher MFA Ad Inventory.

Metrics make a big difference when it comes to exposure to MFA websites. According to the report, campaigns measured by CPM, brand safety, and awareness are more likely to be exposed to poor-quality websites. 

Here’s why:

1. CPM: Budget-based campaigns prioritize efficiency of spend over effectiveness of media, buying on cheap ad impressions instead of effective impressions.

2. Brand Safety: Blocking potentially controversial or negative web content can unintentionally filter out high-attention publishers when the criteria becomes too stringent. 

3. Awareness: Media plans that focus on “viewability” goals deliver ads to websites with high traffic and lower costs without considering the layout, content, or dwell time on the website. 

3. Performance Metrics Drive Lower MFA Ad Inventory.

When it comes to eliminating MFA websites from your media mix, it’s all about rethinking the metrics for the campaign. The report found that optimizing for performance metrics like clicks, incrementality, and attention drive lower MFA ad inventory: 

• Clicks: Prioritizing conversions and cost-per-action can focus bidding on actual engagement from audiences, ensuring ads are delivered to websites with higher interaction and longer dwell times 

• Incrementality: Ensuring ads are delivered to net new audiences that haven’t already purchased a product or been exposed to the brand incentivizes programmatic bidding based on specific audience segments and actions, not traffic or reach 

• Attention: Bidding based on attentive seconds per 1000 impressions (APM) instead of cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) prioritizes impressions that are the most likely to be seen  

In the report, agencies explain that attention metrics can help change media planning for the better. 

“At a baseline level, we use % viewed to measure the proportion of impressions that

receive any eye gaze at all,” says Jon Waite, global managing director at Havas Media Network. “This allows us to identify inattentive impressions and reduce

wastage. Beyond this, levels of attentive seconds (APM) tell us a lot about the quality of a

placement in terms of its size, screen real estate, format, and ad clutter — acting as a proxy for the quality of the media experience the user is likely to have.”

4. Media Buyers Use Different Tactics to Drive Efficiency.

Media buyers focus on different methodologies to ensure higher performance for campaigns. The top four tactics listed were PMPs, verification vendors, media buying partners, and in-house analysis of log-level data. 

Overall, 64% of respondents across the US and UK use PMPs to help deliver ads to domains where they are most likely to be seen. This shows that most advertisers know the importance of media quality for both ad placement and ad supply.

However, relying too much on PMPs without other targeting criteria can still result in ad waste. Our report found that 52% of media buyers with a high proportion of ads placed on MFA sites perform in-house analysis of log-level data, but MFA websites can easily slip past this kind of analysis when the filters focus on base metrics such as CPM or viewability to drive higher efficiency.

5. Made-for-Attention Strategies Start with High-Attention Publishers & Partners.

Advertisers think about targeting, audience, ad creative, and context when they build a media plan. But all those careful calibrations can go out the window when the objectives are based on the wrong metrics. Lumen’s attention data shows that, no matter how good an ad might look or an offer might be, the user experience matters most: with the wrong format and the wrong environment, audiences don’t even see your ad in the first place.  

There are three ways to ensure better media quality from start to finish for your campaigns:

1. Target Slow Media. 

• The top 25% of domains drive 11× higher attention to display and 5× higher attention to video ads

• Websites with a rich content experience leads to deeper engagement, slower scrolling, and longer viewable time

• These factors drive higher attention scores to ads

2. Focus on Supply with Low Ad Clutter.

• Ads at the center of the screen receive 20% higher attention than other ads
  

• Websites with 3+ ads on the screen reduce attention on desktop by 50% on desktop and attention on mobile by 500%

3. Find Made-for-Attention Partners to Get Started. 

• WeTransfer generates 150% higher attention than desktop display ads 

• Seedtag drives 3.3x higher attention than IAB formats and 37% higher attention compared to social media

• Teads ad creative drives +49% higher attention 

• Azerion high impact formats amplify the attention of subsequent standard format ads by 43%, leading to 20% lower cost-per-action

• Anzu in-game advertising drives 98% viewability with 3 seconds of average view time and 49% ad recall

• Bidstack in-game ad units get 2x higher attention than digital norms

• Digital Turbine in-game ad units are viewed for 22 seconds on average - more than a typical 30-second TV ad 

• Snapchat augmented reality formats drive 20% higher ad recall 

Targeting the Right Level of Attention

Attention metrics have emerged as a standard tactic for driving higher media efficiency, but how can attention drive bottom-line business results? It’s all about identifying the right level of attention for your custom campaign goals. 

Lumen’s attention targeting strategy, the Lumen Loop, analyzes historic programmatic campaign data and outcomes data to curate high-attention ad inventory specific to the brand - using attention metrics to find the sweet spot between cost and performance. 

This attentive PMP, powered by a single deal ID, can easily be activated across existing partners to drive made-for-attention strategies - and, with a direct DSP integration, performance can be tracked across the funnel.

This is how an auto brand saw +441% higher conversions and +218% higher qualified conversions after using an attentive PMP powered by the Lumen Loop. And, by targeting the high-attention domains custom to the brand, the cost-per-action of the campaign dropped by 58% at the same time.

Just by redefining the metrics of an ad campaign, media buyers can optimize their existing media plans and drive higher efficiency and effectiveness with made-for-attention advertising.

Want to learn more? Download the full copy of “The MFA Report 2024: From Made for Advertising to Made for Attention” below.