Glossary · Marketing Strategy
Attention Economics
also: cost per attention second · CPAS · attention-based media buying
Definition
Attention economics prices media against the attention it actually produces, not impressions or clicks. A display banner costing 2.50 CPM may generate zero attention seconds, making its true cost per attention second far higher than a connected-TV ad priced at 25 CPM. Correcting for attention reshuffles media-plan ROI rankings.
Advertisers buy impressions but want attention. Attention measurement (eye-tracking, facial coding, inferred dwell) reveals that display banners, pre-roll, and in-feed video produce radically different attention per impression. When attention is the denominator, connected-TV and audio inventory — expensive on CPM — become cheap on cost-per-attention-second, while programmatic display reverses. The reframing has driven the rise of attention-based media buying platforms (Adelaide, Lumen, TVision).
Essays on this concept
- Digital Economics
Attention Economics Quantified: Measuring the True CPM of Cognitive Load in Digital Advertising
CPM measures whether an ad loaded in a browser. It says nothing about whether a human noticed it. Here's a framework for pricing what actually matters — the cognitive cost of attention — and why the gap between CPM and true attention cost is where billions in ad spend disappear.
- Marketing Engineering
Customer Lifetime Value as a Control Variable: Re-Engineering Bid Strategies for Profitable Growth
Your bid algorithm optimizes for conversions. But a $50 customer who churns in month one and a $50 customer who stays for three years look identical at the point of acquisition. CLV-based bidding fixes the denominator.
- Marketing Engineering
Creative Fatigue Detection Using Entropy Metrics: An Automated Framework for Ad Refresh Cycles
By the time your dashboard shows declining CTR, creative fatigue has already cost you weeks of wasted spend. Shannon entropy applied to engagement signals detects fatigue 11 days earlier than traditional frequency caps.
- Marketing Engineering
The Hidden Cost of Optimization: How Over-Fitted Algorithms Destroy Long-Term Brand Equity
Your bidding algorithm gets better every quarter. Your brand gets weaker every year. This is not a coincidence — it's Goodhart's Law applied to marketing, and the compounding damage is invisible until it's too late.
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