What is Attention CPM? | What’s the Buzz Glossary

Stop paying for impressions; start paying for attention. aCPM reveals the true cost of genuine audience engagement.

 

Attention CPM—often written aCPM or attentive CPM—is the cost of generating one‑thousand seconds of verified consumer attention to an advertisement. Unlike a standard CPM that prices impressions, aCPM prices the actual time a viewer spends engaged. The metric combines viewability (was the ad in‑view), visibility (did someone look or listen) and dwell time (for how long), making it a closer proxy for opportunity to influence.

Why it matters

Buying cheap impressions can be a false economy if audiences scroll past or look away. By translating every channel into the common currency of attentive seconds, planners can compare TV, online video, social, display and audio on a like‑for‑like basis. In practice, advertisers often discover that high‑priced premium video delivers a lower aCPM—and therefore more value—than bargain display inventory once passive exposure is filtered out.

How aCPM is calculated

 

The numerator is total media spend for the placement or campaign. The denominator is the aggregated attentive seconds, usually sourced from eye‑tracking or head‑tracking panels that have been calibrated to larger impression counts via modelling. Dividing spend by attentive seconds yields cost per second; multiplying by 1 000 expresses cost per thousand attentive seconds, aligning the metric with familiar CPM scales.

Key components

  • Opportunity to See (OTS) establishes that an ad met baseline viewability; 
  • Viewed impressions confirm that someone actually looked;
  • Dwell time measures how long they remained attentive.

 

Component Measured by Typical source
Opportunity to See (viewable impression) % of ads that met industry viewability standards Ad server / MRC metrics
Viewed impressions % of viewable ads that were actually looked at Eye‑ or head‑tracking panels
Dwell time Seconds eyes (or ears) remained on the ad Same attention panels

Multiplying these elements gives Attentive Seconds per impression, which, when aggregated over a campaign, plugs into the aCPM formula. The table below summarises typical measurement sources.

 

Use cases

  • Normalise disparate channels onto one attention‑based price tag.
  • Budget optimisation: Shift spend toward placements that provide the most attentive seconds per dollar.
  • Creative benchmarking: Flag creative variants that punch above or below their weight in attention terms.
  • Post‑campaign reporting: Tell a richer ROI story by showing not just reach but engaged reach.

Attention data sets are still relatively small compared with traditional reach data, and collection methods (camera‑on‑device vs. in‑home panel) can influence results. Additionally, attention is necessary but not sufficient: an ad can be watched yet still be forgettable or unpersuasive. Use aCPM alongside other quality metrics such as brand lift, sales effect, or creative diagnostics.

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