How Domino’s and Expedia Use Attention to Improve Campaign Effectiveness

As the next wave of attention metrics evolves, brands like Domino’s and Expedia Group are going beyond simply measuring attention to using tools to identify new audiences and understand the content and messaging that resonates, ultimately leading to more effective campaigns.

Contextual ad-tech firm GumGum, which last year acquired attention-tracking vendor Playground xyz and its panel of 30,000 users, launched The Mindset Platform across global markets to help marketers use attention to drive campaign performance.

The platform—essentially internal tools combining creative, attention and contextual solutions—combines proprietary technology with Playground xyz’s eye-tracking data to determine how an ad’s creative quality and channel placement impact how much attention viewers pay to it, letting brands understand which placements will deliver the best returns on their ad spend. The company is also rolling out its Mindset Index, a numerical scale that marketers can use to gauge which topics most resonate with a brand’s target audience.

“All of our media being activated by GumGum will be now powered by the Mindset Platform, so it’s something that we do believe in and we do endorse,” said Ash Grant, head of global digital trading at Expedia Group, adding that going into 2024, he anticipates having more conversations about attention-based buys.

When cookie deprecation finally comes to fruition, advertisers must find ways to keep targeting their digital ads to relevant viewers in privacy-safe ways, without using behavior signals and browser history to retarget them.

To get ahead of this looming problem, some are experimenting with attention-based targeting strategies to aid campaign planning and measure effectiveness. Simultaneously, ad-tech vendors are rolling out allegedly attention-optimizing products that they can sell to brand marketers and agencies alike.

“What we’re really trying to do within this is showcase outcomes attached to attention data,” Pete Wallace, general manager of EMEA at GumGum, told Adweek. He intends for the platform to help marketers address macro industry issues like cookie deprecation, advertising ethics concerns and chronic ad fatigue.

Holding-company-owned media agencies are partnering with attention-tracking vendors like Playground xyz and others to establish dominance in the emerging space. As GumGum and ad-tech vendors scale their offerings, their tech may become more appealing to industry players, like media agencies, that haven’t yet acquired attention-tracking firms and instead rely on partnerships.

Brands uncover new audiences

Ahead of cookie deprecation, brands have been prioritizing contextual advertising—targeting people with ads based on the content they are consuming. Contextual advertising can be an effective way for marketers to reach audiences, although historically, the strategy left little room for more granular customization.

GumGum’s Mindset Platform amplifies traditional contextual advertising by taking into account which channel placements and creative strategies are most likely to capture viewers’ attention—which GumGum measures in time—and eventually, how attention levels are likely to impact sales.

GumGum piloted the Mindset Platform last year with pizza brand Domino’s. It turned out that health and fitness content viewers paid relatively high attention to Domino’s pizza ads. This spurred the brand to use contextual ads to target this new audience and other high-performing audiences. As a result, click-through rates grew by 40%, and it achieved between a 135% and 398% return on its advertising spend investment, depending on the ad format used. The company wouldn’t share specifics.

Now Expedia’s in-house media agency, EG Media, is using the platform to serve ads with upper- and mid-funnel objectives, such as driving awareness or consideration. Using metrics like attention is one way of proving how effective ads are at driving upper-funnel objectives in a post-cookie era. Expedia is focused on improving its incremental return on ad spend and monitoring how incremental reach, or attention-optimized upper-funnel marketing, drives ad spend over time. Grant declined to reveal specific campaign results.

Along with the Mindset Platform, GumGum is also launching a Contextual Research Fund that will provide up to $1.5 million for brands and agencies that want to experiment with the new platform. It’s focused on assembling more case studies that show the platform’s value.

“Maybe it’s a bit flippant, but why wouldn’t you adopt attention as a primary KPI (key performance indicator) if it’s a primary driver of performance?” Wallace posed.