Why planners are investing so heavily in Meta, despite attention metrics
Opinion
In response to Mike Follett’s comments at Future of Media Manchester, one planner advises interrogating the platforms and tweaking how you utilise them; don’t blindly de-invest because of the attention metrics.
At Future of Media Manchester, Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research, had a call-to-action for media planners in the industry: “Do your fucking job. Actually think: where am I going to get the best result for my clients?” This came as part of a broader conversation on attention, with Peter Field stating that while smaller, start-up brands see results from performance marketing, to continue growing, investment needs to shift into high-attention media.
Missing from the conversation was the voice of media planners. We are doing our job in an increasingly measured digital ad space; we are interrogating multiple metrics and utilising third-party measurement to ensure we’re not letting platforms mark their own homework.
We are examining aspects such as whether a video was played with sound on, the time it spent in view, whether it was displayed full-screen or not, and the environment in which it appeared.
We’re also examining GA4 and finding that not only do Meta and TikTok deliver low-cost reach and on-platform engagement, but they also drive website traffic and sales. Metrics that are very tasty for our clients.
The power of social
Attention measurement indicates that social platforms have a low time-in-view and, therefore, incur a high cost of attention. My question is: if people don’t notice ads on Meta and TikTok, then why do they react, comment and share? Why do people follow and engage with brands they love on low-attention platforms? Why do ads that, on average, spend less than five seconds in view still translate into performance?
That’s the key; social platforms are powerful despite their inattentiveness.
The data that powers them is just that good. Beyond their pixel data, think about all the ways you may have used your Facebook profile to log in to other platforms like Airbnb, Tinder or ASOS.
They know what content you’re watching, what apps and platforms you’re using and what you’re buying. This is a goldmine of data that other ad suppliers cannot compete with.
However, I agree with Mike in part. We do need to use our brains and not fall hook, line and sinker into Meta’s hands. Meta wants advertisers’ money, so it wants you to use ‘Automatic Placements’ to deliver your ads across its entire ad network. The reality is that many of these placements will do little for your brand other than delivering impressions.
Don’t let AI take hold of your Meta budgets
Meta doesn’t hide that data from you; you just need to look for it. At Republic of Media, we recently interrogated over 200m ad impressions and found that ads delivered against Rewarded Video had the highest view-through rates, but the lowest ad-recall rates. Allowing AI to take hold of your Meta budgets will only exacerbate the issue.
In reality, a small percentage of your impressions may be delivering the performance, with the rest wasted on firing out impressions that Meta can charge you for.
Therefore, my call to action to media planners would be to interrogate the platforms and tweak how you utilise them; don’t blindly de-invest because of the attention metrics. Identify which platforms and placements are delivering the best performance and eliminate the rest.
Stop blaming planners. It’s their clients who make media ineffective
Where your clients aren’t pure performance, move budgets into upper-funnel, attentive media, but be fully aware of what you’re buying. This is where attention measurement can really help us. You cannot reasonably look at every article your ad appeared against programmatically, but you can work on an inclusion list of websites that you deem suitable.
You can utilise attention metrics to buy ads in low-cluttered spaces. You can also teach your clients about brand suitability, so that they’re not just avoiding all seemingly ‘negative’ online content – this steers budget away from quality journalism onto made-for-advertising sites.
Lastly, be cautious of relying solely on one method of measurement. Utilise multiple sources and your experience as a planner to make informed decisions for your clients.
It is your human input and common sense working alongside the ad tech and measurement tools that are valuable. We don’t have to make enemies of any platforms – we need to use our heads to figure out their value on the plan.
Francesca Coia is the business director of digital strategy and innovation at Republic of Media.