Everyone equates high CPM with high attention. Attention metrics say no.

Everyone equates high CPM with high attention. Attention metrics say no.

CPM prices scarcity and brand safety, not engagement. Attention-measurement vendors (Adelaide's AU, Lumen eye-tracking) repeatedly find expensive premium placements scoring low attention because they sit in cluttered, ad-dense pages where readers have learned to tune out.

Meanwhile some mid-CPM in-content native units score high attention precisely because they're the only commercial element on a clean reading page.

You're often paying more for less looking. If your buying still ranks inventory by CPM and viewability alone, you're optimizing for the two metrics least correlated with whether a human actually attended to your ad.