As we embark on 2023, the marketing arena remains in a state of change and the metrics used to measure the success of a campaign must adapt accordingly. Last year, Convo Ink conducted an extensive analysis of over 20 million content articles and gathered over 275 million data points on the content consumption habits of Australians. After sifting through this vast amount of information, our team has enhanced our Quality Attention Score (QAS) to better reflect the true attention that quality content demands.

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Previously our QAS was based on three core pillars: Time in View, Engagement, and Environment. However, we've found that these three pillars were too narrow to provide the complete picture of the audience's attention on a piece of content.

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One of our key metrics, "Time in View," provides a strong indication of a person's attention with a particular piece of content. High-quality content naturally commands attention and increases the amount of time spent viewing it. However, the emergence and widespread use of "sticky ads" has disrupted this measure. These types of units can keep content on the screen for large amounts of time, even if the audience member is not actively viewing the content.

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This is why we must complement "Time in View" with additional metrics that better reflect the audience's actual level of attention. By incorporating these additional measures, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior. These measures could include:

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• Share of Screen - measuring the size of the content on the screen assesses whether the consumer could be paying attention to something else
• Swipes on Content - tracking user-initiated engagement with the content
• Slide Depth - indicates how far into the content the consumer has explored
• Video Plays - records if the consumer has played any videos within the content

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You can see that by adding in these additional filters, a much clearer understanding of audience attention is gained.

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In 2023 Convo Inks QAS now incorporates 7 key metrics:

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Each of the 7 metrics within a campaign is assigned an index score ranging from 0 to 2.35 by dividing the campaign's metric result by the Convo Ink average. If a score is equal to the Convo Ink average, it will receive a score of 1.

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Below is an example that compares 3 campaigns and their respective campaign swipe percentages:

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We can see the index provides a quick way to interpret campaign results. Campaigns 1 and 3 are above average, while campaign 2 fell below the average score of 1.

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Our algorithm uses these indexes to produce the Quality Attention Score (QAS), which has a maximum possible value of 150. 

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Example of Convo Ink 2023 reporting (random data)

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So far in 2023, the average Quality Attention Score (QAS) is currently 66.7 with scores above 100 are considered exceptional. Put simply, if all the prescribed measures are active and perform well within a campaign, it is a strong indicator that the audience is paying high attention.

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Some further evolutions to  measures in 2023:

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• The way we measure time in view has undergone some enhancements. Toward the end of last year, we observed a substantial rise in unclosed browser sessions leading to inflated time in view results due to longer-than-expected sessions. We have made the decision to exclude these results, resulting in a decrease in the overall time in view.
• Our engagement metric has been revised to encompass all user-initiated interactions within our content, including swipes, clicks, and video plays. This has led to an increase in the overall engagement benchmark across Convo Ink. We have also added improvements to our measurement capabilities which allows us to capture unique devices within our engagement numbers.

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The advantages of the improved 2023 QAS are:

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• A stronger, more comprehensive view of audience attention that cross references multiple measures to provide the most accurate attention representation to date
• Clients will now have access to a wider range of data sets, allowing for a deeper understanding of areas where content performance can be improved
• The measures can be more easily understood through the use of indexing and can be compared to both Convo Ink and industry-specific benchmarks

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The evolution of our QAS is an important step in providing agencies and clients with the insights to succeed in the ever-evolving content marketing landscape. We're excited to see the positive impact of this update and are committed to continuously improving our algorithms to better serve our customers.