Magnetic’s ‘Pay Attention’ study found that magazine print environments deliver high quality attention for advertisers because of the trusted and relevant context, passionate audiences and positive non interruptive advertising experience. We wanted to see if this was also true of magazine digital environments.

In partnership with Lumen and using their eye tracking methodology, we measured ‘eyes on’ attention to advertising on magazine websites. ‘Putting Attention in Context’ benchmarks magazine online environments against Lumen digital norms for other quality content sites and social media.

This study looks at the proportion of adverts that were viewable, actually viewed and for how long, providing one single number on which to compare the performance of magazine websites – attentive seconds per thousand impressions.

It concludes that advertising on magazine websites are noticed by more people for longer than equivalent ads on close comparator sites.

It highlights the value of well laid out sites, with fewer better ads and ‘slower content’ (people scroll slowly) written by expert journalists to keep the attention of audiences and provide a tangle benefit to advertisers.

It re-ignites the discourse about context, demonstrating the value of quality media and relevant ad placement to improve the effectiveness of advertising in the digital space.

Crucially it also finds that attention to advertising matters because it’s linked to recall, intention to purchase and incremental sales. Contact insight@magnetic.media for more information.