# Attention Metrics
> Technology profile in The State of Streaming directory.
- Profile type: Technology
- Profile status: baseline
- Last updated: 2026-05-03T00:00:00.000Z
- Canonical URL: https://thestateofstreaming.com/tech/attention-metrics/
- Also known as: attention measurement, attention metrics, attention currency, attention data, attention scoring
## Summary
Attention metrics measure whether viewers actually engaged with an ad, going beyond viewability and impressions. They combine eye-tracking panels, behavioral signals, and biometric proxies to score creative and placement quality, and have emerged in 2024-2026 as the industry's third measurement currency alongside reach and outcomes.
## Definition
Attention metrics are measurement methodologies designed to quantify whether — and how intensely — a viewer engaged with an advertisement, rather than only whether the ad had the opportunity to be seen. They combine several technique families: passive eye-tracking panels (cameras and gaze trackers in opted-in households), behavioral and interaction signals (mouse movement, scroll velocity, dwell time, touch patterns), survey-validated biometric proxies (facial coding, emotional response), and modeled scores that infer attention probability from placement context (position, ad density, surrounding content, device type). The category emerged as a response to the well-documented gap between viewable impressions — which only confirm an ad rendered in-view for a minimum duration — and actual cognitive engagement. Following the November 2025 IAB/MRC Attention Measurement Guidelines and the 2025 collapse of Nielsen's cross-platform monopoly, attention has been positioned as the third standard currency for advertising transactions, alongside reach/impressions and business outcomes.
## Market size
Nascent and growing; no consensus market-size figure exists. eMarketer profiled the category in 2025-2026 as moving from theory to standardized practice following the November 2025 IAB/MRC guidelines. (as of 2025-11-19). Source: eMarketer — Attention measurement inches toward credibility with new IAB and MRC standards — https://www.emarketer.com/content/attention-measurement-inches-toward-credibility-with-new-iab-mrc-standards

## Key trends

- Standardization arrived in November 2025: the IAB and MRC published the first cross-vendor Attention Measurement Guidelines, giving buyers a framework to compare attention vendors that previously each defined the metric their own way.
- Viant's $40M April 2026 acquisition of TVision Insights collapsed the neutral panel that iSpot, VideoAmp, and Oracle all licensed — relocating attention measurement from independent utility to DSP-owned capability.
- Attention as the third currency post-Nielsen: with the Joint Industry Committee certifying alt-currency vendors and Nielsen ONE no longer the default, attention has been positioned alongside reach and outcomes as a third transactable measure.
- Brand-side adoption is running ahead of agency-side: Adelaide's 2026 Outcomes Guide reports a 33% average upper-funnel lift and 53% lower-funnel impact across 60 case studies, with brand demand pulling agencies into attention-conditioned planning.
- Cross-vendor partnerships are replacing single-source measurement: TVision-Lumen (cross-platform eye-tracking), Realeyes-Adelaide (creative + media attention), and Adelaide-Nielsen ONE integration all point toward stitched-together attention stacks rather than one-vendor wins.


## Major players

- viant technology — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/viant-technology/
- tvision insights — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/tvision-insights/
- adelaide — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/adelaide/
- lumen research — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/lumen-research/
- realeyes — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/realeyes/
- amplified intelligence — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/amplified-intelligence/
- dentsu — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/dentsu/


## Key facts

- The IAB and MRC released the first standardized Attention Measurement Guidelines in November 2025, the result of a year-long cross-industry working group. — IAB / MRC Attention Measurement Guidelines, Final Version 1.0, November 2025: https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/IAB_MRC_Attention_Measurement_Guidelines_November_2025.pdf
- Viant Technology agreed to acquire TVision Insights for $40 million ($22.5M cash + $17.5M Viant Class A stock) on April 15, 2026, expected to close Q2 2026. — Viant IR press release: https://www.viantinc.com/company/news/press-releases/viant-announces-agreement-to-acquire-tvision-strengthening-its-ai-powered-programmatic-platform/
- Adelaide's AU score is a 0-100 composite that estimates attention probability from media-environment signals (position, coverage, context) and placement-level behavioral data; an independent audit found the methodology 'transparent, reproducible, and independently verifiable.' — The Media Leader — Adelaide AU audit coverage: https://uk.themedialeader.com/adelaides-attention-unit-follows-data-science-best-practice-according-to-audit/
- Adelaide's 2026 Outcomes Guide compiled 60 case studies across 16 industries, reporting an average 33% lift in upper-funnel KPIs and 53% increase in lower-funnel impact across attention-powered campaigns in 2025. — Adelaide — 2026 Outcomes Guide: https://www.adelaidemetrics.com/blog/adelaide-releases-2026-outcomes-guide
- Realeyes and Adelaide announced a partnership in February 2026 to combine creative-side attention (Realeyes facial coding) with media-side attention scoring (Adelaide AU). — Adelaide blog — Realeyes partnership announcement: https://www.adelaidemetrics.com/blog/realeyes-adelaide-introduce-new-potential-for-advertising-quality-through-creative-and-media-attention-data


## Related

- viant technology (Owns TVision Insights post-close; sells attention-adjusted CPM) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/viant-technology/
- tvision insights (Eye-tracking panel; Viant subsidiary as of April 2026) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/tvision-insights/
- ispot tv (Held exclusive co-viewing-utilization rights to TVision data 2022-2026; pivoting post-acquisition) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/ispot-tv/
- videoamp (TVision licensee for CTV co-viewing data) — https://thestateofstreaming.com/companies/videoamp/


## External coverage

- IAB: IAB Attention Measurement Industry Framework (https://www.iab.com/guidelines/attention/)
- 2025-11-19 — IAB / MRC: IAB / MRC Attention Measurement Guidelines, Final Version 1.0 (https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/IAB_MRC_Attention_Measurement_Guidelines_November_2025.pdf)
- Adelaide: Attention Metrics 101 — The Fundamentals of Attention (https://www.adelaidemetrics.com/attention-resources/the-fundamentals-of-attention-metrics)
- eMarketer: Attention measurement inches toward credibility with new IAB and MRC standards (https://www.emarketer.com/content/attention-measurement-inches-toward-credibility-with-new-iab-mrc-standards)
- Digiday: Adelaide's AU attention metric is being folded into Nielsen ONE (https://digiday.com/media-buying/nielsen-enhances-its-cross-platform-offering-with-attention-metrics-from-adelaide/)

## Profile
Attention metrics are the industry's third attempt to fix what impressions and viewability could not: confirming that an ad placement was actually engaged with rather than merely served and rendered. The category groups several methodologies — passive eye-tracking panels in opted-in households, computer-vision facial coding of creative response, behavioral signals like dwell and scroll patterns, and modeled scores that infer attention probability from placement context — under a shared promise that media buyers can grade quality before spending and reconcile against business outcomes after.

For most of the 2020-2024 period, attention was a thesis sold by a small set of independent vendors. Adelaide's AU score offered a 0-100 omnichannel composite. TVision ran the eye-tracking panel that iSpot, VideoAmp, and Oracle all licensed for CTV-grade attention data. Lumen built webcam-based panels in the UK and US. Realeyes brought creative-side facial coding. Amplified Intelligence's Karen Nelson-Field anchored the academic work and shaped the IAB/MRC working group. Each defined the metric somewhat differently, which made cross-vendor comparison the buy side's biggest objection.

Two events in late 2025 and early 2026 changed the category's posture. The IAB and MRC published the first standardized [Attention Measurement Guidelines](https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/IAB_MRC_Attention_Measurement_Guidelines_November_2025.pdf) in November 2025 — a cross-industry framework that gave buyers a way to compare vendors that previously each owned their own definition. Five months later, [Viant agreed to acquire TVision Insights for $40 million](/measurement-data/2026/04/viant-tvision-attention-currency-acquisition/), folding the neutral panel iSpot, VideoAmp, and Oracle had all built products on top of into a demand-side platform's bidder. The first event made attention transactable across vendors; the second made one of the largest neutral-utility panels proprietary to a buying platform, raising the question of whether attention sold from inside a DSP can still serve as a cross-platform currency.

The structural debate now centers on three open questions: whether the JIC's currency-certification rubric — designed for independent measurement vendors — is reopened to address DSP-owned candidates as a separate class; whether the remaining independent attention firms (Adelaide, Amplified Intelligence, Lumen, Realeyes) consolidate or specialize by methodology; and whether brand demand, which Adelaide's 2026 Outcomes Guide reports is delivering 33% upper-funnel lift and 53% lower-funnel impact, pulls agencies into attention-conditioned planning faster than the holdcos can resolve their own measurement-stack overlap.

## Tags

- attention
- measurement
- tvision
- adelaide
- lumen
- realeyes
- eye-tracking
- currency
- alt-currency
- iab-mrc
- measurement-data

---
View this profile in a browser: https://thestateofstreaming.com/tech/attention-metrics/
Browse the directory: https://thestateofstreaming.com/tech/
Machine-readable index: https://thestateofstreaming.com/llms.txt