OpenX’s Erika Loberg: Attention Should Measure ‘Real Human Engagement,’ Not Just Screen Presence

Why It Matters

By turning attention into a pre‑bid signal, advertisers can allocate spend to truly engaged viewers, boosting campaign efficiency and accelerating the maturation of CTV as a performance‑driven channel.

Key Takeaways

• Attention metric measures real human engagement on CTV screens
• OpenX introduces pre‑bid attention signal using TVision data
• Pre‑bid attention revalues inventory, enabling smarter bid prioritization
• Balancing attention quality with scale achieved through real‑time optimization
• Future CTV will integrate identity, contextual, and engagement signals

Summary

OpenX’s chief product officer Erika Loberg explained that the next evolution in connected‑TV (CTV) advertising is shifting the attention metric from a retrospective, post‑campaign gauge to a real‑time, pre‑bid signal that reflects genuine human engagement with the screen.

Traditional viewability only confirms an ad’s presence on a display; OpenX argues that true attention requires a viewer actually watching. By leveraging TVision’s person‑level engagement data and predictive modeling, the company can assign an attention score to each impression before the auction, allowing buyers to prioritize inventory that is more likely to be seen.

Loberg highlighted that this approach revalues inventory, enabling smarter bid prioritization and supply‑side curation within OpenX Select’s premium publisher pool. She noted that “attention allows you to have smarter bid prioritization and more efficiently spend your budgets,” and that balancing high‑attention inventory with scale is achieved through real‑time optimization.

If adopted widely, the attention‑driven pre‑bid model could reshape CTV buying by rewarding quality over sheer volume, driving higher brand recall and ROI. Loberg also signaled that future innovations will fuse attention with identity graphs and contextual signals, ushering in a more holistic, data‑rich advertising ecosystem.

Original Description

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Connected TV attention measurement must focus on actual viewing behavior rather than traditional viewability metrics designed for desktop environments, since ad appearance on living room screens doesn’t guarantee engagement.

“Defining attention for CTV should be a real human engagement, someone actually watching the screen,” Erika Loberg, global head of CTV at OpenX, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet Retreat San Juan. “Traditional viewability metrics were designed for Google and desktop computers to show if an ad was actually on the screen or in view. For CTV, we want to understand if someone was actually watching that.”

This distinction proves critical for living room environments where screen presence alone fails to indicate viewer attention.

Attention diagnostic tools

OpenX launched a first-to-market solution that shifts attention from post-campaign diagnostic reporting into pre-bid supply-side curation using TVision’s person-level engagement data and predictive modeling.

“Historically, attention has been diagnostic. So you got a post-campaign report [and i]t told you how the campaign did,” Loberg said. “OpenX is launching a solution that’s allowing supply side curation on that attention metric and bringing it into the pre-bid signal.”

This enables real-time optimization toward engagement metrics rather than using insights solely for future planning, addressing buyer demands beyond scale for brand impact, recall, and engagement.

Inventory valuation changes at pre-bid

Attention-powered supply alters impression valuation at pre-bid stage, enabling smarter bid prioritization and more efficient budget allocation since not all impressions merit equal treatment.

“At the pre-bid level, it changes the valuation of the inventory. Not all impressions are created equal, nor should they be treated in that way,” Loberg said. “Attention allows you to have smarter bid prioritization and more efficiently spend your budgets.”

Supply-side partners can curate high-attention quality inventory before bidding, with buyers building high-attention private marketplaces across multiple premium publishers within OpenX Select for real-time optimization control.

Intelligence counters cherry-picking

Attention application across widespread premium supply helps combat cherry-picking behaviors that decrease scale, increase costs, and create operational difficulties.

“Attention inherently is helping work against that cherry picking of the premium supply where you’re trying to find exactly what you want, which decreases scale, increases costs,” Loberg said. “The goal here is to apply attention intelligently across widespread premium supply to find where you want that balance.”

Real-time optimization throughout campaigns enables buyers to calibrate scale and attention balance rather than choosing between opposing approaches.

Quality signals operationalization

Beyond attention, Loberg anticipates increased sophistication in predictive modeling within bid streams, deal curation advancement, and convergence between measurement and activation capabilities.

“This year I’m specifically interested in the operationalization of quality signals in CTV — attention’s just the beginning,” Loberg said. “We’re seeing predictive modeling in the bid stream. We’re seeing more sophisticated deal curation and also the convergence of measurement and activation.”

The cohesion of engagement and identity signals through integrated identity graphs, contextual signals, attention, and modeling will provide more holistic campaign views.

“That is a turning point for CTV and allowing us to take it from this rapid growth that it’s been into sophisticated and refined optimization for our campaigns,” Loberg said.