As part of our larger efforts to help build an Attention Economy—in which success is measured not by clicks and page views but by time and audience attention earned—we’ve publicly released our Description of Methodology, which outlines the measurement process on which Chartbeat’s MRC accreditation is based.

Given that the Description of Methodology document is a bit well, hefty, we figured we’d briefly explain a couple of our signature metrics here on the blog.

What is Active Exposure Time?

Active Exposure Time measures the amount of time users spend engaging on a page while an ad is in view. How do we know if a user is engaging, you ask? Chartbeat’s JavaScript is constantly listening for acts of engagement on the in-focus webpage within an active browser that indicate when a user is actively engaged on the page.

So, when Chartbeat measures Active Exposure Time, we’re asking the following questions:

Time Metrics

AVERAGE ACTIVE EXPOSURE TIME

The average number of seconds for which an ad unit is viewable while a user is actively engaged with the content on the page. This only applies to impressions deemed viewable. In other words, Average Active Exposure Time shows advertisers the average amount of time each viewable ad is exposed to an engaged audience.

Chartbeat Methodology

We calculate Average Active Exposure Time as the following: total exposed time for all viewable impressions / all viewable impressions

Chartbeat only sums and reports Active Exposure Time if audience engagement criteria and MRC viewability criteria are met.

What’s the Industry Saying About Time Metrics?

“Once we have the opportunity to see (viewability) nailed as a first step cross-platform currency, the sequential next step currency is engagement. Short of scalable, affordable neuro measures (of emotional response), time is the best surrogate to measure engagement.”

–Mike Donahue, EVP, 4A’s

“Time metrics are a way to justify moving from standard transaction based units to high-impact units and something other than click-through rate to measure the success.”

–Steve Ahlberg, VP, Advertising Solutions & Product Management, Gannett

“The digital publishing media metric of the future will include some form of attention-based metrics. Valuing content based on the amount of time consumers spend with it provides a meaningful, cross-platform measurement for brand marketers and publishers rather than counting links and clicks. This has the potential to solve a host of industry problems.”

–Jason Kint, CEO, Digital Content Next

“That means we can tell the difference between a second where someone is actively engaged with an ad in view and a second where someone has an ad in view but has been distracted by a friend asking them if they want coffee. It brings an unprecedented level of accuracy to the measurement of attention.”

–Jon Slade, Commercial Director of Digital Advertising, Financial Times

Chartbeat has become the first analytics company accredited to measure attention metrics for both display advertising and content. The Media Rating Council has accredited 21 metrics featured in Chartbeat’s advertising platform including viewability and active exposure time.