Interview: How Obsidian leverages Attention Report insights at scale

Attention has become one of the most valuable currencies in digital advertising. For agencies like Obsidian - a digital marketing agency helping e-commerce brands, B2B companies, and public institutions grow through performance-driven strategies - maximising the impact of every media investment is essential.

That’s why Obsidian has embraced Adnami’s new Attention Report. The feature provides advertisers with actionable insights that go beyond surface-level metrics, such as CPM, making it possible to compare creatives, formats, and domains based on the attention they truly deliver for their price. With clear visualisations and automatic aCPM (Attentive Cost Per Mille) calculations, marketers can quickly see which ads are genuinely cost-effective and optimise accordingly.

To learn more about how this new approach is shaping programmatic advertising, we spoke with Anton Due, Senior Programmatic Consultant at Obsidian.

To start, what does Obsidian typically use Adnami for, and what role does ‘attention’ play for you?

At Obsidian, we use Adnami for running display ads that actually get seen. Quite simple, really. With Adnami, we can secure premium placements while still optimising performance and delivering the best possible results for our clients.

Attention is absolutely crucial, and both Adnami and Obsidian are ahead of the game here. For many years, advertisers didn’t question whether their ads were visible, let alone how visible. At Obsidian, we want our clients’ media investments to result in ads that not only run but are genuinely seen, and ideally for a meaningful amount of time.

We don’t want to pay for impressions that don’t make an impact. For us, attention is more than just a metric; it’s an approach that informs everything we do, from creative production to media buying and placement strategies.

You’ve recently started using Adnami’s new Attention Report feature. How has it impacted your work?

Before the Attention Report, calculating aCPMs across creatives, sites, and formats was too complex. At best, we could calculate it for the overall campaign, but that didn’t give us much to work with. We used to optimise based on a mix of metrics like viewability, CPC, specific conversions, CPM, or by prioritising certain sites. We also used Adnami’s Creative Optimisation feature to automatically push the creatives with the best performance. That worked, but attention is a much stronger metric.  Attention is scarce, and that makes it valuable - we need to optimise for it.

Now, with the Attention Report, we have a straightforward way to calculate and act on aCPM at every level. It’s become an integral part of how we run campaigns. Being able to compare CPM with actual attention adds a completely new layer of insight to our programmatic work. It’s a big step forward.

The Attention Report’s automatic aCPM calculation is a game-changer. It quickly shows which placements, formats, and creative versions drive the most attention. For me, it’s a powerful tool in conversations with clients and internally. It gives a solid understanding of performance and helps us avoid wasting budget on ads that aren’t really seen.

Have you seen tangible results from optimising with the Attention Report?

Absolutely. Every report I’ve worked with has led to some form of optimisation, either directly from the report’s tips or from insights I’ve pulled from the data.

We’ve reallocated spend away from underperforming sites, shifted budget towards formats with lower aCPMs, and adjusted creatives to better match where attention is strongest. The process is fast, since we can generate a standard report template and move straight into action.

In a recent case, we improved our aCPM from about 40 to 10 simply by shifting budget to the formats with the best performance. In another case, by switching off a poorly performing format, we reduced aCPM from 52 to 8 - that’s an 84% improvement!

Has the Attention Report changed your approach to campaign planning and creative production?

Definitely. We’ve started requesting different formats upfront, because we now see just how much impact format choice has on attention and cost-effectiveness. At the beginning of a campaign, we go for a variety of formats, and then we gradually change how budgets are prioritised towards the better-performing formats. The Attention Report changed not just how we optimise campaigns, but how we plan them from the start.

With Attention Reports, Obsidian has been able to unlock new levels of efficiency and performance, proving that attention is not just another metric, but a powerful framework for smarter media investments. Let's talk if you'd like to try the Attention Report for your next campaign .