The science of measuring attention—and how Spotify helps brands capture it

Once upon a time, impressions and viewability were the gold standard in advertising metrics. But for digital advertisers who want to cut through the noise of pings and pop-ups, these traditional reach metrics are no longer enough.

We live in the Attention Economy, where the success of a campaign depends not on how much an ad is seen but on how well it captures audience attention.

Paying attention to attention

Attention can be defined as our ability to focus on a certain limited number of environmental cues while tuning out others. For digital advertisers, attention is the highest possible currency because without it, ads cannot have an emotional impact. And without an emotional connection, it’s impossible to build brand affiliation.

But how well do we understand attention?

Currently available research focuses solely on visual attention. But we know from Spotify’s previous studies such as Sonic Science and Culture Next that people value time spent with audio and how it can connect to their different moods, moments and mindsets. Plus, we know people are spending more and more time actively engaging with Spotify—in fact, in-focus time on Spotify is up 49% in India¹, and that trend is reflected in almost every major market.

This is great news for brands: 93% of content engagement translates to ad engagement on Spotify.² In an era dominated by highly skippable social media, we’ve designed our ad experience to capture attention. Our video ad solutions, for example, are only served when we know our app is in view—and our video ads capture 2x more engagement as social media ads.³

In fact, we partnered with Adelaide for India to build format-level Attention benchmarks, with video on Spotify delivering 28% higher engagement than Adelaide’s category benchmarks, and audio delivering 18% above its respective benchmarks.⁴

These aren’t just strong numbers—they’re a clear indicator that Spotify’s formats outperform in driving quality attention, not just passive consumption.

The science of measuring attention

We partnered with Amplified Intelligence, a global leader in attention research, to conduct the first-ever proprietary study on attention in India that covers multiple media formats.

Amplified Intelligence’s attention model focuses on capturing ground truth data from real people. They use AttentionTRACE, a cross-platform app that captures attention data through gaze tracking and facial detection while users are consuming media in their own natural environment (home, office, workouts, etc.) The data is then compared with global benchmarks across platforms and media formats to understand active and passive attention, non-attention and switching behavior.

We created a Spotify microsite within the AttentionTRACE app, from where recruited participants could choose a 10-15-minute playlist from a pre-curated list. As they listened, they were exposed to a selection of audio and video ads from test brands. Afterwards, they answered a brand choice survey. During the month-long study, data was collected from over 2,500 people in India, capturing a total of 7,900 ad views across 7 brands.

The study measured two kinds of attention—Active and Passive. Say you’ve plugged in your headphones before getting on the treadmill. You’re paying attention to the song or podcast you’ve chosen to keep you motivated (or distracted from the challenge of the workout!) This is active attention. Now think of when you play some ambient music on Spotify while cleaning the house or prepping dinner. You’re engaged but not listening intently. This is passive attention.

As humans, we need both kinds of attention to navigate everyday life. From an advertiser’s point of view, both matter at different stages of the consumer’s journey and work together to deliver short and long term outcomes.

The study also tracked Short Term Advertising Strength (STAS), an index that measures the effectiveness of exposed vs. non-exposed advertising. It's calculated as the percentage of purchases among an ad-exposed audience divided by the percentage of purchases among a non-exposed audience. This figure is multiplied by 100 to give a STAS score. Scores over 100 indicate that the ads had a positive impact and the higher the score, the better it is.

So, what did the study reveal?

1. Spotify gets maximum attention among digital platforms

With an average active attention span of 17+ seconds and a STAS score of 150, Spotify outperforms all digital audio and video platforms in terms of attention and ad impact.

This is borne out by actual user behavior on Spotify. For every ten minutes users spend on the platform, they spend one minute looking at the screen—switching tracks, discovering new music, managing playlists, reading lyrics, sharing with friends, or watching video content. This blend of audio and visual activities, supported by a beautiful interface, makes Spotify a unique environment for both users and advertisers.

To maximize attention, ads are served strategically depending on the user’s mood, behavior and moment. While free users get audio ads throughout their Spotify sessions, video ads are served only when they are actually looking at the screen. Such strategic serving increases the attention video ads get, and in turn, their impact.

2. Spotify coupled with other platforms delivers highest impact

Comparing audience segments who viewed ads across different platforms, the study found that there is a significant increase in STAS scores when brands use a combination of advertising platforms. For instance, while ads on social channels had a STAS score of only 126, supplementing them with Spotify ads amplified the STAS score to 165, a +31% increase in impact.⁸

3. Spotify is the best platform for longer ad formats

Research by Gloria Mark, PhD, psychologist and expert in social computing, has shown that attention spans are shrinking—from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to only 47 seconds today. Given the way our thumbs twitch to swipe next, this number could be even less. Which is why this next finding from the study is excellent news.

Compared to other platforms, Spotify is able to command audience attention for longer ad formats, thus providing a bigger canvas for advertisers to tell their story. Audiences pay active attention to 57.5% of a 30-second ad on Spotify, compared to only 33.8% on online video platforms and less than 13% on social media.⁹

Even the best-performing advertisements wear out over time, a phenomenon called advertising decay. The higher the attention paid to an ad, the slower the ad decay. Which means if you can get the audience to pay attention, the chances of brand recall in the long term is higher. The study showed that for high-scroll, skippable ad formats like the ones on social media, ad decay is fast. Which means they get a lot of active attention in the early seconds, followed by a steep drop-off.

On online video platforms and on Spotify, ad decay is much slower. i.e. active and passive attention remain mostly stable throughout the duration of the ad view. Spotify demonstrates an even higher level of attention at the start of the ads compared to video platforms.¹⁰

Takeaways for marketers

Spotify can help you get meaningful attention for your brand message in three ways.

1. Add Spotify to your marketing mix to amplify the outcomes driven by other digital channels such as online video and social media.
2. Given that video on Spotify is highly effective in driving both attention and STAS, maximize ROAS through multi-format ads across audio, video and display.
3. For the same quality of creatives, Spotify is the ideal channel for longer ad formats. For brands looking to tell more detailed stories and create deeper connections with the audience, this opens up a lot of possibilities.

Want to reach your audience with ads that look and sound beautiful—and actually captivate their attention? Work with us to bring your campaign to life.