Here's an uncomfortable truth: most of your ad budget is probably wasted. Not because your creative is bad or your targeting is wrong, but because you're buying attention from people who were never going to become customers. The attention audit is about finding and eliminating this waste.
The Attention Paradox
Digital advertising promised precision. Instead, it delivered scale—vast oceans of impressions that feel measurable but often aren't meaningful. We got so good at counting that we forgot to ask what we should be counting. Impressions served to bots. Views from people who'll never buy. Clicks from the perpetually curious but never converted.
The attention audit starts by questioning every impression. Not "did someone see this?" but "did the right someone see this, in the right context, with the right message, at the right time in their buying journey?"
Finding the Waste
The 60% figure isn't made up—it's what we typically find when we audit client accounts. Impressions served outside target geographies. Frequency caps so loose that the same person sees the same ad 47 times. Retargeting pools bloated with people who bought months ago or bounced for legitimate reasons.
This waste compounds. Bad impressions don't just cost money—they train algorithms in the wrong direction. When you optimize for volume over quality, platforms learn to find you more of the wrong people. The feedback loop spirals downward.
Reclaiming Your Budget
The audit isn't about cutting spend—it's about redirecting it. Every dollar currently wasted on the wrong attention can be reinvested in the right attention. Tighter targeting. Higher quality placements. More frequency against genuine prospects. Better creative testing with meaningful sample sizes.
Start with a simple question: if you could only reach 40% of the people you currently reach, but they were exactly the right 40%, would your results improve? For most brands, the honest answer is yes. That's the opportunity the attention audit unlocks.
← Back to Insights