At AdMonsters Sell Side Summit Austin, we spoke with Jennifer Castillo, Executive Director, Ad Operations at Dow Jones about why attention metrics aren’t a silver bullet, but a critical piece of how publishers build trust, engagement, and operational excellence.
Attention. It’s the word on everyone’s lips in the advertising ecosystem. At AdMonsters Sell Side Summit in Austin, Jennifer Castillo, Executive Director, Ad Operations at Dow Jones, took to the main stage and reminded us that attention is more than just a buzzword. It’s about how you prove your content works, how you show advertisers their spend delivers, and how build trust with readers who stay engaged.
We caught up with her after her presentation to take a deeper dive.
(You can watch the full video below.)
More Than Just Metrics
For us at Dow Jones, it’s not about attention in itself,” Castillo explained. Instead, attention lives inside a larger suite of KPIs that stretch across the funnel — from ad ops execution to performance outcomes. Publishers can’t afford to treat attention like a stand-alone stat; it has to sit alongside the bigger business goals and client needs.
From Eyeballs to Credibility
Castillo framed attention as a bridge between audience intent and advertiser trust. If readers arrive with a purpose and stay engaged, publishers can surface that value back to partners. “Understanding that your audience is there because of a certain intent,” she said, opens the door to deeper engagement. And, by extension, more credible relationships with brands.
Breaking the Silence on Attention
What resonated most with the room? Castillo’s observation that attention has been an industry undercurrent for years, but it has rarely been brought into the open. “It was a conversation that had been ongoing, but nobody wanted to explore further,” she said. By linking attention to user experience — making sure the ad-to-content ratio feels right — she cut through the noise and put the metric where it belongs: at the center of operational excellence.
She also noted that many publishers have circled the idea of attention but hesitated to act on it. “There is no reason outside of ensuring and proving that your content works,” she said.
What Publishers Really Need to Know
Attention isn’t a vanity measure. It’s proof that your content lands, your ads perform, and your audience trusts you enough to stick around. By integrating these insights into broader KPIs and understanding the audience’s intent, publishers and advertisers can more effectively navigate the current media climate.