That’s according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), which today published a new report outlining a new definition for engagement and identifying core metrics for digital and legacy ad engagement across platforms.

The list of metrics runs to several pages in the report, and includes cognitive measures like awareness, recall and purchase intent, through to emotional measures like brand perception and favourability, and behavioural responses like gaze time and interactions.

Sherrill Mane, senior vice-president of research, analytics and measurement at the IAB, said: “Engagement – whether online or off – is not a single ‘event,’ but more of a continuum of consumer activities around an ad and a brand. By defining and agreeing upon a clear set of metrics for measuring digital ad engagement that are comparable to other media and can measure uniquely interactive constructs of digital brand ads, we have reached a significant milestone.”

IAB said the results and recommendations in the report would serve as the basis for the Media Rating Council’s upcoming guidance on standardising engagement metrics, which is due later this year as part of the Making Measurement Make Sense ( 3MS) initiative.