I am sure that someone more clever than me has already had this idea, but let me take a stab at introducing a new concept in online advertisement — Cost Per Second or “Cost Of Engagement”.

My theory? It’s not exactly rocket science, the longer users stay engaged on an ad, the more likely they are going to convert. Here are a few more reason’s why, CPS is interesting.

1. It takes a few seconds for a brand to click with a consumer. It’s great if someone is convinced to click thru based on a compelling banner, but if they only spend three seconds on your site after they realize they’ve been “tricked,” is their a point?

2. Cost Per Second exploits the fact that the longer someone spends on your site, the higher the likelihood that they are at least clicking around. With AJAX making pageviews an almost useless measure of real engagement, Time on site gives us an idea of how much consumers are interacting with the content.

3. It puts online advertising more in line with the way terrestrial advertising is priced. Popularity of the referrer and length of engagement are both taken into account. Being more like terrestrial media is certainly not a reason to do anything online, but it does provide a compelling sanity check.

As online advertisers look to get the most out of their budgets, publishers and brokers will need new methods of attracting them. Maybe Cost Per Second is the solution, maybe not but it’s an interesting thought experiment for a Thursday.

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