How to Make the Most of Mobile Advertising

The mobile industry is expanding around the globe, creating new opportunities for businesses to reach customers at the right time, exactly where they are. Recently I read a case study on smartphone use in advertising by Mediative, a digital marketing agency based in Canada. In this article, I will share some mobile advertising insights gleaned directly from this research.

Most digital marketers learned their trade based on the funnel conversion path, nudging customers toward a sale through the stages of Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Mobile marketing has turned this concept on its head; no longer is a click simply a click. Now, instead of measuring click-through-rates (CTRs), we’re measuring tap-through-rates (TTRs), and customers are scanning QR codes, checking in, and receiving push messages to unlock an interaction in stores, all on their mobile devices.

Real Life Clicks

Perhaps the biggest change brought on by mobile’s emergence is that marketers can design interactions other than simply clicking or tapping. Now we can convert customers physically in a store or virtually on computers – using the same marketing campaigns. The pros at Mediative call these mobile interactions “Real Life Clicks.”

These Real Life Clicks call for new forms of interactions not limited only to display or search. As the mobile industry continues to force the desktop model into the mobile world, mobile ad campaigns are being ignored by customers for a couple of reasons. First, while customers in general are increasingly busy and learning to ignore marketing messages, mobile customers are even busier and more likely to ignore messages that are not targeted and engaging. When you send advertising messages to customers’ smartphones, you are competing with everything around them for their attention. It is simply too easy to ignore a marketing message when customers are distracted by their busy, on-the-go lives.

The other reason mobile marketing messages have a hard time breaking through is that rich interactions can be costly to download and interact with when customers are not in their homes, with access to their own Wifi network. It is a rare customer who actually wants to pay to see an ad on their phone, so timing becomes very important when crafting a mobile campaign. The team at Mediative suggests scheduling heavy-duty interactive messages for evenings and weekends, when customers are likely to be home. The other textual-based messages can be used during the times when customers are out and about, as stand-alone messages, or as reminders of the richer messages sent during other times.

Strategy Tips

Based on Mediative’s case study, here are some tips to keep in mind as you create your mobile advertising strategy.

1.  Mobile advertising requires a highly contextual, personalized experience that uses the customer’s past behavior and current environment to inform its message. If you get these key areas correct, your offer will be too convenient for customers to pass up. Keep the convenience factor in mind as you craft your message; since timing is so important here, the offer must really jump out at them at the right moment.

2.  To reach out to new customers, offer them a compelling value proposition such as a coupon or other discount. Your goal is to intercept potential customers at the exact location where they can convert to buyers. Think of it as a point of purchase offer, but targeted especially for them.

3.  With mobile advertising, you need to consider the different types of networks as you create your strategy. Blind networks offer the cheapest option, but you won’t know exactly which placements your ads will be displayed on. However, since the number of eyeballs in the mobile advertising landscape is still very small, blind networks will offer you volume if that is what your campaign requires. In Mediative’s study, blind networks also offered the most clicks, even though they gave limited metrics.

For now, search and premium networks need more volume to factor into a strategic approach, as they simply can’t offer much visibility. According to Mediative, though, mobile’s fast growth means it is only a matter of time before these networks become viable options.

4.  Mobile advertisers need to pay attention to platforms, too. Some companies don’t allow an app/Web browsing option on employee’s devices, so keep this in mind when creating B2B campaigns for BlackBerry. However, with Android and Apple, whose platforms were built around apps and mobile Web access, the sky’s the limit with mobile advertising.

5.  Decide whether to use search or display in your campaign. On smartphones, display offers more visibility, traffic and presence than search, but a combination of both search and display works best for most businesses. Your marketing objectives and the reality of your product will factor in heavily when deciding how to combine search and display to reach mobile customers.

6.  After considerable study, Mediative recommends that mobile marketers use mainly text and keywords, as well as the 300×50 banner and the 320×50 banner ad formats. These formats work best on Android and the iPhone IOS. For other ad formats and platforms, you should measure your production and operational costs against the expected ROI, according to your segments, targets and business goals. Finally, Mediative found that animated banners are the worst performers in mobile campaigns.

How has your business used mobile marketing to reach customers at the right time? Share your success stories by leaving a comment below.

Image courtesy of TechnoBuzz.net

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2012 at 9:00 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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