To begin with, let’s clarify the options available to brand marketers who may be considering dipping into or increasing their mobile advertising spend.

We have the mobile website, consisting of browser-based HTML pages. It can display text content, data, images and video, but also access mobile-specific features, such as click-to-call (to dial a phone number) or location-based mapping.

Then you have apps, which are downloaded and installed on a mobile device rather than being rendered within a browser. Users visit device-specific portals to find and download apps for a given operating system.  

So, the proposition for advertisers looking to invest in app marketing has been quite clear – it offers marketers a better opportunity to target the right audience at the right time. Many would argue that it’s more than that, and that in-app ads capture users’ attention, a bit like cinema ads, and then encourage them to interact without being interrupted. Again, just like ads before the movie, but without being told to turn off your mobile. 

Importance of data

In-app mobile ads are important and the brands’ spend on this medium is certainly going up. The reason this type of advertising works is because it’s supported by location data. This enables advertisers to understand the context of their ad placement, which leads to increased engagement.

As advertisers, we get access to information such as location, weather, demographics and so on to give us a full picture of what’s going on in real time. We can then combine these layers of data and serve ads accordingly. Having access to all these details and being able to use them effectively across the board allows marketers to target their campaigns with greater accuracy and that’s what is turning them towards this medium.Additionally, click rates are much higher with HTML5 ads (wiping, shaking etc., within the ad), and stickiness is greater.

However, before you rush off to spend more of your marketing budget on in-app advertising, you should consider this.  Apps generally work very well on tablets. They work well because people tend to pick up their tablet at home. They’re used primarily for entertainment rather than as a business tool and this lends itself well to apps as viewers get that cinema feel I mentioned earlier.

Different needs

When you consider how most people view apps on their mobile phones, however, the experience is very different. Mobile is much more of a ‘dip in and out’ experience which means the consumption of apps is very different compared to tablets and the results can be very disappointing.

When I was the head of trading at The Mail, we launched Mail Plus, an interactive app that provided a very different user experience to the newspaper and Mail Online. It was expensive to produce and adoption was poor. We found that we achieved more traffic via mobile web than the app and so moved away from it, opting for a flat replica of the newspaper instead. As a result, we saw a huge increase in traffic. We found that users just wanted a copy of the paper available on their tablet.

What we learnt was that the distribution of content was the key.  

Define your goals

If your objectives are related to marketing or public communications, a mobile website will always make sense. This is because a mobile website has a number of inherent advantages over apps, including broader accessibility, compatibility and cost-effectiveness. 

Apps, on the other hand, require the user to first download and install the app from an app marketplace before the content or application can be viewed – a significant barrier between initial engagement and action/conversion.  

The industry can learn from the journey we have taken with mobile advertising and while there are significant returns to be made from in-app marketing and mobile web, the key is to understand consumption and which platform works best for you. 

Research company eMarketer estimates that the total mobile ad spend will top $100Bn by the end of this year. That’s a colossal amount of money. Make sure you spend your slice wisely.

The post Why Brands Should Think Twice Before Choosing In-App Marketing For Mobile appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Mobile companies across Europe are lining up to introduce ad blocking across their networks. Three’s announcement last month will be soon be followed by other big networks – I suspect Deutsche Telekom, which has been considering the move since last summer will make a statement soon.  

Add to this Apple’s iOS9 technology, which makes it possible to block advertising in the iPhone browser, which in turn blocks attribution, and it becomes wider issue. The networks say it gives customers more control and greater transparency over what they receive. However I think the industry needs to focus less on the volume of people that have ad blockers and turn their attention to the quality and creativity of ads that are being served and how users are targeted.  The key is not to complain about people using or building ad blockers but to understand the basis of the demand for an ad blocker. In other words, understand and focus on the user.

There has been too much emphasis on the tech side of advertising to the point where the creative side has become somewhat diluted. The industry needs to focus on richer and improved formats as well as quality content.  Highly interactive ad formats, enable users to engage with the ad by offering something of value. In this case it transformed Android and iPhone hansdets into smartphones but the point is, as advertisers, we need to focus on ads that are interactive and engaging, or offer the user something in return.

User behaviours are not only changing the way they consume information but also when and where. These behavioural changes have been prominent among mobile users. They are becoming increasingly aware of the effects of apps that carry ad support on their data plan, their battery life and the phone’s processor. If we continue down the intensive ad path it will eventually lead to a complete rejection of such adformats. 

Shifting the approach 

Data usage is clearly an issue among users so we’ve made moves to address this problem, without compromising the advertiser. Recently, we’ve seen a significant shift in mobile usage at public Wi-Fi areas. In fact, according to Cisco in their latest report on global mobile traffic, more than half of total mobile data traffic was offloaded onto the fixed network last year through Wi-Fi or mobile base station femtocell. As a result,we’ve moved most of our HTML5 ads to work with Wi-Fi Targeting. That way we can be sure that we reach the right target groups.  As I mentioned, this issue is about understanding and focusing on the user.

Ad blocking is a major headache for publishers. If it hits their revenue figures they will have to start charging for content consumed online and through mobile devices. However, the issue won’t be resolved by circumventing the problem, rather they should be embracing this as a way of standing out.  We are already starting to see this happen, Forbes for example offer an ‘Ad lite’ version for users who disable ad blockers; City A.M. do something very similar for their readers.

Native advertising provides a much more engaging solution, with advertisers interweaving creative with publishers’ content. News editors are also becoming much more commercially aware, with Ad sales teams now working in unison with editorial departments and we are seeing a shift in roles for staff as they move into newly created positions. Ann Shooter, editor of the Daily Mail’s ‘Savvy Shopper’ column, joined the MailOnline  as commercial editor where she oversees native advertising, ensuring that the ads are engaging for their readers. Similarly sports editors secure interviews with major sports stars if their key sponsors are given a mention. It is changes to traditional newspaper methods which will see the industry thrive in the wake of ad blockers.

However,  publications also need to ensure that their content is much more mobile friendly. The existing grid system, with specific ad sites that sit and work with the content, and a barely visible banner and a standard rectangle doesn’t work well on mobile devices and that needs to change. 

There will of course be users who install ad blocking software as a matter of course and these people are likely to reject most forms of advertising. It seems that we are moving towards a kind of self-selection process among smartphone users who are resistant to advertising. As a result, advertising will reach those users who are not irritated by advertising and more than likely appreciate it. Ads are then viewed only by those target groups so their budgets will become even be more cost-effective.

Ad blocking is just the next in a series of challenges that have existed in digital advertising. Think back to the opt-in email debate, the faulty IP-targeting issues, the bots – the list goes on and on.  We need to shake the foundations every so often or we stand still and don’t progress. Ad blocking will lead to improved targeting and better, more creative advertising which will in turn help brand advertisers. It is now up to the industry to design mobile advertising in such a way that users don’t even think about installing an ad blocker and instead may even welcome advertising.

The post What Widespread Ad Blocker Adoption Could Do for Mobile Advertising appeared first on PerformanceIN.