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Mobile MarketerTHE NEWS LEADER IN MOBILE MARKETING, MEDIA AND COMMERCE
www.MobileMarketer.com
Classic Guide to
Mobile Advertising
TM A CLASSIC GUIDEOctober 2013
$595
UNDERWRITTEN BY:
CONTENTS
PAGE
4 INTRODUCTION Marketers need to move more ad dollars to mobile By Mickey Alam Khan
6 A mobile ad ecosystem for all: A mobile-first perspective By Carrie Coffee
8 Buildling a mobile application presence for small to medium-sized busineses By Terry McCusker
10 Reinventing online shopping with a mobile-first strategy By Tom Klein
12 Mobile advertising’s top data: location, location, location By Lauren Moores
13 Mobile video advertising works best in the right state of mind By Will Kassoy
15 Staying ahead of the curve with mobile Web pre-roll By Jeremy Sadwith
18 Mobile audio advertising: Harnessing the power of an effective medium By Andre Hawit
PAGE
20 The home screen should not play second-fiddle to apps By Jon Jackson
22 Device schizophrenia and finding a cross-screen fit By Adam Soroca
24 Recognizing and overcoming the limitations of mobile cookies By Lauren Moores
25 Value at first glance: Making mobile ads worth watching By Deborah Powsner
27 Mobile real-time bidding and predictive targeting: Problem solvers By Anthony Iacovone
29 Mobile programmatic: Learnings from the front By Victor Milligan
31 How to achieve better ROI from mobile ads By Jon Nolz
33 Why overspending in mobile can be counterproductive By Guillaume Lelait
PAGE 3 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
Mobile Marketer covers news and analysis of mobile marketing, media and commerce. The Napean franchise comprises Mobile Marketer, MobileMarketer.com, the Mobile Marketer Daily newsletter, MobileMarketingDaily.com, MobileCommerceDaily.com, McommerceDaily.com, the Mobile Commerce Daily site and newsletter, MobileNewsLeader.com, Classic Guides, webinars, Mobile FirstLook, the Mobile Marketing Summit, the Mcommerce Summit, the Mobile Women to Watch Summit and awards. ©2013 Napean LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.
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Mickey Alam KhanEditor in [email protected]
Chantal TodeAssociate [email protected]
Lauren JohnsonAssociate [email protected]
Jodie SolomonDirector, Ad [email protected]
Rebecca BorisonEditorial Assistantrebecca@ mobilemarketer.com
Kristina MayneContent [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
Marketers need to move more ad dollars to mobile
W elcome to the sixth annual edition of Mobile Mar-keter’s Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising.
As consumer engagement on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets matures, so does willingness to engage with mobile advertising. Indeed, the mere act of becoming mainstream has made mobile more attractive to advertisers looking to reach consumers where they conduct their work, home and play lives.
Dollars and senseSince the iPhone launched in 2007 and the iPad in 2010, much has changed in the way advertising and marketing is run on mobile.
No longer is the banner ad on a mobile site or applica-tion the sole tool for branding or customer acquisition or retention.
Mobile advertising currently makes extensive use of the device’s capabilities to serve timely and place-sensi-tive ads, supplemented by knowledge of user behavior and response.
In other words, mobile is on its way to truly be-ing the medium of the future for branding and direct marketing purposes.
However, much progress needs to be made. Mobile ad-vertising will account for an estimated $8 billion or so in ad spend in 2013, although double-digit growth is ex-pected for the next five years.
That is still a drop in the bucket compared to advertis-ing dollars allocated to online advertising, print media or even television.
Why the disparity in ad-dollar allocation despite mass consumption of content and growing commerce on mo-bile? Much has to do with education – both of advertiser and agency.
This publication’s Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising is
PAGE 4 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
geared to serve that need. In this edition are thought pieces and best-practice tips on the ins and outs of mobile advertising.
There are discussions on the mobile ad ecosystem, build-ing apps for small to midsized businesses, Big Data, au-dio and video mobile advertising, mobile Web preroll ads, cross-screen strategy, cookies and their limitations, real-time bidding, programmatic buying, measuring ROI and analyzing campaign performance.
Tap expertisePlease read each piece thoroughly and engage with the authors, each one of them experts in the field. We thank these industry stalwarts for their time and effort to edu-cate fellow marketers.
Many thanks also to Kargo, a premium mobile ad net-work that underwrote this year’s edition. Kargo connects brands with publisher audiences and counts several For-tune 500 companies as clients.
Finally, thank you to our awesome graphics team and to Chantal Tode, Lauren Johnson and Rebecca Borison for their help. Their hard work is much appreciated.
Do read this Classic Guide and forward the link to col-leagues and clients.
Feel free to reach out to the authors. They represent the best in mobile advertising and seek nothing but the same for others.
Mickey Alam [email protected]
64% of smartphone users have
made a purchase after seeing
a mobile ad...
But 74% haven’t received mobile
ads from their favorite brands-
like yours.*
KARGO Move Beyond the Banner.
Source: Mobile Advertising Survey 2012
BRAND POWER IN MOBILE SM
A mobile ad ecosystem for all: A mobile-first perspectiveBy Carrie Coffee
Mobile advertising is scaling. Some would say we are there. Most would say there are key limita-tions that are holding back budget, and there-
PAGE 6 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
One perspective to argue is that mobile ad technology has yet to scale to the level needed for the ecosystem to generate real revenue.
David Macaulay’s book, “The Way Things Work,” imparts that one should pursue a deeper understanding of what is really going on behind the scenes. Innovation cannot be driven without knowing the why and the how.
Mobile advertising will not be successful without truly understanding the core of the technology that can drive the industry to scale. Fortunately there are some intel-ligent folks pursuing this quest who will shepherd us into this next phase of growth.
There are already plenty of solutions available. We have found ways to track, ways to target, and the means to provide solid evidence that mobile ads are effective. However the ecosystem has yet to fully connect these parts and therefore fragmentation exists. This has creat-ed more frustration among the supply and demand play-ers in the space. We see what we want, but we cannot have it at the scale we need.
Taking a look at this by category provides a better sense of what is holding us back from maximizing opportunity in this ecosystem.
App versus mobile WebThat said, when it comes to advertising the media expe-rience is drastically different from one environment to the next. There are limitations when you evaluate a cre-ative execution, targeting technology, tracking technol-ogy and want to do it in one format.
Just ask ad operations specialists. The format for adver-tising can vary from one environment to the next, so it is important to ensure that proper expectations have been
fore making it challenging to see the ecosystem thrive.
set with clients, partners and vendors. This may ap-pear to be seamless, but true mobile ad serving technology adapts for this. Does it still matter? Is one winning?
Traffic to apps and mo-bile Web is arguably still pretty even.
Tablet versus smartphoneTechnically speaking, there is little difference when serving into a tablet versus a smartphone.
The operating systems are consistent so that while there still might be a need to build different sites and apps for the two different devices, from an ad tech and ad ecosystem perspective, there will not be much of a dif-ference from the build and serve of smartphones. An-droid is Android and iOS is iOS. User behavior, how-ever, is different on both a smartphone and a tablet. It is important to consider tablet strategy separate from smartphone messaging.
The biggest disconnect with tablet is the question of, “Is it a mobile screen or is it a PC extension?” The an-swer has to be mobile due to the technical backbone of the tablet. Some marketers are diving into tablet head-first even before mobile because of the creativity the canvas enables.
Audience versus contextThe mobile device is personal. Therefore, we must think beyond the standard audience and contextual targeting methodologies of online.
In mobile, we can find an audience in one environment, and track them in another environment that is relevant to them. Some decide an audience by where they go at certain times of day, others by what they purchase,
Carrie Coffee
where and when. The key is to be open, willing to try different approaches and be surprised by what the target audience is doing on their mobile device. It may be dif-ferent than their online behavior.
While these technologies are effective when implement-ed correctly, ad tech is still preventing scale. Integrating these third-party technologies requires an ad server that is truly mobile.
Ask questions and discover which ad server the publisher or network has chosen to use. When evaluating the vari-ous vendors, understand which ad servers they are cer-tified with. This will tell you how far you can scale to your target.
The inventoryPremium inventory continues to become more premium. When we desire to have the front page, with rich media and advanced targeting, we run out. There is a price to pay for this inventory. There are tons of impressions that still go unsold or sold at a very low price. In order to con-nect them, we must know more about the user and have auto-optimization tools in the ecosystem.
What about programmatic? It is and will be the conver-sation for years to come.
Some might say that it is already here in mobile. This is where technology must enable the nodes of the indus-try to start making things work. Networks and publish-ers need a bidder, and we all must begin to automate the process of transacting. When creative and targeting technologies can truly scale through the mobile ad serv-er, with the ability to track and optimize, there is effec-tive programmatic in mobile. The premium supply must be able to take the long-tail demand without switching to a different platform. As a marketer, you should be able to buy an impression at the best price you can get for the exact need that you have.
MeasurementFinally, and most importantly, the ecosystem will not thrive without acceptable measurement. The ad tech-nologies that will win will be built through a cookie- free approach.
Today we have alternatives, but their scale and validity is often questionable. We must obtain approval on these alternative methods of tracking and measurement and adopt it fully. Without a universal measurement method, we will never prove the value of mobile advertising.
The bottom line: It is getting complicated, but it is also a whole lot more exciting than where we were a couple of years ago talking about CTR and CPC versus CPM on a run of channel basis. It got us to where we are today, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ask questions, know the way things work and do not be afraid to test and learn. Decide what you want the ecosystem to look like for your property or your brand. Technology is present and enabling us to thrive.
Carrie Coffee is vice president of sales at Mojiva, Inc., New York. Reach her at [email protected].
PAGE 7 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
Building a mobile application presence for small to medium-sized businesses
By Terry McCusker
Mobile applications are great user engagement tools for big brands. They are also a signifi-cant revenue stream for mobile and integrated
PAGE 8 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
Big brands including Nike and Adidas have built whole communi-ties around native apps that deliver genuinely useful branded content and engagement.
However, how can small businesses tap into the smartphone revolution and the proliferation of mobile apps?
agencies.
An agency producing an app for a tier-one client or a multinational client would not get out of bed for less than five figure sums on both sides of the Atlantic.
So a mobile app is out of the price range of an SMB right?
Wrong.
Self-serve native app vendors are out there, and apps can be produced at a fraction of the cost with some pretty cool functionality built in.
However before we engage on a project with any of our SMB clients we recommend that our clients put them-selves in the shoes of their customers.
Why would I download an app from my local bar, restau-rant or hairstylist? What about content?
Sure, people might want to see what time you are open or where you are, but the information will be available from a company’s Web site, even if it is not optimized for mobile.
Social engagement? Yes, people might want to see what your employee are up to and your latest news, but if they already “Like” and follow you on social networks are they not already engaged with you?
What can make the difference then? Loyalty. Mobile apps, when used correctly can be used to replace your paper-based loyalty cards and the stamping that goes with it.
The features ingrained within smartphones can shift a low-tech loyalty scheme into a digital marketing pro-
Terry McCusker
PAGE 9 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
gram for a small business.
2008 gave us the global economic recession, but it also gave us the app store, arguably the biggest thing to hap-pen in mobile since GPRS and tipped mobile marketing into the mainstream and into the lexicon of all strategic planners in media and ad agencies across the globe.
What it also delivered was a cash conscious con-sumer. A consumer who is happy to spend signifi-cant sums of money on shiny new connected devices, but is also watching the pennies in her day-to-day spending habits.
Here are some facts on loyalty I found for a presentation I gave recently:
• Consumer spending is 46 percent higher with compa-nies that offer loyalty programs• Companies can increase profit almost by 50 percent by retaining 5 percent more of their customers• 70 percent of people that come from higher income households are more loyal to companies that offer a re-wards program• Since the recession, 32.3 percent of consumers made their participation in loyalty programs more important
As a local media organization, we have felt first-hand the affect the recession has had on our bottom line and the bottom lines of our customers.
Talking to our clients, specifically in the leisure vertical, retaining loyal customers is equally as important as at-tracting new ones.
Let us not forget in the era of digital proliferation and double digit growth in smartphone adoption the 80:20 rules of business still applies.
Our advice to many of these types of clients is to use the channel that everyone owns and engages with to drive customer loyalty and engagement.
For many potential customers to a café or a restaurant free Wi-Fi will be a draw. How are these customers using the Wi-Fi?
Most of the time it will be through their mobile de-vice. It makes total sense to leverage this connectiv-ity and the massive adoption of smartphones to drive customer loyalty.
We have just started on this journey, but with the reports we have received on the number of downloads and just how excited our clients feel about having their own app with their name on it, we hope it will be a long one.
Terry McCusker is head of mobile marketing at Archant Ltd, London. Reach him at [email protected].
Ask any consumer and you will learn that mobile devices likely have the last say when we are deciding what mov-ies to watch, where to eat and when and where to buy many categories of products and services.
Our mobile devices are also closely tied to our personal, social and professional lives, allowing us to capture and share our experiences with thousands of followers across social networks.
This era of mobile communication and digital recom-mendations is a marketer’s dream come true.
To gain advantage, a retailer must invest in its mobile capabilities and find innovative methods to create a gen-uinely compelling experience for shoppers. It is not just a story of creating a mobile ecommerce experience.
Now is the time to revolutionize the entire retail experi-ence for consumers, and the way to get there is mobile. Here are some ideas and examples for you to consider.
Building trust with augmented realityIt is a fact that visuals and sounds illicit better emotional responses than one-dimensional brochures. The McDon-ald’s group in Australia integrated augmented reality into their TrackMyMacca app, which animates ingredi-ents and informs buyers of their origins.
The app collects geographical and temporal data from the mobile device in order to determine the food source. The ingredients then come to life onscreen to deliver an
Reinventing online shopping with a mobile-first strategyBy Tom Klein
B y the end of 2013, retail sales through mobile de-vices will increase 11 percent from 2012 and are projected to increase to 25 percent by 2017, ac-
PAGE 10 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
cording to an eMarketer survey conducted in April 2013. Focusing on the projected mobile sales figure alone will not motivate many companies to build a mobile-only ecom-merce experience. However, it should raise questions for every retailer about how to promote and sell to the more than a billion shoppers with a smart device in their pocket.
enriched dining experi-ence. This visually stun-ning animation reinforces the fun entertainment aspect of the McDonald’s franchise, while also de-livering a strong mes-sage about health and safety. Each burger has the ability to be tagged throughout the entire burger-making process, all the way to the farmer who raised the beef. This is exactly the good feeling that makes every customer say, “I’m Lovin’ It.”
Finding what you need via bar codeThe National Automotive Parts Association “Know How” app knows how to look up car parts, fast.
Using the app, a VIN number can be scanned from the hood or door panel of the car to find compatible and related parts.
The scanned VIN number will identify the year, make and model of the car to quickly find the right touch-up paint or windshield wiper blades from thousands of available parts. If further assistance is needed, the app can con-nect the shopper directly to a live representative for a chat.
Providing mobile payment solutions to incentivize customers and merchantsWhile we have not seen any widespread implementa-tion of near-field communication or touch-to-pay solutions yet, we are seeing large growth in money transferring solutions like the use of PayPal in local retail stores.
Google recently announced in their yearly Google I/O event that transferring money will be as easy as sending an email via their new Google Wallet service.
Tom Klein
PAGE 11 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
More solutions like this will create an mobile-opti-mized shopping experience, as shoppers will see less time at the checkout line and receive a personalized checkout experience.
Creating a personal online shopping experienceMailchimp’s Mandrill email infrastructure service aims to deliver an automated, reliable messaging infrastruc-ture to reach every one of a retailer’s customers. The ac-tions performed on the retailer’s Web site can be used to personalize all communication to customers. Mandrill offers automated tools to achieve this reality.
With social media buttons now accessible on just about
everything that is seen online, it has never been easier for shoppers to mark their interest by clicking “Like,” tweet or “+1” from their mobile device. These social platforms in turn personalize the retailer ads shown to customers.
In this era of mobile communication and digital recom-mendations, retailers must deliver a compelling retail experience for shoppers. As we continue to see mobile sales grow and quickly outpace store sales growth, it is advantageous to renew and invest in mobile capabilities for the new generation of digital shoppers.
Tom Klein is CEO of Digital Scientists, Alpharetta, GA. Reach him at [email protected].
In advertising on the desktop/laptop, the whole system relies on cookies to provide information about users and connect a visit to one publisher to a visit to a different publisher. This information is used in addition to third-party data to create a profile of online audiences, behav-iorally and demographically. In mobile advertising, marketers’ ability to build audience profiles is mostly limited to information on a few visits to a site or separately, a few visits to an application. In ad-dition, the ability to link actions across apps and mobile Web, different exchanges and different devices is limited if you want to be privacy friendly. Location awareness is the solution for mobile advertis-ing. Mobile is location. For all of the data that we see, the most consistent signal is location of the device. This can be the IP address or the latitude and longitude or zip+4 as provided by opt-in application usage.
Not only does location allow you to reach your audience at the right time or where they normally are, location is a great connection for integration to first and third-party data sets. The ability to reach consumers where they are at a par-ticular time is useful for merchant coupon targeting, geo-conquesting, weather-related sales creative, event takeovers and more. This ‘here now’ approach allows an advertiser to find a consumer at the location that is most relevant for the advertiser. In addition to ‘here now’ advertising, the ability to seg-ment users by locations where they are frequently allows advertisers to reach and retarget consumers at work, home or play. The uniqueness and strength of using location informa-
Mobile advertising’s top data: location, location, locationBy Lauren Moores
I t is difficult to identify the consumer behind a mo-bile advertising opportunity due to sparse meta-data and the lack of cookies available for mobile
PAGE 12 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
ad impressions.
tion, which translates to the physical placement of consumers, extends be-yond reaching consumers at a particular place.
Being aware of consumers’ frequent locations allows marketers to turn a sparse mobile audience into rich audience profiles as pro-files can be enhanced by connecting first-party cli- Lauren Mooresent data and third-party data via location information. Marketers can use their own consumer loyalty and shop-ping data to create specific consumer location segments, which in turn can be used in mobile advertising, target-ing specific locations to find new customers or retarget existing ones. Furthermore, using location to map in third-party data offers ample enrichment by mapping location to other known information.
For instance, base enhancement of location data includes mapping carrier information, region and metro codes to IP, lat/lon or ZIP code.
Advanced enhancement includes the integration of con-textual location information. For instance, if a consumer is frequently at the airport during business hours, mar-keters could bucket that consumer in a business traveler segment.
The same is true for sports arenas, concert halls and shopping centers. Alternatively, tying location to Census data can provide demographic, ethnographic and other Census related information. Other third-party data sets include voting districts, merchant locations and more.
Lauren Moores is vice president of analytics at Dstillery, New York. Reach her at [email protected].
Consumers love mobile apps, but different apps serve different needs. The relaxed guy watch-ing movie trailers on Flix-ster while lounging at the beach is in a much dif-ferent mindset than the hurried guy looking at Google Maps for direc-tions to a meeting starting in 10 minutes. Mobile apps serve each scenario, but
Mobile video advertising works best in the right state of mindBy Will Kassoy
I t is no small secret that mobile video advertising is one of the most effective channels for savvy market-ers today. Similarly, the ubiquity and usage of mobile
PAGE 13 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
applications presents the ideal environment to deliver a marketer’s message with sight, sound and motion. But knowing these basic facts is not enough to deliver a suc-cessful campaign. Marketers must also look closely at the consumer’s state of mind when they engage with mobile apps.
they address very different states of mind.
Consumers are generally in one of two mindsets when they are using apps: want or need.
Understanding which mindset a consumer is in can make or break engagement with mobile video campaigns. Reaching consumers at times that they are more open to seeing video ads can drive metrics such as recall, en-gagement, purchase intent, and even the likelihood to recommend upward.
Consumers are much more likely to pay attention and engage with creative when it is served to them in the right mindset. Mobile video ads served up at the wrong time and place are more likely to annoy consumers and are usually tuned out or simply skipped.
With more than 50 percent of the U.S. population ac-tively using a smartphone or tablet and 80 percent of
Will Kassoy
the time spent on mobile phones passed engaging with apps, advertisers should not ignore the want versus need dichotomy.
The two different states and the corresponding behav-iors that come along with them demand contrasting ap-proaches to mobile video advertising and are affiliated with totally different kinds of apps.
Need driven apps often provide users with helpful infor-mation and utilities. These apps usually serve a specific purpose and include things like weather, GPS services and alarm clocks.
Consumers use these utility apps quickly for one reason and tend to close them once they have obtained the in-formation that they need. Apps that are driven by want, on the other hand, include categories such as music, movies, news, games and social networks.
Consumers tend to have longer sessions within these want apps as they look to entertain and immerse them-selves within the content.
But it is not always black or white. Consumers engaging with mcommerce apps might be operating in a want or need mindset.
For example, a consumer might want to purchase a dress from Zara, but need to deposit a check with the Chase app. She might want to read recipes for dinner on Epicu-rious, but need to make an order from Fresh Direct.
So what type of mindset and app environment is best for your brand?
Those consumers in a need state of mind are less recep-tive to ads because they are focused on one specific task and usually have limited time on their hands.
They need to know how the traffic is on their morning commute and find alternate routes; they need to time and log their 5K run. They definitely do not have time to
PAGE 14 Mobile Marketer MOBILE OUTLOOK 2013
watch a 15 or 30-second video spot.
On the other end of the spectrum, want consumers have more time on their hands and are usually looking to be entertained.
This state of mind makes them more open to engaging with content and makes them more willing to interact with brands. A well-executed video ad running in this scenario can really catch a consumer’s attention. This is the ideal audience to target with in-app video advertis-ing, as the audience is more open to new content and willing to engage.
The good news for advertisers is that consumers spend 87 percent of their app engagement time using apps in the want state of mind and only 13 percent of their time using utility apps in which they are in a need state of mind.
Opportunity knocks for advertisers as mobile adop-tion continues to increase, but it’s important to target consumers where they are more likely to watch, listen and engage.
Identifying the right app environment for your brand is critical to insuring the success of your mobile video ad campaign.
Will Kassoy is CEO of AdColony, Los Angeles. Reach him at [email protected].
Staying ahead of the curve with mobile Web pre-rollBy Jeremy Sadwith
S o, you have gone ahead and integrated your ad server’s HTML5 video player SDK, or maybe you-have even built your own so you can have more
PAGE 15 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
Dollar signs are dancing in your eyes, and you are ready to start monetizing with pre-roll, but are you prepared for the headaches that are likely to come?
Thoroughly understanding the difficulties and quirks of running mobile video pre-roll can help you set expec-tations with your advertisers to alleviate concern that might come up while the campaign is live.
For starters, as we are all aware, each device and operat-ing system has its own issues, and what works on one is guaranteed to break on another.
For the sake of brevity, we will focus on iOS and Android for this article, and we will assume you have already found a mobile transcoding service.
OK, you have figured out the technical differences re-quired to get your player to stream video on both iOS 5 and iOS 6, you have self-certified as being VAST com-pliant, you have figured out workarounds for the Ja-vaScript video event naming discrepancies between Android and iOS and you have implemented a fall-back to play the video directly on devices that do not support HTML5.
Your first campaign starts and everything seems to be going smoothly until your advertisers start asking questions.
Why are there zero video clicks tracked on the iPhone?Traditionally, when a user clicks on a pre-roll video while it is playing, the Web site specified in the click URL will launch so the user can view more about the brand.
When a user plays a video via Safari on an iPhone, they are forced into full-screen video, and the operating sys-
tem takes over to play the video in its native player, outside of Safari.
Even though it reports back time-based events that al-low you to fire off quartile trackers, you lose the abil-ity to add a click event to the video.
Why is the banner over-lay not showing up in
control over its capabilities.
Jeremy Sadwithfull-screen?This answer is similar to that of the previous question but encompasses both iOS and Android devices.
When the user jumps to full-screen, you lose the ability to overlay images on the video.
There is a workaround for Android that involves overlay-ing a mask in front of the video.
However, it requires rebuilding the video navigation but-tons and may create fragmentation issues across the dif-ferent flavors and devices of Android.
With this issue and the previous, solutions can be cre-ated where you drive the click from the content page when the user is finished watching the video.
But be sure your advertisers are cool with that.
We need the pre-roll to autoplay. Why is it not autoplaying?Autoplay simply does not work via an HTML5 player on iOS and Android.
There was one build of iOS that allowed you to auto-play videos, we think it was a bug, and some flavors of Android may allow it, but it cannot be guaranteed to advertisers.
PAGE 16 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
There are some workarounds that you will see for in-banner video.
However, those are not actually video streams, they are more like animated GIFs.
You can also force a user directly to a video URL via an auto-redirect, but you lose the tracking functionality that HTML5 provides.
Why does it let me skip the pre-roll? The user should not be able to do thatOn Android devices, you can disable seeking when playing video within the browser, but once the user goes full-screen, you lose that ability on both iOS and Android.
You can do a similar workaround on Android that you would do to create full-screen overlays, but Android fragmentation means much more testing for your QA teams.
Otherwise, the user will have full access to seeking controls.
A decent solution to prevent skipping of the pre-roll is to listen to the JavaScript event that tells you when the user seeks and force the video to play back at the point before the seek occurred.
It is a clunky experience for the user, but it accomplishes the goals of the advertiser.
Luckily, mobile technology is advancing daily and de-velopers are getting more and more creative with new workarounds and solutions to obstacles like these, it is even possible that half of those listed above have solutions before you have even finished reading this article.
As technology improves and new standards like VPAID 2.0 become more feasible on mobile Web, a whole new set of questions will arise to throw a wrench in your campaign plans.
By keeping yourself educated with new industry ad-vancements, and by keeping a hands-on approach with your mobile products, you can proactively work with your advertisers to make sure their campaigns perform without any major surprises.
Jeremy Sadwith is vice president of engineering of Kargo, New York. Reach him at [email protected].
Mobile video ad CPM’s are 300% higher than standard banner ads.
Our proprietary video player keeps
users watching 3 times longer,
with completion rates over 95%.*
KARGO Monetize Mobile Video.
Source: Kargo Data 2013
BRAND POWER IN MOBILE SM
Mobile audio advertising: Harnessing the power of an effective mediumBy Andre Hawit
One of the hottest areas for advertisers is mobile audio advertising, specifically in music streaming, applications and games.
PAGE 18 Mobile Marketer CLASSIC GUIDE TO MOBILE ADVERTISING
Different from tablet gam-ing, streaming video or TV and far more engag-ing than online video or banner advertising, digi-tal audio ads are rising in the ranks, boasting sig-nificantly higher eCPMs over display ads, according to Pandora.
Even Apple has entered the fray with its plan to serve
audio ads in the iRadio streaming music service.
Why is audio more engaging than display or video?
You have a uniquely captive audience that is tuned-in, listening, socially connected and highly responsive to advertising.
With mobile audio advertising, there is a true one-to-one relationship with the listener. With the ability to deliver real-time ads based on mood, genre, language, location and type of device, the relationship between advertiser and listener becomes less invasive and more relatable. This presents a huge opportunity for marketers, but one that comes with a learning curve.
Capitalize on the medium’s targeting capabilities and your audience changing conditionsWith opportunities above and beyond real-time genre targeting, such as mood-based targeting, advertisers can literally sense the mood a listener is in based on what they are listening to, as they listen to it, and serve a mood-based ad in real-time that is highly relevant and more likely to be engaged with.
The ad becomes something the listener cannot ig-
Andre Hawit
nore since the ad suits his frame of mind during his listening experience.
Advertisers cannot afford to just look at what listeners are doing by time of day, they need to be able to know what they are doing now, in one minute, in five min-utes, because as a listener’s mood changes, their choices change and mobile advertisers have an opportunity to adapt ads that suit listeners emotions, while they experi-ence those feelings.
Imagine being able to serve an audio ad featuring Ice Cube in between hip hop music streams, and a compan-ion banner during listening. Listeners are tuned into the music, so they are tuned into the audio ads in the same way, and it is so much more actionable. This is a learned behavior and a big opportunity for advertisers.
Then again, what is worse than listening to a sad Spanish song and getting served a high beat, aggres-sive English ad? Effective targeting is key in the world of mobile audio advertising because this audience can either love your ads or be left with a negative brand association.
Know your audience, not only who they are, but how they are listeningSo much of today’s mobile advertising is still like a cold call. Not knowing your audience or assuming they are the same online as they are on mobile is a big mistake.
Just like a relationship sale, advertisers need to know how their audience is feeling, and digital audio ad inter-actions let us know just that.
Real-time assessment of mood or genre-based listening combined with language, location and device informa-tion helps advertisers create a relatable advertising situ-ation almost on a friendship level.
As terrestrial radio listeners continue to decline and move towards streaming, we will need to treat pure-play mu-sic and news sites as well as apps like a premium. They
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are more modern, interactive and personal to listeners. Personal mobile music listening is a warmer experience that feels like it is their own radio station.
It is more critical than ever that an advertising message in such a personal environment be customized, relevant and compelling, adjusting in real-time to things such as mood, genre and language.
Knowing how your audience is listening is also crucial. Take advantage of the fact that you can tell when a user is interacting with the player and serve a banner ad along with the audio ad.
This is the time to capitalize on their interactivity with a call-to-action.
If the user is on the go, this is the optimal time for an audio-only ad.
Marketers must dynamically adjust in real-time based on user conditions such as location, behavior and device type.
Be informed, and adjust in real timeAnother huge benefit of digital audio for market-ers is the ability to track campaigns in real-time and make informed decisions on the fly.
Advertisers should start broadly and then hone their campaigns as they see what works.
For instance, if you are tar-geting males and females in
a campaign, but 96 percent of your clicks are coming from men, adjust your targeting accordingly and you will get twice the result.
The technology is already in place for tracking and tar-geting in digital and mobile audio advertising, and ad-vertisers need to pay attention to this so that they can optimize their ad spends and drive results.
Andre Hawit is cofounder/CEO of Mixberry Media, San Francisco. Reach him at [email protected].
The home screen should not play second-fiddle to appsBy Jon Jackson
Despite the very public floundering of Home, Face-book’s flailing attempts at, well, Facebook-sized greatness on the smallest screen,
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HTC’s Blinkfeed has managed to snare a decent amount of positive press.
HTC is finally getting some praise for its new, tiled-based user interface, which kind of makes up for years of its barely-recognizable-as-Android layout featuring their standard clock, weather and widgets.
Still, the home screen has played second fiddle to ap-plications for far too long, and despite the popularity of HTC’s slick and easily customized, content-driven inter-face, the home screen just is not the shiny new toy that the industry is lining up to buy.
It is a mystery as to why, when the home screen is the most valuable real estate available.
It is where users go to check messages, weather – heck, it has replaced the wristwatch for most of us.
Today, smartphones are the devices that are the most intimately enmeshed with consumers’ lifestyles, prefer-ences and interests.
Brands, retailers and mobile operators could be right there as well, offering relevant content and engaging brand experiences on a device that is viewed countless times per day.
However, they are not.
After all, Facebook and Blinkfeed are not the only games in town.
Part of it, I believe is a PR problem: The market simply remains unaware of the home screen opportunity.
Apps are flashy.
They gain most of the at-tention in the press, but offer a fraction of the true potential for con-nection that the home screen offers.
The home screen, in contrast, offers content that cannot be ignored, with the ability to cap-tivate the attention of consumers far longer Jon Jackson
than apps, which are not part of the gateway to the smartphone experience.
So why are publishers and brands racing to build and market apps for an already crowded market, when the home screen offers high-impact branding opportunities with unparalleled exposure to consumers of virtually every demographic?
Here are a few more reasons to consider the home screen over the app:
Content and conveniencePart of the untold story about the home screen is its capability to make content searches more user-friend-ly, helping build deeper connections between con-sumers and their favorite publishers and sources of branded media.
The home screen as a media showcase places pre-mium content at a consumer’s fingertips on a con-stant basis, allowing them not only better access but more opportunities to discover new content during found time.
Advertisers can leverage this content to surface relevant, intent-based messaging that can be perceived as helpful and inspire engagement.
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This is the polar opposite of current in-app of-ferings that interrupt rather than enhance the user experience.
Interest and immediacyThe home screen also offers consumers the opportunity, in many cases, to customize dynamic content displays according to their interests.
This provides a valuable element of immediacy to
their content choices that enhances the overall value of their smartphone usage, making it more likely that they will raise, rather than reduce the time spent on their smartphones.
Apps tend to offer a set range of options and while prominently displayed on most smartphones, they still usually require an extra step to open and view.
Opportunity and optimizationContent and branding experiences, whether they incor-porate home screen takeovers or rich media, allow brands and mobile operators to optimize rare opportunities to deliver compelling messages in an ideal and uncluttered advertising medium.
Home screen real estate is rare.
Therefore, every consumer-brand and consumer-con-tent interaction that takes place evades the ‘ban-ner blindness’ pitfall of other forms of online and mobile advertising.
Mobile apps must stand out in a landscape that is crowded with redundant offerings and low-value, gimmicky appeals.
Furthermore, home screen messaging frequently ac-cesses user data that can serve as optimization points to drive relevance and engagement.
Apps may get most of the press and love from con-sumers, but the home screen will not remain a missed opportunity for long.
Messaging via the home screen is more relevant, more accessible, and more welcomed than any other type of mobile advertising.
So stop trying to reinvent the wheel, and fo-cus on the wheel that is turning right underneath our feet.
Jon Jackson is CEO of Mobile Posse, McLean, VA. Reach him at [email protected].
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Device schizophrenia and finding a cross-screen fitBy Adam Soroca
Users experience the same topics and products on a myriad of devices, depending upon the time of day and their surroundings.
Some sessions are struc-tured, uninterrupted and lengthy, such as research-ing a new car purchase on a PC. Other sessions are short, choppy and full of distraction, such as glimpsing at a trip to Hawaii on a smart-phone while watching American Idol.
As this device schizophre-Adam Sorocania intensifies, advertisers and marketers must maintain a fluid yet consistent cross-screen presence. Consumers expect a holistic message, regardless of device or medi-um, and sending multiple messages across screens with-out a connection strategy can result in a fragmented consumer experience.
Fortunately, ad tech companies have recently ush-ered in varying cross-screen sophistication to solve these challenges.
Unfortunately, advertisers must now sift through the quickly growing pack. How can they find the right fit? To help sift through the pack, advertisers should con-sider these three factors: Bridging technique, scale and unified reporting.
Bridging techniqueDo you know how ad tech players that claim to match audiences across screens do so? There are three promi-nent methods: Publisher logins, third-party data identifi-ers and device matching. Let’s take a deeper look at each.
Publisher logins: Anonymous publisher or mobile opera-tor logins, typically a one-way hashed email address, can be collected and used to bridge users across devices.
Matches are made when consumers log-into properties on different screens and are matched against the hashed ID. The accuracy for this level of targeting is extreme-ly high, since a deterministic match is made. However, scale is hard to achieve without significant business development investment.
Third-party data IDs: Third-party data IDs, through re-lationships with online and offline providers and over-laid on publisher log-ins, bridge consumer behaviors and hashed identifiers across screens. Accuracy for third-par-ty data is high and scale tends to reside in the mid-range.
Device matching: Device matching is a fancy way of say-ing probabilistic modeling based on common behaviors, IP addresses and device characteristics/fingerprinting across screens.
Providers that use probabilistic modeling will see two consumers behaving similarly in mobile and PC, and de-cide that it is the same, individual consumer.
This is essentially an educated guess, not a true match. Accessing cross-device IP addresses helps increase the number of matches, however massive scale is needed to weed out inconsistencies.
Accuracy for device matching is on the lower side, while scale is high. Be wary of companies who only practice this method.
ScaleScale is critical to reaching a campaign’s-worth of users across screens.
Some cross-screen providers may have significant reach in mobile and smaller reach in PC, while others may have the reverse, neither case really works.
Advertisers have already been burnt by players who de-liver a so-called cross-screen campaign where 99 per-cent of the reach was on the PC and 1 percent was in mobile.
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Scale is needed on both ends. Many of the players with the highest cross-screen reach will be those that start-ed in mobile. Of course we are biased, but the proof is in the pudding.
With mobile’s lack of a prominent cookie, mobile play-ers already needed to figure out a way bridge the iOS and Android platforms, app and mobile Web experiences and tablet and smartphone devices in order to deliver a comprehensive campaign.
The groundwork has been set; using that algorithm to bridge online and mobile was the logical next step.
Unified reportingAdvertisers and agencies are presented with a multitude of reports across every medium. To help simplify and
confirm results, a cross-screen partner should deliver one unified report with actionable data.
This is not just about ease of consumption, but rath-er the ability to see the frequency of reach to the same consumers.
Look for frequency capping and retargeting to garner the optimum target reach. Unified reporting should reflect this and also show how the advertiser increased engage-ment through multiple touch points. Push your ad tech partner to bring you the insights that matter most in a unified way.
Adam Soroca is chief product officer and gen-eral manager at Jumptap, Boston. Reach him at [email protected].
Recognizing and overcoming the limitations of mobile cookiesBy Lauren Moores
Desktop advertising relies on the prevalent and ac-cepted use of third-party cookies. Cookies that are set by a third party are used to retarget the
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same user across sites, provide frequency capping and to provide attribution of advertising engagement. Cook-ies are an unreliable method for mobile, since cookies for mobile Web are blocked in Safari that cover more than 60 percent of mobile browser share, and cookies are not feasible to be used across mobile applications and Web usage.
Mobile cookie limitations make tracking cross-device, cross-networks and cross-media difficult. As a result for mobile, they were first replaced by usage of the iOS UDID.
The UDID is a persistent and unique device identifier as-sociated with a user’s hardware, which allows for mobile advertising targeting and attribution across mobile apps and mobile Web for any iOS device. Whereas cookies can be deleted, a user is unable to delete this identification, leading to privacy concerns and the recent depreciation of UDID support by Apple. The quick replacement for the UDID became the MAC address, also unique and unchange-able and also abandoned by most for privacy concerns. Parallel to persistent identifier use is device fingerprint-ing, which is the creation of a unique identifier that can be determined by the make-up of the user’s device type, location, time, carrier, OS and other attributes. The use of fingerprinting allows one to support mobile advertising campaign measurement per device, across mobile Web and apps. Digital fingerprints, if not dynamic, carry the same privacy concerns as a persistent identifier. A similar cookie-free approach with mobile apps prox-ies a cookie pool by using an SDK to take advantage of the cut and paste buffers that are available in mobile apps, essentially leaving an identifier in the buffer to be picked up again and allowing for the ability to track us-ers across mobile apps. Dynamic device identifiers that can be changed by the consumer have become the most recent solution. With Apple, users have the additional ability to opt-out of behavioral advertising.
Dynamic device identifiers allow for a more privacy-friendly approach for mobile advertising albeit do not solve the cross-device and cross-channel needs for ascertaining advertising performance. The dynamic identifier with Do Not Track capa-bility is one of the better solutions available to the Lauren Mooresmobile advertising community, as it can also be used across mobile networks and exchanges, in addition to allowing for measurement across apps and mobile Web.
However, the idFA does not handle the need for cross-device and cross-channel attribution. It is possible that the future of mobile and other digital de-vice advertising will rely on an agnostic central clearing-house, where users opt-in to a universal ID that can be used for advertising behavioral targeting and measurement. There are a few players currently trying to do just that. Until then, cookie limitations in mobile can be overcome by the utilization of deterministic probability solutions, which statistically associate user behavior based on various signals.
These science-based solutions estimate the likelihood that a user on one device is the same user on another de-vice where the devices can be tablet, smartphone, digital TV, desktop or any other digital device.
These solutions go beyond the desktop cookie capabili-ties by providing a means to identify advertising audi-ences across channels, resulting in an understanding of overall consumer engagement across brands.
Lauren Moores is vice president of analytics at Dstillery, New York. Reach her at [email protected].
Value at first glance: Making mobile ads worth watchingBy Deborah Powsner
I s this really worth my time? That is the question we all ask each time we glance at a mobile ad on our smartphone screens. The usual answer, sadly, is “no.”
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Mobile ads have a favorability rating of just nine percent, according to a 2012 report by global research firm Mill-
ward Brown. That is the lowest of any digital ad format and ties mobile ads with, of all things, non-opt-in emails. Ouch.
As a mobile marketer my-self, this stat hurts. But, it is not surprising. Consum-ers have deeply personal relationships with mobile devices. We use them to connect with friends, fam- Deborah Powsnerily and colleagues, entertain us when we’re bored and get us answers when it matters most.
So we actually expect more from brands when they try to reach us through this medium. In fact, in a 2013 study SessionM conducted with Millward Brown, we discov-ered the equation consumers use every time they decide whether to engage with a mobile ad: (time x usefulness) + engaging = value
When an ad looks useful that multiplies the amount of time that a consumer will invest to engage. If the ad is also entertaining that adds even more to the consumer’s willingness to spend time with the brand. It also in-creases the chance that they will interact with the brand again. It is a big win.
But how can marketers convey value at the mobile user’s first glance? One tactic to consider is reward-based ad-vertising. The usefulness of rewards is universal. It is an immediate signal to consumers that you respect their time and that they are guaranteed some level of value from the ad engagement.
The reward cannot be a replacement for quality con-tent, of course. It takes a true blend of ad execution and reward to win the hearts and minds of consumers. We found that while a reward can open consumer receptiv-ity and capture their limited attention, it is still up to the
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ad content to grab the baton, sell the message through and inspire follow-up action.
When both the ad execution and reward are done well, the results are true breakthroughs. Our study found that rewarded audiences are much more likely to interact with mobile advertising (34 percent versus 15 percent) and also to look for a brand in-store after ad engage-ment (21 percent versus 12 percent).
Placement and timing for a mobile ad campaign are also critical. In our qualitative work, we actually had partici-pants refer to ads as ‘villains’ when the ads interrupted their mobile content.
To keep that from happening, use ad formats and cre-ative that feel native to the user’s content experience, such as showing ads during natural breaks in the app.
Also, remember that not all rewards are created equal. 92 percent of all mobile users said that being able to choose their reward was very important. In fact, when participants were given a mobile coupon or other reward for a product they were not interested in, the ad was seen as annoying and intrusive. The freedom to choose makes the reward and brand interaction that much more meaningful to them.
A related insight that surprised us: 68 percent of mobile users want to be able to predict the rewards they will receive. They do not want surprises. We think this means that given the low favorability number toward mobile ads, and their old reputation for being misleading and intrusive, people simply want a rewards framework that lets them see and understand the reward value up front.
At SessionM, we have created this framework through a mobile loyalty system. It is also useful to focus on ways to use a consistent approach each and every time, so your audience can grow comfortable with it, and on set-ting expectations up front for what the reward will be and how the consumer will receive it.
What excites us about our our research is that while we began with the goal of understanding why rewards-
based advertising works, what we found speaks to what is needed in mobile advertising as a whole: Bringing more value to the consumer. Finding ways to boost that value exchange and making it clear to the user are critical next steps toward making every mobile ad worth watching.
Deborah Powsner is vice president of marketing and consumer insights at SessionM, Boston. Reach her at [email protected].
Mobile real-time bidding and predictive targeting: Problem solversBy Anthony Iacovone
I f knowledge is power, then we are all titans thanks to mobile advertising, since knowledge has never been more readily available in the form of big data.
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Billions of mobile streams containing an almost infinite number of data points stream globally, offering an op-portunity for understanding, predicting and ultimately delivering the knowledge brands and advertisers seek.
However, making sense of all that noise has, until now, been a path of frustration for advertisers and agencies whose business depends on converting data into predict-able business outcomes, and many simply do not know how to take advantage of this information.
Mobile advertising offers great promise to brands and marketers, yet some campaigns fail due to an imprecise approach. Instead of serving ads to the masses, market-ers should consider a strategic approach made possible by incorporating mobile real-time bidding and predictive targeting into their campaigns.
Mobile RTB: How it worksMobile RTB can be broken out into four basic components:
Bid Requesting Inventory: Advertising exchanges en-able their inventory to be bid on by networks, and they provide information with the bid request. This can in-clude the publisher’s name or URL, the ad’s position on the page, the type of ad unit acceptable, latitude and longitude.
Bid Responding System: The system’s sole job is to answer back to the bid request from the ad exchange with a bid price and the creative to be placed. The bid response first digests the information coming in with the request, then obtains and digests any third-party data available. This must be done within 100-200 milliseconds before the publisher chooses the highest bidder and places the ad.
Data Enrichment: The impression request is enriched by using third-party data partners and through building your own database of first-party information.
Decision Engine: Decision engines are based on pre-dictive models – essen-tially, they aim to predict future actions based on historical data.
Mobile RTB: The BenefitsMobile RTB allows adver-tisers to target their audi-ence accurately, buying on an impression-by-impres-sion basis. It also allows Anthony Iacovonethem to enjoy a higher level of campaign control and complete transparency, while enjoying an improved re-turn on advertising spend.
Mobile RTB offers benefits for publishers as well. Mobile RTB levels the playing field - delivering premium rates for publishers, on an impression-by-impression basis, for all measurably valuable inventory, regardless of the size of the publisher’s inventory pool.
The effective use of mobile RTB depends upon the in-telligent and efficient use of data and using technology capable of enriching that data in the process.
Therefore, a critical variable in the effectiveness of any RTB platform, especially mobile, is the speed and accura-cy with which the platform can process massive amounts of data. If executed well, data-driven mobile RTB con-nects advertisers with their target audiences one impres-sion at a time.
Using mobile RTB for predictive targetingPredictive modeling in mobile RTB has moved past static activities, such as segmenting and simple retargeting campaigns, toward predictive targeting and real-time decisions. The term real-time is used to describe how well a predictive modeling system can accommodate an ever-increasing data load instantaneously.
When this is done in real-time, predictive targeting en-
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ables advertisers to reach their optimum audiences with precision, while foregoing bidding on impressions that are less likely to promote an advertiser’s objectives.
Real-time predictive modeling gives mobile RTB plat-forms the previously impossible ability to cherry pick de-sired brand target audiences and impressions. As a result, advertisers enjoy improved engagement levels, such as significant uplift in click-through rates and awareness, and considerable reduction in cost per acquisition rates.
As advertisers benefit from these results, it should in-crease industry standards, as well as the expectations of marketers.
Mobile RTB provides advertisers with an efficient way to leverage this technology and reach their desired audi-ences, one impression at a time.
Anthony Iacovone is founder/CEO of AdTheorent, New York. Reach him at [email protected].
Mobile programmatic: Learnings from the frontBy Victor Milligan
Big trends are dangerous in an already hyped ad tech market. It can be hard to separate the real trend and the trendy topic.
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Enter programmatic, a big trend with all the attendant big forecasts, praise and loathing and predictions of win-ners and losers. So is it a trend or simply trendy? And what does it mean to market participants?
Let us start with the basics. The gist of programmatic is that markets with complex and high-volume trans-actions depend on technology to be efficient, liquid and productive.
Without technology, the market would eventually hit some wall, and likely some human exhaustion, in trying to support this complexity and scale. This has been the case in capital markets, banking, energy trading, credit card markets, and it is certainly the case in today’s mo-bile advertising market.
Simply put, we would cap the market and all of its po-tential if we did not take advantage of technology. So what does this mean to market participants? We need to focus not just on what is needed to make the market work, but on what is needed to ensure the market cre-ates real sustainable value.
The best way to do this is to look at actuals. The Nex-age Exchange just crossed an important threshold, where more than 50 percent of spend on the Nexage Exchange is through RTB.
We have learned quite a lot from the more than 300 publishers and 100 RTB buyers that enjoy liquidity on the Nexage Exchange. Those learnings help us understand how publishers and buyers are realizing value through programmatic:
• Liquidity is table stakes. There needs to be both data-rich audience and spend at scale. The most important dynamic is the growth and vitality of RTB buyers, which drove 3X growth in RTB spend in H1 2013.
• Data is a currency. Tar-geting and retargeting have moved from con-tent to audience. CPM and liquidity are directly correlated to the extent of data – identifier, con-textual, behavioral and location data – available to buyers. We have seen sustained CPM growth, faster growth when we isolate and look at data- Victor Milliganenabled impressions.
• Transparency and controls are critical for confidence and execution. Business and operational leaders need to have the ability to see and control their business, espe-cially as their business will be increasingly executed via automated workflow, decision engines and controls.
• Brand safety must be in place to aggressively pursue programmatic channels. Brand safety achieves three critical outcomes: Minimizes bad ads, minimizes poor brand affiliation and enables business owners to pro-actively minimize channel conflict at the category and advertiser level.
• Private exchanges, including first-look markets, full private exchanges, programmatic guaranteed and Deal ID/PMP are essential to give premium publishers, buy-ers and agencies options to design and operate markets optimized to their evolving needs.
• Reliability matters. If the technology is down, the mar-ket is down. Building a good programmatic market means building the exchange with the requisite reliability, resil-iency and scalability so that technology fuels liquidity. We have 33 straight months of uptime – that type of technology performance has direct economic value.
The next test is whether these factors have staying pow-er, which is ultimately determined by whether different
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market participants are actively building and benefiting from programmatic.
They are:• Premium publishers were able to build a programmatic indirect channel as a strategic complement to their di-rect sales teams.
• More buyers were accelerating their RTB spend. This includes mobile-native DSPs that were growing their business; online DSPs establishing productive mobile channels; mobile ad networks that were expanding their business to seize on the unique targeting and technology value of RTB; and trading desks that were getting more active. These four segments have a common perspective: Mobile RTB offers the best method to enable targeting and retargeting solutions to drive successful campaigns
and further attract brand spend.
• Data providers were gaining an efficient and powerful channel to market, as they are able to easily append their data to the bid request through the exchange,.
The forecasts that predict programmatic will take more than 50 percent share of the market can be seen as ag-gressive, but in fact they are sensible for a simple rea-son. The factors that are accelerating the role and value of programmatic markets, and driving RTB spend on the Nexage Exchange to cross the 50 percent threshold al-ready, are compelling, sustainable and are creating value for virtually every market participant.
Victor Milligan is chief marketing officer of Nexage, Bos-ton. Reach him at [email protected].
How to achieve better ROI from mobile ad campaignsBy Jon Nolz
T he Holy Grail for mobile advertisers is a precise, accurate, and accountable measurement for re-turn on investment. Knowing exactly where and
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This already difficult proposition is made harder by the nascent nature of the technology, the fragmentation of the different handsets in the marketplace and the mea-surement tools available.
Mobile advertising is a relatively new discipline. It lacks the established metrics and practices of broadcast, print or even desktop digital advertising.
While it still might be the Wild West in terms of measur-ing ROI of mobile advertising, there are two things you can do in tandem that increase the chance of a cam-paign’s success: Targeting and analytics.
Any organization that is considering mobile advertising should already have a solid idea of its target audience. Who buys your product or service? Or, whom do you want to buy your product/service?
The more granular you can answer that question, the more effective your targeting will be. Do you have more
on whom your money was best spent is a never-ending struggle for mobile marketers.
male or female customers? Where do they live? How old are they? How much money do they make? Do they own a house? Do they drive a foreign car? Do they have kids? Do they watch sports?
The list of demographic characteristics you can use for targeting is almost endless. The point is that Jon Nolzyou have a better chance of reaching the right consum-ers the more precisely you target your ad spend.
Therefore, precise targeting presents the best initial chance you have at achieving successful ROI.
The potential problem with this initial targeting is that it presumes your initial customer sketch and demographic information is correct.
What if it is not? How do you correct for targeting the wrong people? If you are targeting the correct audiences, how do you improve your ROI? This is where analytics plays such an important part of any mobile ad campaign.
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We too often see analytics neglected due to lack of bud-get or difficulty in seeing a cohesive picture of all the data points involved.
This is a shame because it is in the analysis phase of any campaign where the greatest ROI can be found. Com-prehensive analysis of campaign data can quickly lead to fine tuning of the target audience.
Depending on how dynamic your organization is or how long your campaign lasts, you can optimize and re-target on the fly. Brands that have the most flexibility to listen to results and pivot have the most success.
Initial targeting and then careful in-depth analysis of those results moves away from a spray-and-pray men-tality to one that focuses on consistent ROI. Another part of that in-depth analysis is to overlay third-party data with campaign results.
Once you have discovered who is interacting with your ads, you can then overlay that information with specific
location-based profiling and targeting. You can access people or households with similar characteristics, creat-ing a heat map of best targets.
All this is only possible if you have sufficient and compa-rable data sets to analyze. A current impediment to this is a lack of established key performance indicators that all vendors track.
If you are working with a single or multiple vendors, make sure their data is compatible and can be cross-analyzed. Otherwise, you might know what’s happening, but not how to improve it.
We live in a data-driven world. As mobile use grows, this trend will only accelerate. Embrace it. The orga-nization with the best targeting and analysis of those targets will see the highest returns on their mobile advertising investment.
Jon Nolz is vice president of mobile advertising at Hip-cricket, Kirkland, WA. Reach him at [email protected].
Why overspending in mobile can be counterproductiveBy Guillaume Lelait
Between the myriad of ad networks, placement types and creative formats, the mobile marketer has countless ways to spend a marketing budget.
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There are many ways to market an app, mobile website or promote a brand.
As a mobile marketer, there can be a strong urge to try many different placement combinations and reach as many unique mobile consumers as possible.
Simply investing a small sum of money into each dif-ferent placement combination is not only extreme-ly time consuming, but is very costly and ultimately counterproductive.
A good mobile marketer will remember what the goal is for his or her campaign and not spend money because they have it.
It is vital for branding and especially direct re-sponse-driven campaigns to hold their advertis-ing accountable. Below are tips to help evaluate your marketing budget.
Know your goalIf your goal is to acquire users or promote an app, you likely are very cognizant of your app’s particular ranking in the app store.
An easy and quick way to climb the rankings is to uti-lize incentivized traffic and cheap CPI traffic to climb the rankings and gain an organic uplift.
However, you must first know what the value is by jump-ing from position X to position Y.
Say you want to jump from 10 to six in the game store.
This would take a considerably larger investment than going from 10 to eight.
But what if the difference in organics from eight to six
does not match the dif-ference in investment? If these are not comparable, then this is over spend and wasted dollars.
The same logic can be ap-plied to branding cam-paigns. Is your goal to reach as many people as possible or is it to reach a qualified audience?
Guillaume LelaitYou will find plenty of scale with a network RON buy, but if you have a niche product and do not see engagement, this RON buy is wasted budget when compared to an audience-targeted segment.
Know your inventoryThis is a basic principle, but one that seems to be often overlooked.
There are a ridiculous amount of ad networks and you will find that many of them are tapping into the same publishers and exchanges.
It is very important to vet a new network and get as much transparency as possible around the network’s placements.
If you place a buy across multiple blind networks, you run the risk of bidding against yourself on the same inventory space and artificially increasing the price of your media.
While you are not likely to get 100 percent transpar-ency from networks, make sure to at least find out the major exchanges they tap into as well as a sample site list.
Know how much your marketing is worthDigital advertising is most different from its offline coun-terpart in that we can measure effectiveness.
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As mobile marketers, we are lucky that we can see our advertising pay dividends.
While more time consuming than the first two points, implementing a tracking solution that allows you to measure value of users is the final and most important piece to determining optimal spend.
Knowing your advertising ROI allows you to find a mar-keting sweet spot and is a base for all of your mobile marketing efforts.
I had the opportunity to work on an account for a dating app.
It was fascinating to see that more paid users does not actually equal more revenue.
There was a clear line of demarcation and point of diminishing returns.
If we did not have a tracking solution, it is likely that we would have spent more money to acquire more users. Now we know this can be counterproductive.
Because mobile marketing is still very much in its in-fancy, it is even more crucial to spend intelligently.
Your marketing campaign will only yield what you put into it.
Treat it wisely and reap the rewards.
Guillaume Lelait is vice president of North America at Fetch, London. Reach him on [email protected].
Mobile web browsing is expected to
account for 50% of all web traffic
by 2014...
But only 10% of advertisers offer
a mobile optimized destination
for users to visit.*
KARGO Build Mobile Engagement.
Source: Mongoose Metrics Data Series 2012
BRAND POWER IN MOBILE SM
