A new study by mobile application company Tapjoy and market research firm Interpret polled 2,000 consumers on mobile app attitudes and usage. The study found that adults 25-34 are more likely to value the influence of advertisements, and they recall seeing more ads while using mobile apps, particularly video ads or fully sponsored/branded apps. They also recall a larger number of ads per single app use: seven, compared to six among the total population. Once members of this age group saw an ad within an app, half of them decided to click on it, versus 45% of typical app users. Twenty-eight percent of people 25-34 and 29% of those 18-24 have followed an ad to download another app, compared to 24% of total app users. Over one-third of adults 18-34 have downloaded an app to earn rewards, compared to 29% of typical users. Although the most sought-after rewards for general app users are cash and gift cards, adults 25-34 are much more likely than the total to express interest in earning premium content, game credits and new apps. The study breaks app using into several groups. One group, about 21% of the respondents, are "premium essentials" who are willing to pay for apps; they have a lot of apps and prune their number to eliminate the ones they don't like or use any more. The study said they find apps from word of mouth, and browsing the app store, but not by advertising and promotions. They are most likely to try a free version -- and if they like it, upgrade to the paid one. They also over-index for mobile games, are willing to pay for premium games and pay up front. Another group, "researcher purchasers" -- about 29% of the respondent group -- uses social networks and recommendations to find apps, per the study. They also are more likely to respond to TV ads and promotions to learn about new games, movies, and automobiles as much as from suggestions. They have the most paid apps. A third group of app users are "gratis only," and comprise 26% of the respondent pool. The study says once they have downloaded a free app they tend to stick with it instead of paying for a better version. They don't like ad-supported apps, however, although few are willing to get rid of ads by paying. Finally, "fermium users," 24% of the population of app users, download a lot of apps but are very price-sensitive. The study says 88% download only the free versions of apps. More than three-quarters of them, per the study, make price the principal driver which app to get. App users in the 25-to-34 age range said they saw on average seven ads per app use. The "premium essential" group and the "fermium users" were more likely than any other group to report seeing ads in apps. But of those who reported seeing an ad the "researcher purchaser" group was morally likely to click than anyone else. A quarter of premium essentials and fremium users were willing to download an app to get a reward, a higher number than any of the other groups.
Amazon’s first-quarter results suggest its strategy of selling a cheap tablet computer to drive digital sales is starting to pay dividends. The e-commerce giant attributed its 19% rise in media sales during the quarter in part to e-books, movies and music being purchased through the $199 Kindle Fire tablet it launched in November. Said Amazon CFO Thomas Szkutak during a call with analysts: “When you look at our North American media growth from Q4 to Q1, you're seeing that accelerate.” As a result, Szkutak said the company would continue to add more content across all digital categories. Amazon continued to expand its catalog of offerings in its Prime Instant Video service during the quarter, for example, through licensing agreements with Discovery Communications and Viacom, bringing thousands of episodes from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and the Discovery Channel. Amazon remains tight-lipped about sales numbers for the Kindle Fire, but reiterated that the 7-inch tablet is its top-selling product. Analysts have estimated Amazon sold about 5 million of the devices in the fourth quarter, and JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth has projected about 20 million will be sold in 2012. Data released by comScore Thursday showed the Kindle Fire now accounts for more than half the Android tablet market in the U.S.; the iPad remains by far the dominant brand in the space. Apple this week said iPad sales in its most recent quarter increased 151% to 11.8 million. Most important for Amazon is that the Kindle Fire, and the entire Kindle line, is providing a springboard for boosting its digital media business. Unlike Apple, Amazon is not interested in selling hardware as using its low-priced tablet and e-reader lineup as a conduit for driving additional e-commerce on handheld devices. “Broadly speaking, we continue to see the mobile theme benefiting e-commerce,” noted Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter on Amazon’s first-quarter performance. “The fact that the Internet is simply available more often and on better form factors is leading to increased Internet use. This is benefiting companies such as AMZN, and we expect that to continue.” JP Morgan’s Anmuth noted that in addition to the Kindle Fire itself, nine out of the 10 top sellers in the quarter were digital products, including e-books, movies, music and apps. “We think Amazon's strategy of building a consumer ecosystem around the Fire and Prime appears to be taking hold and we're encouraged by consumer uptake at this point in the Kindle Fire's lifecycle,” he stated in a research note. Amazon did not provide specific usage-related numbers for its video service or other digital media categories, making it difficult to get better insight into its progress in competing with iTunes, Netflix, Google Play and others. But the cost of expanding its content library, selling devices below cost and other investments have come at the cost of operating margins, which dropped to 3.3% from 1.5% a year ago. Still, it marked an improvement from 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Amazon overall reported a revenue increase of 34% to $13.2 billion, while profit fell 35% to $130 on higher operating expenses. Amazon’s push behind the Kindle Fire, however, is likely only getting started.
Since the dawn of the smartphone, games have dominated consumers’ mobile minutes. In the past year, however, new research shows that social networking has risen to rival gaming on a per-minute basis. Comparing the average time that smartphone users spent across app categories between the first quarter of 2011 and 2012, Flurry found that gaming dropped by 4% -- down to 24 minutes per day -- while social networking increased by 60% -- up to 24 minutes per day. “The most significant trend is that for the first time in the history of applications … another app category is rivaling games,” according to Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at the analytics firm. (Flurry first began tracking app usage in 2008.) “We take the rise in social networking apps as a signal of maturation for the platform,” Farago added. “As game demand may be hitting its saturation point, consumers are also discovering other apps -- namely social networking.” For whatever reason, Flurry found that year-over-year growth in social networking app usage has been staggering. Not only has time spent increased by 60%, but also within a growing amount of total time spent in smartphone apps among consumers -- from 68 to 77 minutes -- representing a growth rate of 13%. Flurry also found that ad revenue in apps is being driven primarily by the gaming and social networking categories. For February, March and April, game apps earned 35%, 35% and 36% of total ad revenue in Flurry’s AppCircle ad network, which it says reaches over 300 million unique devices per month. Over the same three months, social networking climbed from 24% in February to 25% in March, and then to 37% in April. “This is the first time in Flurry’s history that any category has surpassed games in ad revenue generated," Farago noted. (Flurry launched AppCircle in the summer of 2010.) In either usage or revenue terms, can games reclaim their dominance among mobile users? Not likely, according to Farago. “As long as the total iOS and Android installed base grows, all categories will continue to grow naturally,” he explains. “However, as we reach saturation for mobile gaming on a per user basis … the games category could start behaving more like a ‘zero sum game’ from here on out, meaning that game companies would have to fight over a finite group of consumers in order to grow their businesses.” Even with an influx of new consumers into the market, Farago expects would-be casual gamers to be increasingly wooed away from games by more compelling social networking apps.
Ask.com will likely make a series of investments this year to support its question-and-answer platform, capitalizing on the company's core technology. It has begun to test application programming interfaces that give developers the building blocks to design mobile and desktop applications. The move would create a network of app developers supporting services, publishers and more. "We are at the beginning stage," said Doug Leeds, Ask CEO, who described the API project as a test, or "a little bet," that could become interesting. "We're at the stage as a company where we're going to have to make a couple of big bets, and a bunch of little bets." While Leeds declined to talk about "big bets," such as acquisitions supported by its deep-pocketed parent company IAC/InterActiveCorp and capital generated from the search business, he did explain how "intelligent investments" in technology would make sense. While IAC has made a few acquisitions, the search business has not invested in companies to supplement what it does. Ask will enter new areas by analyzing existing ideas. This type of thinking will support the company's assets, such as the ability to drive traffic to pages through a variety of traffic streams, monetization and "the ability to create our own content," Leeds said. "It all comes back to the Q&A proposition," said Leeds, who believes in thinking outside the box. "This supports a bigger market than anyone has tapped for mobile, third-party sites and social." Leeds defined social as the ability for the app to improve as people use it, meaning building on the influence or the effect of the network. For example, Foursquare built games to support social check-ins, and now check-ins live without the games. During a college panel at the MediaPost Search Insider Summit, students told the audience they check in to tell their friends when they arrive even if there's no interest in becoming the mayor of the location. The benefit comes from one friend knowing another friend arrived. The comScore Top 50 Properties ranked Google Sites in the No. 1 spot for March with 189.7 million visitors, followed by Microsoft with 178.9 million, Yahoo Sites with 175.4 million and Facebook.com with 158.9 million. Ask Network climbed to the No. 7 position with 92.3 million unique visitors. Leeds also described a two-screen project being developed through a company program that devotes Friday afternoons to employees who want to explore building applications and developing strategies. It's similar to Google's 80/20 theory that allows employees to work on their own pet projects for 20% of the time. For example, the two-screen app being developed by Ask employees syncs up with live entertainment and sporting events on television; it serves supplemental information. It could become a small feature in a more sophisticated app. IAC/InterActiveCorp will release earnings on May 2. Wall Street expects a 31 cent per share profit, up 40.9% from the year-ago quarter.
In a report last September, Yankee Group dubbed Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook the “Four Horsemen” of what it called the mobile content revolution. The mobile-focused research firm has since updated its findings, estimating that more than half the collective $200 billion in revenue of the four tech giants came from mobile sources. Considering that Apple’s portion accounted for the vast majority of that $100 billion-plus in mobile revenue, however, Gladys Knight and the Pips might be a more apt metaphor. Still, the companies together drove three-quarters (76%) of worldwide mobile app downloads and ad revenue last year. The big payoff is yet to come, with mobile content revenue expected to grow at an annual rate of 35% in the next three years, from $10 billion in 2011 to more than $43 billion in 2015. That compares to only 10% annual growth for mobile device sales. When it comes to determining mobile revenues, the report authored by Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe concedes that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google do not consistently report how much they make from mobile products and services. By combining public data with its own models, however, the firm believes it has come up with reasonable estimates. Apple’s mobile-related sales clearly dwarf those of the other three. Combined revenue from 2011 sales of the iPhone, iPad and iPods was $92.2 billion. In addition, its music, video and app stores sold $6.9 billion worth of content, of which Yankee Group estimates $5.4 billion was for mobile devices. That brings the total to just under $100 billion, amounting to more than three-quarters of Apple sales. Google mobile revenue has come mainly through search, which company CEO Larry Page pegged at $2.5 billion last year. Another estimated $1 billion in downloaded apps and content from Google Play brings the 2011 total to $3.5 billion, or 7% of overall revenue. The report faults Google’s reliance on advertising as an inefficient way to capitalize on mobile content compared to direct sales. Like Apple, Amazon has both device and mobile content sales, although on a much smaller scale to date. Yankee figures the company sold roughly $1.8 billion worth of Kindle readers and tablets last year, along with $4.3 billion of other manufacturers’ mobile devices. With $2 billion more from sales of e-books, music and other digital media, mobile revenue comes to $8.1 billion -- equal to 17% of total sales. Of the so-called Four Horsemen of mobile, Facebook stands out as the straggler. While boasting half a billion monthly active mobile users globally, the company reiterated in its latest securities filing that it doesn’t yet generate any meaningful revenue from its mobile products. Until last month, when it began including Sponsored Stories ads in mobile users’ news feeds, Facebook has not shown ads in its mobile apps or its mobile site. A recent forecast from Pivotal Research Group senior analyst Brian Wieser projects Facebook’s mobile ad revenue will surge from nothing to nearly $500 million in the U.S. by 2017. That does not include any revenue it could also add by monetizing digital media payments and e-commerce coming through its platform on mobile devices. Still, that amount would only be a small portion of Facebook’s overall projected ad revenue of $12.6 billion in five years. If Facebook wants to maintain its $100 billion valuation, Howe said the social networking powerhouse must ramp up its mobile monetization. He suggests that the company should introduce premium Android and iOS apps, which even at $2.99 apiece would translate into more than a $500 million business if sold to half Facebook’s mobile subscribers. Still, the study asserts that Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google will benefit most from the rapidly growing mobile content business in the coming years as the dominant players in the space. Of the projected $43 billion total in three years, about $30 billion would come from advertising and $13.5 billion from mobile app store revenue.
Microsoft is making a $300 million investment in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary that spins off that bookseller’s digital content and college businesses. As yet unnamed, the new company will be valued at $1.7 billion and is designed to “accelerate the transition to e-reading,” the companies said in a statement. All of the components of the new subsidiary were not entirely clear in the statement, which emphasized the educational aspects of the company. Apparently, the new company will include the Nook tablet and e-reader aspects of the company. The two firms did announce that a Nook app for the upcoming Windows 8 operating system was forthcoming. The company also will distribute Nook Study software to the education market. Microsoft and B&B had been involved in patent litigation over Nook products, but those suits have been settled. The new company will license the relevant patents to the Nook readers and tablets from Microsoft. There was also some indication in the announcement that the new subsidiary could be spun off entirely as a separate business. The strategic partnership gives both Microsoft and B&N greater purchase in markets currently dominated by rivals Apple, Google and Amazon. Microsoft’s upcoming windows 8 operating system is designed to work across tablet and desktop platforms, but the company is up against the entrenched dominance of Apple’s iPad. Likewise, B&N’s Android-powered Nook Tablet seems to have been overshadowed by Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
Very high-end brands such as Tiffany’s, Rolex and Gucci have become familiar sponsors of many smartphone and tablet apps in the last year. And for good reason. The rich like their apps the same as everyone else. Well, different apps, perhaps. According to new research from Luxury Institute in partnership with mobile marketing agency Plastic Mobile, apps from Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Saks Fifth Avenue and Gilt Groupe are the most downloaded by affluent smartphone owners. The majority of these wealthy app users are downloading the branded experiences in order to find information on products and services. And a large share of these luxe app users (93%) say they have had good experiences with the apps. Perhaps more importantly, 71% report that the app experiences make them feel “better connected” to the high-end brands. Clearly, it is important for the high end to be present and accessible on devices, since 64% of these app users say they view brands with mobile apps more favorably. Ironically perhaps, the wealthy appophile brings to her luxury brand apps a bargain hunter’s sensibility. Almost a majority (46%) expect the app to feature loyalty programs and preview sales (45%). While the high-end demo does embrace apps, they seem to be especially interested in enhancing the still-treasured in-store, personal service. For instance, almost half of respondents said they liked the idea of having salespeople armed with mobile apps that could offer more detail about a product and check availability. Overall, 45% say they still prefer shopping in-store, and only 20% of the affluent respondents who have make a purchase via their mobile device did so for a luxury item. The good news is that the wealthy are not averse to m-commerce. In fact, 72% put no monetary limit on the price of an item they would consider buying via their mobile device. For the wealthy, at least, mobile apps are critically important to maintaining a relationship to their most treasured brands. But just as clearly, the affluent want their apps to support and enhance the live retail experience and the personal service they seem to identify with these brands. Membership has its privileges.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about best practices in Mobile Marketing and some of the most important lessons I have learned are actually from my clients: how they are successfully using mobile marketing, and how they are integrating SMS with their overall marketing campaigns. Two clients, in particular, Cavender’s Boot City and Cavender’s Western Outfitters and The South Florida Group of Improv Comedy Club and Restaurants, have begun to demonstrate a clear pattern of success of how they use Mobile Marketing to increase customer engagement. Texas-based Cavender’s Boot City and Cavender’s Western Outfitters was aware of just how personal it is to send someone a text message, so they rolled out their mobile marketing program slowly and strategically. A lot of thought was put into making their text messages as relevant and as timely as possible. Text messages are only sent when it is particularly important to that customer, and usually only one or two messages are sent in a month. Great care is taken to show respect to the customer who has entrusted them with their mobile number. The message might be about a special celebrity event at a nearby store or free tickets being given away for a summer concert series. Whatever the text message is about, Cavender’s wants customers to feel an increased sense of trust and loyalty. Mobile Marketing success for Cavender’s meant having a high rate of customer engagement coupled with an extremely low opt-out rate. Cavender’s spokesperson, Brent Allison, told me, “We’re interested in building relationships and not just ‘selling’. We would rather have 5000 fully engaged subscribers than 50,000 coupon seekers.” The South Florida Group of Improv Comedy Club and Restaurants, a group of improvs and stand-up comics, currently operates five top comedy clubs. Each week, over thirty five shows are produced and sixteen thousand need to be filled. An average of one hundred thousand text messages are sent to their customers on a typical weekend. With the comedy clubs, there was a 986%return on investment, which had a direct impact on the bottom line. For example, during one weekend campaign this past January, the clubs realized a net revenue increase of $58, 469. Comedy club rep Scott Keeler said, “We have found that this success with mobile marketing could not be matched by any other marketing programs, including email marketing and outbound phone marketing.” The comedy clubs and the western wear apparel company Cavender’s had different outcomes, and yet both were successful in their use of mobile marketing because they used the same set of best practices. The Permission Factor. With most marketing, it is okay to be aggressive and abide by the old adage that it is best to seek forgiveness rather than to ask for permission. And while this principle works with most marketing, it doesn’t with mobile marketing. Mobile phone numbers are personal and no one wants to be spammed! Effective mobile marketing is strictly permission-based. Both the comedy clubs and Cavender’s had their customers’ express consent to use their mobile numbers. The Marketing Mix. Think about how mobile marketing will fit in with your overall marketing program and how it will enhance your existing relationship with your customers. For example, Cavender’s uses both non-traditional media and traditional media, such as print, radio and billboards, TV Ads, radio ads, print display ads; outbound marketing via telephone, email blasts; and social media: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. Cavender’s wants to be where their customers are located and using SMS is another way to reach them. The south Florida Group uses multiple marketing strategies to maximize attendance: traditional media such as print, radio and billboards, outbound marketing via telephone, email blasts, social media and mobile marketing. Crafting High-Quality Marketing Messages. Is your marketing message meaningful enough to text?Take great care to create messages that are compelling and relevant for the customer. Big Screen, Little Screen—your message needs to be tailored to fit the medium. This isn’t TV, it’s texting. One text says it all. Feel free to be clever and creative. Pique a little bit of curiosity. Write a headline that sells. Use photos, images, links and coupons that generously expand the message of your text. Create a message that is original and credible enough to fit with your brand. Every time you use SMS you need to provide value to the customer. Give a gift that deepens your customer’s emotional connection to your brand. Make your gift memorable. Frequency of Messages. Be careful to assess how frequently your customers would like to receive messages. In the case of Cavender’s, only sending one or two messages a month proved to be an effective tool of customer engagement, and yet for the Comedy Clubs messages might be sent several times in one day prior to a show. With Cavender’s they were even careful about what time of day they texted customers. The comedy club customers, however, wanted frequent messages because they wanted to know exactly what time their favorite comedians were going to be onstage. By implementing best practices in mobile marketing, these companies achieve success. They focused on the most important best practice of all: Know your audience. They spent a lot of thoughtful time thinking about what matters to their audience. Measuring ROI can be as simple as a click (tap). Mobile users can respond to your text. No matter who the audience is, there is no truer engagement than clicking to a number to speak to a live person and engaging in real time conversation. Mobile marketing is really about expanding and deepening your existing customer relationships. Think about what is your business objective, what do you want to achieve, and how mobile marketing will help you get there. Kalin Kassabov is CEO of ProTexting.com, the New York City based mobile marketing company.
When you look at the 21st century, a long time after early innovations appeared like the lightbulb or the phone, to later innovations such as the Arpanet protocol, to later search engines and portals, you might ask yourself what the future of innovation will look like. Will it be about solving a problem, with something never done before on a global scale (see above list) or will it be about mashing existing things together and making them better at a global scale? Google made the world’s information accessible. Apple made the world of devices simpler/prettier. Facebook made the world closer. But what’s next? Video is one of the fastest-growing markets, according to eMarketer, and there is definitely going to be a lot of innovation around video -- especially in the mobile environment. What should the video mobile experience mobile be? An app, or an HTML5 one? Both? I don’t like to follow trends so much, but I have this time -- so let’s talk about Instagram. I don’t care so much that it sold for a billion, and I don’t care so much that they got to 35 million users. I'm more interested in what can we take from this at a higher level. This is all connected to what Vivian Schiller, NBC News Chief Digital Officer, said on a panel I was on with her at Beet.tv. She said, “Platform agnosticism is completely wrong," and argued that at the end of the day companies need to craft the experience to meet the environment it lives in. We are no longer in a time that we have to (or should) invent brand-new ideas. In many cases we take existing ideas, and revamp the context they live in in a really great way. Modern art vs. contemporary art. Platform-agnostic vs. platform-orthodox. Which leads me to mobile apps, and how we should we consider them with regards to video, for example. Mobile apps are not about being mobile, really. Yeah, they're on your mobile phone. But mobile apps are about the experience. When you go to Cielo Club on Monday night in NYC, you can wear jeans and a T-shirt as it’s a casual dance bar, and when you go to speak at Yale MBA club in Manhattan you wear a jacket because they expect you to, and when you’re home you wear comfortable clothing as you’re home. You’re always the same person, but you adjust yourself from the way you look to the way you articulate yourself given the circumstances. You must. Otherwise, it’s odd. It’s out of context. Apps are strategically important to publishers, to companies and to us all as they address the native small screen we all use a thousand times a day. To that extent, Facebook didn’t miss on being the world’s biggest social network in the mobile environment, and it didn’t miss on porting most of the web features into the iOS/Android Facebook App. The company missed on having an experience that was built for mobile from the grounds up around its biggest core – images. It was never about having a ton of features in an app to copycat the Web experience, it was about having one core winning flow -- Picture/Filter/Publish/Follow -- in a well-designed mobile app. Publishers should invest in developing apps that are not ported from their web experience but rather thought of from the grounds up -- for the mobile context. As publishers invest more and more in video and in mobile, think about what Vivian said -- or about what Instagram did building a great app. Don’t be platform-agnostic; build it to win it where the experience going to end up living.
The emergence of the app platforms in digital media has opened up an entirely new vein of data to mine – several, in fact. With the help of smartphone-embedded GPS and tablet location awareness, an app maker can know exactly when and where someone is referencing his content or functionality. But that is only one piece of the contextual puzzle. To make richer decisions about what the use cases are for mobile media, we need to paint richer portraits of context. The possibilities for leveraging the location data layer are at least as exciting as behavioral targeting was back in the early days of the Web, when we started to see that all of those clicks told us volumes about what people were after. The start-ups are piling in. Some like PlaceIQ are profiling locations not only by resources nearby but by activities that occurs within areas at any given moment. They are aimed toward advertising and targeting mobile ad inventory at specific places and times. Another company called Placed is also profiling resources and activities in location but aiming their services purely as analytics for app developers . According to founder and CEO David Shim, the idea is to give a developer, whether it is a brand crafting a branded experience or a game maker, the richer context in which people engage their apps. “We tell them when someone opened their bar code scanner app and can tell them what other stores were nearby. We can tell a game maker what their users are near when they were playing their game. We are proving a context in the real world when people interact with your product.” In some ways this is like the early years of behavioral targeting when companies like Tacoda and Revenue Science were first coming to understand the implications and uses of the new dimension of behavior (the context of clicking) they were assembling. At first the black boxes of BT were merely identifying as “auto intenders” people who had been to some page with car content on it within the last few weeks. Over time this aggregated data began to render new possibilities, like uncovering affinities no one could have suspected.. Who knew that someone whe liked XYZ topic also indexed so highly on viewing otherwise unrelated ABC content, or even were so much more likely to buy MNO widgets? Likewise, mobility is offering us this location + behavior set whose utility in only beginning to reveal itself. For instance, Shim says that when the company started building its local profiling engine that works in a partner’s app, it could figure out whether people tended to use an app while moving or stationery, or even in a moving car. This knowledge can change everything when it comes to design. One game maker was able to see that its game was being played in cars. Yeah, I get chills at the idea of someone trying to play a mobile game while driving. But it gets the designer thinking about the viability of adding voice controls. Those working on a photo-sharing app can better understand the kinds of contexts in which people use the app, either to take pictures to share or view them For sales staffs, of course, location profiling of applications can be used to identify businesses that index strongly for being in the area when their app is open. In one app studied, for instance, people who opened in in Texas were indexing higher for being near a Walmart store while in California people opening the same app were tending to be closer to Target. As the database grows over time, the company can do benchmarking of apps to see how they index against other types for a given area, Shim says. In my mind, this sort of data really gets interesting in the aggregate, when we can start looking for patterns in the way people use apps in combination, and how they use multiple apps in different places over time. What if we knew that three hours before people opened their Starbucks app, they tended to be at fast food restaurants? So you have fast food restaurant patrons overindexing as Starbucks patrons within a time parameter. You might be able to target people in a restaurant app with Starbucks or competitive ads four hours beforehand. This is starting to feel like behavioral targeting in 3D.