Most mobile app users prefer their content free and ad-supported, but can publishers and their marketing partners please at least make the ads more rewarding? That appears to be the underlying message from a new Harris Interactive survey of app users on both Facebook’s app platform and mobile users. The study of over 2,200 users was commissioned by MediaBrix, which not coincidentally produces rich, video and immersive ad units for Facebook and mobile apps. Interestingly, the research found that a lower share of mobile app users (61%) preferred free over ad-free paid content than the 87% who felt the same way about Facebook apps. And while 40% of mobile users say they actually prefer banners in their apps, 60% said they would rather get ads that include rich media from big brands or especially ads that offer rewards or currency in exchange for interacting with a sponsor. “We think understanding and respecting the user experience is key,” says Ari Brandt, CEO, MediaBrix. He says the company embarked on the survey because “traditional banners and pre-rolls don’t work in these environments.” In polling the users themselves on what they would like to see from advertisers, Brandt says the company discovered how important innovation is to users and how app users and game players want to interact with advertisers in new and novel ways. “We were blown away by the positive response of users saying, let me have ads on my own terms rather than having to sit through this pre-roll.” When they do get pre-roll video, 62% of mobile app users say they would rather be the ones to initiate the experience or have it fall within natural breaks in the game action or app activity. Obviously, MediaBrix is hoping to validate its own business model with survey questions pitched to these issues. The company makes various ad units that allow for product integration, ad-views in exchange for virtual currency and ads at breaks in the game action. MediaBrix works with large game suppliers like EA. Brandt says the units generate engagement rates of over 20%.
The highly visible (and predominantly visual) social network of late 2011 and 2012 is finally making its way onto key device platforms: the iPad and Google’s Android. Yesterday, Pinterest launched an iOS version specifically for the iPad and an Android version that adapts to smartphone and tablet screens. In a blog post announcing the device extensions, the company said that Android owners have been “very vocal” in asking for a Pinterest version for their OS. The app in Google Play presents the user with a two-column scroll of pinned items on smartphones and three columns on 7-inch tablets. A Kindle Fire version of the Android app will be available later this week in the Amazon App Store. Claiming that iPad users “may have the best Pinterest experience yet,” the company is giving Apple tablet owners a range of ways to save and reorganize their pins. At the same time, Pinterest is upgrading its months-old iPhone app to enhance speed, and brings a new 2-column layout to match the Android version. Pinterest and its social sharing for images proved to be the social media success story of 2011. Since June of last year, the site saw membership and traffic grow exponentially. According to a recent survey of publishers by Shareaholic, Pinterest has become a greater source of referral traffic than Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon and Bing. Because of its visual nature, many brand marketers have flocked to Pinterest in order to get in on the massive amount of pin sharing that goes on here. According to social media metrics site ZoomSphere, Nordstrom, The Perfect Palate, The Beauty Department, Real Simple magazine and Better Homes & Gardens magazine are the top five most followed commercial entities on Pinterest.
Location-based ad company JiWire Wednesday unveiled a new ad service designed to help marketers target specific audiences based on the billions of pieces of location data it has collected. The company's Location Graph harnesses that data to create anonymous user profiles based on the types of places people visit, from beauty parlors to drug stores to airports. Instead of defining audiences by social connections, like Facebook's famed social graph, JiWire's new targeting capability relies on historical (and present) location data to improve campaign performance. The Location Graph offers deep insights into user behaviors, some more expected than others,” said David Staas, interim CEO of JiWire. "Using location, we can see how similar audiences tend to exhibit the same patterns and compare them to other audience segments, like moms versus dads versus students, etcetera." Staas explained that through its network of public Wi-Fi locations and third-party mobile apps in which it serves ads, JiWire has profiled over 500 million devices and created more than 3 billion location data tags. That database is expected to double to 6 billion in the next six months, with 16 million location data points added each day. “We take all those location tags, and through our algorithms we begin to understand which locations become indicative of different audience segments,” he said. A mobile user, for example, that visits a children's park, a grocery store, zoo and maternity store within a given month, suggests that person is a parent. Such information can also help marketers to target look-alike audiences. Among other findings from use of Location Graph data: -60% of women eat at the same three restaurants each month. -23% of people who go to Peet's also go to Starbucks. -43% of those who shopped at Best Buy also shopped at a competitor's location. What does it all add up to? JiWire reports that in beta testing with ad partners using Location Graph to target campaigns among its audience of 55 million on mobile phones, tablets and laptops it has seen a 30% increase in click-through rates. The company also notes that brands such as Microsoft and Comcast are using the service to boost campaign results. Staas added that JiWire will incorporate Location Graph data broadly across its ad offerings rather than selling it as a separate, premium service. “We want to bring it to bear on as many campaigns as possible,” he said, including both brand advertising efforts and those tied more directly to a user's immediate proximity. JiWire ad formats include Compass ads, for reaching nearby consumers, in-app ads, and display ads that run on the home page of its Wi-Fi network of hotspots in cafes, airports, hotels and other locations. JiWire's Location Graph naturally raises questions about privacy. For example, its announcement highlights that moms who go to zoos also tend to frequent beauty salons, child care centers, counseling services, and restaurants. Who wants to be tracked everywhere they go, especially when it comes to more sensitive visits like going to a counseling center? Staas reiterated that the Local Graph information is anonymous, aggregated data that doesn't include personally identifiable information (PII). The Location Graph is also certified by privacy services provider TRUSTe, whose Mobile Ads initiative allows people to opt out if they don't want to receive targeted ads on the mobile Web or within apps. Still, mobile users are increasingly wary. According to a survey by Truste and Harris Interactive released last month, 85% of smartphone users won't download an app if they don't trust it. And across all platforms, consumers were 60% more concerned about privacy issues than last year.
In the 2008 election, President Obama's embrace of Facebook and other online tools helped him raise money, build support among young voters, and ultimately beat John McCain to win the presidency. Four years later, it appears he's picking up where he left off. A new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism indicates that Obama is well ahead of Mitt Romney on the digital campaign trail. The Obama campaign is posting almost four times as much content and is active on nearly twice as many platforms, according to the Pew report, which analyzed the content and volume of candidate communications on their Web sites and social media channels from June 4 to 17. The biggest gap is on Twitter, where Obama has averaged 29 tweets per day overall: 17 on @BarackObama (the account associated with his presidency) and @Obama2012 (his campaign account). By contrast, the Romney campaign averaged only 1 tweet per day. Likewise, Obama has had about twice as many blog posts on his campaign site and more than twice as many YouTube videos. The two candidates were closer in the level of Facebook activity, where both averaged about two posts a day. Despite Obama's advantage in digital messaging, the study found that neither candidate is using social media to amplify input from voters. In other words, it has been more one-way than two-way communication. The candidates, for instance, rarely “retweet” posts from citizens. Only 3% of Obama's 404 campaign tweets during the study period were retweets. Romney only had one. Voter content also had only a minimal presence on Romney's digital channels. While Obama made more substantial use of input from people, the report said it was limited to one area: the “news blog” on its site, where content could be completely controlled. This is the fourth presidential election cycle in which the Project for Excellence in Journalism has looked at the content of the digital campaign. This year it broadened its analysis to include content posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as blog posts and material featured on campaign site home pages. As far as the 2012 election goes, things are just heating up. “As the conventions drew closer, Romney’s campaign took steps to close the technology gap, and may well take more with the addition of Paul Ryan to the ticket,” said PEJ Deputy Director Amy Mitchell. “But there is a long way to go before the Romney team matches the level of activity of the Obama campaign.” Among other findings from the study: Campaign Web sites remain the central hub of digital political messaging. Even if someone starts on a campaign’s social network page, they often end up back on the main Web site -- to donate money, to join a community, to volunteer or to read anything of length. A July redesign of the Obama page emphasized the centrality of the campaign Web site further. Rather than sending users to the campaign’s YouTube channel, the video link now embeds the campaign videos directly into the site. Romney on the attack. While both campaigns’ digital content focused mainly on their own candidate, roughly one-third of the posts from the Romney campaign were about Obama -- largely attacking him for a policy stance or action. About half as many of the Obama campaign’s posts, 14%, took aim at Romney during the period studied. It's the economy, stupid. Both candidates have focused on the economy, with 24% of all Romney posts and 19% of Obama's addressing the topic. However, the campaigns took different approaches as Romney has given more attention to jobs, while Obama's economic messages were almost equally divided between jobs and broader economic issues, such as the importance of the middle class. Obama’s digital strategy targets specific voter groups more than Romney’s. The Obama site allows visitors to join 18 different constituencies including African-Americans, women, LGBT, Latinos, veterans/military families or young Americans. By clicking to join a group, a user then receives targeted content. The Romney campaign had no similar options at the time of the study, but has since added feature pages for nine groups. Users, however, can still only join the general “Team Romney” rather than a particular voter segment.
According to the 2012 Mobile Advertising Survey by Hipcricket, young (ages 25-34) customers have the most interest and interactivity with mobile ads. 70% have made a purchase as a direct result of a mobile ad, and 58% would be willing to provide personal information via a mobile website in return for a reward or coupon, twice as likely as those in the 45-54 year old category. 48% of these young customers think more positively about their favorite brands after interacting with them via their mobile device, significantly more than any other age group. Overall, consumers who are familiar with mobile ads are comfortable making purchases or recommendations using them, but many still haven’t viewed them. 46% of smartphone owners have viewed a mobile ad, and 64% of those who have viewed an ad have made a purchase as a result of mobile advertising. However, more than half have never viewed a mobile advertisement on their phone, notes the report. There is a social, in the classic “sharing” sense of the word, element to mobile advertising too, as 45% of users have referred a friend to a product or service as the result of seeing or engaging with a mobile ad. Men are more likely to refer a friend as the result of a mobile ad than women (52% vs. 37%). Consumers have viewed and engaged with a variety of types of mobile ads, primarily mobile banner ads and SMS/text-based ads. Types of Mobile Ads Viewed (% of Responses; Multiple Response OK) Ad Type% Viewed Mobile banner 70% SMS/text message 44 Ad within a mobile game or app 42 Mobile video 38 Mobile email 31 Source: Hipcricket, August 2012 The primary means of interaction, says the report, has been clicking/tapping an ad (38%), followed by mobile coupon, clicking on a sponsored link in a text message, downloading an application, or viewing a mobile website. Engagement With Ads Viewed (% of Respondents; Multiple Choice OK) Engagement% of Respondents Clicked or tapped mobile ad 38% Never engaged mobile ad 35 Redeemed mobile coupon 31 Clicked sponsored ad in text message 29 Downloaded advertised app 28 Visited mobile website 25 Source: Hipcricket, August 2012 For those who have yet to engage with a mobile ad, the reasons were varied, led primarily by context: 43% stated the ads weren’t relevant to their interests and 39% responded that “it did not appeal to me.” Reasons For Not Engaging With Mobile Ad (% of Respondents) Reason% of Respondents Not relevant to personal interest 43% Not appealing 39 Thought it was spam 31 Unsure of source 21 Other 13 Inoperative on phone 4 Source: Hipcricket, August 2012 Consumers would be more likely to engage with brands if they include a reward, coupon or deal (58%), says the report. 44%are willing to exchange personal information in return for a reward, coupon or deal. Yet, to date just 28% have done so. Significantly, an overwhelming 74% of consumers say that their favorite brands are not advertising to them on their mobile device—a significant missed opportunity. Finally, demographic differences are summarized:
The local business directory resides in the pockets and purses of consumers like me who are click-to-callaholics. A MarketingSherpa study suggests only 37% of the companies have claimed their free local business listing on one or more search engines, according to a white paper scheduled for release later this week. Consumers are using mobile devices to find local businesses, but the local businesses are not online. What's wrong with this picture? The white paper from Covario's software unit Rio SEO suggests that most local businesses are not optimized for local search marketing. Lost opportunities result when consumers can't find retailers and merchants in search engines for strategic keywords at the time shoppers look to buy, according to the white paper author Bill Connard, founder of Top Local Search, acquired by Rio SEO. He notes two lost opportunities: brands are not locally optimized for local keywords, and brands are not maximizing conversion tools for the Web and Mobile Web. Search marketers need to start thinking about local desktop and mobile media in ways that are similar to a multichannel advertising campaign. Covario's Rio SEO software unit will release two white papers Thursday focused on how companies with multiple locations can achieve the best local and mobile search results. One paper, "How the Top Retailers and Service Providers Achieve Top Local Search Results," speaks to "top retailers and service providers," but all businesses with more than one location can use the advice. It provides a five-step process covering methods to support local search results on mobile sites, as well as creating a plan to update all company information across the Web. Location-specific reporting and analytics will help measure Web, mobile and telephone traffic. The report suggests adding telephone reporting for each location to report call volume, duration, and time-of-day stats as well as adding a Web analytics reporting code to each location page to measure traffic volume from search engines and referral Web sites, monitoring positions and placement on the first page of search engines to identify areas where the site lacks first-page presence, and claiming and managing location business listing on paid and free sites. If company information varies in business listings across the Web it could prevent the Web site from ranking high. As more consumers use mobile, the white paper reminds marketers how information services like LocalEze, InfoUSA and Acxiom can aggregate business location data, content and categories. Similar to marketing or advertising campaigns that require consistent messages across media, businesses need to provide directories and services. This allows search engines to build relevant backlinks validating local business listings across the Web and directories. The white paper suggests managing each local business listing -- adding all relevant categories describing the businesses, the products or the services. Make certain that the directories and Web site all have the same operating hours, payments accepted and other local enhanced business-specific information. Those retailers with a local presence also need to educate sales staff on how to use their platforms. Last week while at the Nordstrom in South Coast Plaza, I had to teach the sales associate how to use the Web ordering system. The point-of-sale (POS) system was so cumbersome that it kept crashing, so I reached for my iPhone to place the order on my mobile device, but I had to jump through too many steps, closed the browser, and abandoned the shopping cart. I went home to order the pants via my desktop. The mobile ordering app became too painful.
With continually improving technology and an arsenal of a million or so apps, smartphones can be made to perform almost any task. Phones can do so much these days, it can be challenging to categorize the functions. Having to create mobile apps buckets during the research of my latest book The Smartphone Handbook (A Quick and Easy Guide to Getting the Most Out of Your Mobile Phone), we came up with 10 distinct categories under which we estimate most apps can fall. Some of these may help you with better organizing some cluttered mobile screens if you use them as folders. You likely already created some of your own, but we thought we’d share at least one way to categorize mobile apps -- by function. Communicating. The messaging capabilities of a smartphone. Outside of voice, these can include functions such as group chat, translating text to voice, using word references or even using a phone as a walkie-talkie. Deals. These comprise ways to save money. These can include the myriad of daily deals, coupons and discounts that can be used while grocery shopping. Finders. Unlike simple search, these are used to quickly find things based on location. These can be garage sales, apartments for rent, cheap gas or local hotels and restaurants. This is the largest category, since location is one of the most useful smartphone capabilities. Health. Apps in this category provide medical information at your fingertips, including a number of apps ranging from iTriage to WebMD. The grouping also includes fitness features, such as running trackers and weight-loss guides. Navigation. The art of getting to places. This could be by car, such as Google Navigation or MapQuest for iPhone, or GPS Lite to track your walking route. Purchasing. As it sounds, using the phone to buy things. Not using NFC or other forms of mobile payments, but rather using the phone to eaily buy practical things like movie tickets. Radio. Using a smartphone as a radio, as in live streaming from iHeart Radio or Pandora. Also can involve using the phone as a police scanner and to identify songs being played on the radio. Scanning. This involves dealing with barcodes. Yes, people are scanning in stores, comparing prices of nearby stores and getting the store to price match -- or they simply buy elsewhere. The phone cameras have become so much better that scanning finally works a lot better than in past years. And that’s just for traditional barcodes found on most products. QR codes also fall into this category, whether highly used or not. Travel. Managing going somewhere. Whether using flight selection, flight tracking or any of the many airline apps, this category includes anything you can use while on the go or away, such as a currency converter. Utilities. Taking advantage of things your phone can do. This category involves tapping into some of the inner capabilities of the phone -- like using it as a compass, a flashlight, level, magnifying glass or speedometer. These are 10 categories we identified that seemed to encompass at least the major categories under which apps can be categorized. I’d be interested in hearing what your categories are, and if any of them match these.