Commentary

Making Good Mobile Investments

Most Fortune 1000 brands know they should spend more of their advertising budgets on mobile, but have a laundry list of reasons for why they won’t invest.  Limited tracking. Lack of creative options. Lack of transparency. All reasons they feel they “have to” invest, but haven’t yet.

In examining mobile advertising leaders, there are a few commonalities among them that would suggest a recipe for good mobile media investment.  These buyers don’t just check the box for mobile but, instead, use different “ingredients” to push the channel to deliver in ways other digital and traditional media cannot. They actually “want to” invest more each month.

The ingredients listed here will help advertisers understand how to put the unique assets associated with mobile to work for their brands.

  • Mobile Measurement:  Given the well-known limitations of cookie-based conversion tracking in mobile, “have to” buyers assume that “it’s CTR or nothing” for metrics.  “Want to” buyers are exploring new means of measurement – often unique to mobile – to evaluate their investment.  Location-based-attribution reporting, which allows buyers to evaluate the impact of mobile media in increasing foot traffic, is becoming very popular.
  • The reporting is turnkey (no integration required), cost-effective (CPM pricing) and now available de-coupled from media investment. In certain verticals like automotive, the data is game changing: Buyers are not evaluating traffic to dealer locator pages as a proxy for conversion. The same toolset is being put to use for only-in-mobile brand lift studies, which benefit from extremely large panels with strong response rates thanks to push notifications, where the surveys originate.
  • Mobile Creative: The notion that the creative canvas of mobile is limiting is changing, due to three fast-growing formats.  The “want tos” are investing heavily in one or more of these:

a) MRAID – programmatically available in 65% of app inventory, with companies like Celtra using mobile-first signals (device ID, lat/long) to personalize creative

b) Pre-Roll & Interstitial Video – though competition is high, the advent of shorter formats, along with a re-thinking of interstitial, mean that this will only increase in importance

c) Native – the Open RTB 2.3 spec allows buyers access to hundreds of millions of impressions (globally) each day which are tailored to the look and feel of the content

All three afford buyers the ability to create a far more immersive experience for the user.  Combining this refined creative with the power of audience data ensures that the right message is delivered on the right device at the right time to the right user.

  • Mobile Behavior: Buyers intent on driving incremental reach against a target audience now have far more devices with which to engage.  84% of mobile phone owners report using one of their devices during prime-time television.  So many TV buyers are chasing viewers who they have lost from linear television without realizing the potential of these “second screens” to engage.  
  • Brand buyers are utilizing network connection data to zero in on users who are at home and connected to their device in the top 25 Nielsen DMAs as a means of building frequency.  Combine this with the growth of Nielsen Mobile OCR, and you can see a future in which reach and frequency, too, is measured across device.
Advertisers who follow this recipe have an opportunity for huge success in mobile. While the “have to” items are important, the “want tos” are what will really move the needle.
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