The 3 futuristic trends of mobile advertising

cyberclick.es

The week of the Mobile World Congress was, without a doubt, intense, and a very productive week for companies and visitors alike, with the reunion of the most important mobile companies, or those related to the mobile ecosystem. Several lectures related to the sector took place as well, out of which I found myself most interested in AppNexus’, about the future of mobile advertising. I was able to take some very interesting conclusions, which run along the same lines of what we believe, here at Cyberclick.

We can theorize and anticipate what will happen to advertising in the year 2020, but it is difficult to see whether our predictions will be accurate, so far into the future. There are, however, trends that can already be noticed, and ne can see that they will quickly become present in all marketing strategies around the globe.

Canadian journalist and psychologist Malcolm Gladwell once said “Change is not based on improving, but on rethinking”. Just as in other areas, what will work in mobile advertising is not staying still in our comfort zone and to use what works until its gone, but innovating and creating new ways of reaching out to our audience. You can start with something pre-existent, but twist and change it into something new, creating a fresh way to reach your audience. This does not mean that every few years we need to get rid of what has worked up until now: for example email or display marketing, but being creative has helped us reach native advertising, retargeting and artificial intelligence applied to mobile advertising.

But what is in store for the mobile world? I will sum it up in three concepts: Programmable Marketing 3.0, App Mobility and Mobile Header Bidding.

 

 

Programmable Marketing 3.0

#1 Where did we come from? Between 2005 and 2009 we were in a constant formative state within the digital advertising world. We had to incorporate the budding advantages of technology in marketing into our day to day, know hoe to apply Data to strategy and testing and understanding.

The 5 following years, from 2010 to 2015, we were in the era 2.0: rapid scaling, enthusiasm, and investment, reiteration, testing different devices in the market and #ATPG Automatic Test Pattern Generation; which is a technological automation method that helps to properly test devices.

Finally, we have reached version 3.0 of Programmable Marketing, and we find that we can sum up what’s going on in 3 key elements:

• Application and analysis of advanced forms of Big Data
• Open system vs. closed systems
• Transparency and control 

#2 What is the current reality of audiences? The fact that the smartphone is ruling the age we live in is no longer a question, just in Spain 72% of society use smartphones, 68% in the United Kingdom and 57% in the United States. These people spend all hours of their day with their phone, and are susceptible to being impacted by ads at any moment, although it is better to concentrate on what Google are calling Micro Moments, to observe at what times of the day people use them:

• While watching TV there is a very high usage of mobile devices, to distract one’s self or to interact with the content on television.
• While on the train/metro to go to and from work.
• During the brief moments we disconnect from the task at hand to check social media.
• To send or read messaged. We live in the era of mobile messaging apps.

#3 What should we keep in mind when designing a strategy? Every 5 years technological advances change our marketing actions, and the way we deliver them so consumers. At the moment, it is vital to take these into consideration:

• Smartphone complements
• Dig Data
• Mobile advertising formats and responsive design
• Mobile coverage

#4 Programmable Marketing. From now on Programmable Marketing will really start taking off, considering all of these technological factors and the responses of audiences. With this marketing form, any advertisers can apply their own intelligence to compete when it comes down to complex scenarios. Thanks to algorithms and intelligence we are able to increase the complexity of campaigns without having to increase the workload. For example, programmable marketing can unite different parameters: user + product + inventory + geolocalization + time and create different ads and audience segmentations, allowing us to impact the network with thousands of ads at once. 

#5. Conclusions. Summing up the information from the points above, we can conclude that:

• We need to use the information we have to make ourselves stand out.
• Invest in an open system as opposed to a closed one, as mobile strategies are constantly changing, adapting to the results given by different metrics.
• Programmable is the future.

The era of App Mobility

We talk about the smartphone as if it were a lone device in the middle of nothing. As if all these advertising experiences lived on these devices weren’t transferable to other devices. Advertisers dedicate effort and money to actions which target only the smartphone experience, and the rest of the budget is dedicated to the more “classic” version of the Internet, the one we access via laptops or desktops. But what if this weren’t to go on like this? For a mobile experience to be truly mobile, it should follow us wherever we go, through all devices we use in our daily lives.

This means that the apps we have installed on our phones would also have to be available on our tablets, laptops, desktops and smart TVs. All devices connected through the cloud, allowing us then to access our information from anywhere at any time. Like this, advertisers and marketers could create powerful advertising experiences, 100% adapted to each user.

“Consistent App Experiences = Unique Advertising Experiences”

By making the App experience follow from device to device, you can travel with your consumer. You will be able to get a better understanding of user behavior patterns, the best moments to send messages and be able to better identify each of your consumers.

“Mobile = Mobility”

What can we conclude?

• The smartphone is no longer a phone ecosystem, but an app ecosystem.
• Identify your target using your own information, from others (3rd party data) or from operating systems.
• Everything will be available programmatically – offering advertisers the benefits of programmatic buying.
• The mobile mobility era has arrived.

  

Mobile Header Bidding

Header Bidding is a specialized programmatic marketing technique which allows the publisher to be connected to several exchanges at the same time, before making the call to the ad server. This new methodology, also called Pre-bid, focuses on making several calls to several servers at the same time. On this call, a price will be determined, the optimal price among all bidders willing to pay for this impression. Once a (real) price has been settled on, it is sent to the ad server to be compared with the definite prices on the several lines that were created.

24% of all domains are working with this system and 47% of them have multiple bidders. This is how competitiveness and exact prices can be increased in real time.

This concept, at first glance, seems more applicable to webs designed for desktops or laptops, but it can be used in the mobile ecosystem through apps.