What is Mobile Advertising?

Mobile Advertising is any advertising that is delivered through, shown on or viewed using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

Mobile advertisement can take place as text ads via SMS, or banner advertisements that appear embedded in the mobile website in downloaded apps or in mobile games.

Mobile Advertising is driving the majority of advertisements spending growth all over the world.

In mobile advertising, online display ads which include social media in-feed ads, online video, and other digital formats are the fastest-growing ad types.

Mobile Advertising is a multi-channel digital marketing strategy. It focuses to reach targeted audiences on their smartphones, and tablets via websites, email, SMS, social media and apps.

Mobile is an interrupting way for people to engage with brands. Mobile devices have outnumbered our world population. There are more smartphones and tablets in the world than there are actual people.

Mobile advertising is accessible through a small mobile screen from opening an email to visiting your website to reading your content.

Mobile advertisement messages can be a high-effect, low-cost marketing tool perfect for small businesses.

Mobile advertisements can help business owners target the exact right audience defined by aspects like online search behavior, past purchases, and location-based purchases.

Effective mobile advertisement messages also have specific rules of engagement that must be followed. Mobile advertising messages can be high-impact, low-cost marketing tool perfect for smaller budgets and small businesses.

Mobile advertising is the latest technique of reaching your audience and informing them about your company, brand and product or services.

Mobile advertising has surfaced as a viable option for companies due to the expansion of digital space and the exceptional rise of smartphones.

Mobile advertising can help to reach the people who are always on the go and don’t have time to wait and watch.

Mobile technology is rapidly transforming the way for consumers across the world to live their lives and it’s a disrupting business model across all industries.

Mobile advertising revenue is up across the globe. Google continues to own the mobile advertising market and managing these ads through the Google AdWords budget and campaigns makes the advertising process very effective.

Google Mobile Advertising reaches audiences on-the-go with mobile ads appearing on all mobile devices in a variety of locations that include Google search results.

The mobile advertising campaign is an additional advertising tool in a multi-channel strategy by putting your business in front of people as they use their smartphones and tablets.

The smartphones are used for entertainment and information collection and they also generate data like the geographical position of the user.

Here is a short summary of the different available technology:

• Display Ads from mobile websites
• Location-based Ads based upon a GPS signal
• Messaging by the Short Message Services (SMS)
• Apps through Android and iPhone smartphones
• Voice advertising
• Video advertising

Mobile advertising platforms such as AdMob by Google are designed specifically for mobile apps. These mobile advertisements can be very effective and are used to generate revenue by offering free mobile apps.

There are two primary types of mobile advertising: Web-based and In-App.

Web-Based Mobile Advertising – Mobile web-based advertising is split into two types: 1) for websites that have been optimized for mobile, and 2) for regular desktop websites that are being resized on your phone screen.

In-App Advertising – In-app advertising will target people in mobile apps and it can appear in any format. They can appear as small strips at the top or bottom of the app as well as full-screen ads during loading pages or in-between app usage.

Mobile App Advertising Acronym –

There are many commonly known acronym used in mobile advertising:-

# Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – A metric that tracks the amount an advertiser is paying per click for an ad. This term is used in both web and mobile advertising.

# Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – It’s another term for cost per click. Pay per click is a model in which an advertiser pays a fee each time their ad is clicked. PPC is associated with SEM ads.

# Cost-Per-Install (CPI) – The advertisers will pay a fee each time when the app is installed after a user clicks an ad. The CPI is determined by dividing the ad spends by a specific period of time by the number of new installs from that same period.

# Cost-Per-Action (CPA) – CPA is for the advertisers who want to optimize their ads campaigns for a specific user action like app installs or sign-ups or purchases. CPA is calculated by dividing the overall cost of the campaign by the total number of user actions.

# Cost-Per-View (CPV) – It’s a bidding method for video campaigns where advertisers pay a fee each time when a video is downloaded. When a viewer watches 30 seconds of a video ad (or if the duration is shorter than 30 seconds) or interacts with the ad whichever comes first.

# Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – This ratio allows advertisers to understand what language, images, or content is driving clicks and engagement with high CTR. CTR is important for A/B testing and is determined by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions.

# Tap-Through-Rate (TTR) – TTR is specific to mobile namely Apple Search Ads. It’s determined by dividing the number of times an ad was tapped by customers by the total impressions.

Different Formats of Mobile Ads Types –

There are several types of advertising banners and ads for mobile depending on what your strategy is and how you wish to implement it.

# Banner Ads – It’s the most popular form of advertising on mobile devices. Banner ads are the long, and banner graphics are featured at the top or bottom of a website.

Banner campaigns are mostly for brand recognition and brand awareness since space is limited. The goal of the banner ad is to present the brand or product name to as many people as possible and convert them into customers.

# Native Ads – These ads will replicate the appearance of the original website or an app. It’ll streamline the look of the platform and improves the user experience. Native ads are less disturbing because they are integrated into the publisher’s app.

# Video Ads – These videos are shorter, and they play automatically when the user scrolls by or initiates an action like opening an app or webpage.

These ads resemble the native ad because it usually plays when the user interacts with a specific application.

You need professional designers and video editors to create a catchy ad with a bigger budget and more time. These ads can deliver a higher engagement rate than that of the standard banners.

Types of Mobile Ads by Serving Channels –

Both publishers and advertisers may benefit from several types of ads and advertisement serving channels. Mobile Ads can take many forms and they may reach to customers via the number of different channels which includes:

# Short Messages Service (SMS) – SMS is a way to advertise a business directly to customers by sending information to their mobile devices by a fancy name for texting.

# Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) – MMS messages include embedded media files, like audio, video or graphics.

# Interactive Ads – These are known as rich-media ads. This option offers endless creativity and generates high user engagement.

# Social Media Ads – Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have their own ad management systems with formatting and algorithms specifically designed to target mobile users.

# Push Notifications – Marketers use push notifications that pop-up on a user’s mobile device to alert customers.

# Mobile App / Game Advertising – Mobile users spend more time on their devices in mobile apps rather than on the web.

The audience is ready and willing to watch a video, click on a link or watch at an ad for a few seconds in exchange for more lives which unlock popular in-app feature.

In-App Ads includes many mobile advertising formats which include auto-play videos, sponsored posts, pop-up ads, and banner ads.

Mobile ads are not restricted to display ads presented in browsers. More than 85% of users spend time on their mobile devices in apps, not in browsers. Now more and more developers are trying to integrate mobile ads with the apps.

Pop-up, display ads, and scroll ads hosted within apps are appropriate. These ads are prominently adopted and have higher sales conversion rates. These ads are generated based on the data collected from user’s devices and their online behavior.

# Mobile Video – Now more than one-third of customers watch videos on their mobile devices. Mobile video viewing is eating into desktop’s leading share of video views.

It’s a migration that can be certified as high-speed mobile networks that reduce delays and make mobile video accessible and enjoyable for customers.

Important Features of Mobile Advertising –

You have to make sure that mobile ads are found by mobile searches on-the-go and Google mobile ads have features that cover campaign effectiveness.

# Mobile App Extensions – Google Ad Extension helps searches download your app from Google Play or the iTunes App Store for businesses that have mobile apps.

You can click ads to download and it’s a simple way to discover and download the business app as part of your Google AdWords campaign.

# Locations Extensions – Location extensions will help mobile searchers find you with hyper-local distance information and take them directly to your business.

This information allows mobile searchers to know about business with details like address, phone number, and Google Maps. These ads display a blue distance pin that lets mobile searchers know that your business is nearby.

# Sitelinks Ads Extension – It’ll allow mobile users to go directly to a specific webpage, landing page, or any other direct sale or lead generation destination on your website.

Mobile Ads with sitelinks extensions have up to 30% higher click-through-rate (CTR) as compared to without sitelinks.

Highly Used Top Mobile Advertising Platforms –

Mobile advertising platforms involve Ad servers, Ad networks, programmatic Ad buying, or any digital advertising solution.

It’ll support advertising campaigns that cover video, browsers, and mobile displays or In-app Ads across mobile platforms like smartphones, tablets, etc.

# Yahoo Gemini – Yahoo is offering a mobile and native ads marketing platform for placing ads where visitors are and wherever they are. It’s related to Yahoo! general advertising platform.

# AdMob – It’s a mobile advertising platform acquired by Google in 2010. AdMob is one of the largely used tools for mobile app monetization.

AdMob can easily integrate the needed features into the user’s app and it helps to track earnings by getting detailed reports.

This platform provides the best in class technology for the user’s app. It helps users to maximize their revenue by acquiring insights about customers to drive more in-app purchases.

# Apple iAd – Apple iAd is a mobile advertising and app-monetization solution. It’s the official Apple mobile advertising platform.

It allows developers to embed ads in their apps that run on iOS devices. It helps businesses find the right people and create the types of advertising that capture attention and drive results.

# InMobi – The InMobi networks include more than 40k apps which combine for a reported approximately 3 billion downloads.

It’s a huge base for potential customers and highly personalized ads with a lot of discovering zones to help advertisers. There’s great potential to increase conversions and customer retention.

How to Create an Effective Mobile Advertising Strategy –

Every brand and organization develop a unique mobile advertising strategy based on the industry and target audience. Mobile technology is all about customization and personalization.

# Create Buyer Persona – Buyer persona is a valuable tool in understanding your audience being a first step to any marketing strategy. A buyer persona is simply a fictional representation of your various types of customers.

You can create a profile that describes the customer’s background, job description, sources of information, goals, challenges, and preferred types of content.

You can make a specific point to specify the targeted audience’s mobile habits as well as their web usage on mobile devices.

A simple way is to research big data reports on mobile usage. You can monitor Google Analytics for your website’s mobile traffic numbers to better understand the specific target market.

You can do A/B testing which compares two versions of the same campaign on a certain channel and it can be informative for developing any aspect of buyer personas.

# Set Goals – You can get the key stakeholders together to map your mobile marketing strategy. You can identify goals by asking your team some of these questions:-

• What are we doing for mobile? It’s a starting point and everyone is on the same page.
• How are your initiatives performing in existing mobile marketing?
• What are main objectives for mobile marketing in the overall strategy?
• Who are the main audiences for mobile marketing?
• How are you engaging your mobile audience via cross-channel advertising?

# Set up KPIs – Your mobile marketing needs to be tested and optimized. You need to determine realistic and measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to define a mobile campaign’s success.

—-Engagement – You need to provide mobile-friendly content for potential customers who are searching for information about your industry or brand.

—-Acquisition – You should make sure that lead generation email campaigns are mobile-friendly with call-to-action buttons.

—-Customer Service – Customer service is a big marketing opportunity in the social marketplace. You can allow customers to reach you via any platform.

# Track Mobile Metrics – Google Analytics can help to monitor mobile usage of your website. Mobile behavior data shows how well your mobile content engages your audience.

Mobile conversion data will indicate whether some of your key landing pages need to be optimized for mobile browsing or not.

The device category field to the site content dashboard will display the quantity and quality of mobile traffic to each page on your website.

# Mobile-Friendly Website – A mobile-friendly website is a necessary option. The rise in mobile traffic links means a business needs to adopt a mobile-friendly website to stay competitive.

Mobile-friendliness means that your content should fit on the screen without side-to-side scrolling or zooming. Your content should load quickly and advertisement on your website shows no mobile-specific errors.

# Integrate Social Media – The majority of smartphone usage takes place on social media. People are checking their Facebook feed, updating Twitter, Instagram pictures liking throughout the day.

You should make sure that you have an active social media presence. There’re a lot of opportunities for customers to get involved with your brand when you run an advertising campaign on these social media platforms.

Customers can access your social profiles and can be influenced by your brand and be taken to your website on their smartphone.

Conclusion – Mobile advertising could be the way of the future. Mobile display ads are a great way to carry out online marketing. Various types of products or services may be best suited to mobile ads than others. Their demand depends on an unconventional approach that differs from traditional advertising methods. The mobile advertising market is hot and is very successful.