Telco data and analytics: Contextualising mobile ads
By : Chintan Katare
Head of Sales - mADmart
If you are reading this blog, it is highly likely that you are reading this on your mobile. It is a common sight to see people being hooked on to their phones. Irrespective of one’s needs – whether getting daily dose of news or making purchases, mobile is no longer a mere device to make and receive calls.
It is hardly surprising that India is considered as the world’s second largest market in Asia Pacific for smartphone users. According to an eMarketer research, the number of Indians accessing the Internet over mobile devices is expected to touch a whopping 600 million by the year 2020. Moreover, mobile advertising spend is expected to increase by 75 percent for 2018, taking the market to $810 million. This will mean mobile will account for more than half of all digital ad spend in the country.
You can’t escape mobile
Increased penetration and falling data prices, along with the coming in of 4G, have fuelled growth opportunities for marketers in the Indian mobile advertising segment. All the major reports predict positively and all of it is great news for the mobile advertising industry.
The simple economics of advertising dictates that advertisers gravitate to media where consumers spend most of their time. It is only obvious that more marketers will be lapping up mobile advertising at a larger scale. However, this raises a very important question – can brands utilise the mobile advertising space in a better manner and inculcate better storytelling?
Reach is good, but where is the context?
Even in a world which is increasingly becoming data-intensive, a large number of brands lacks contextually relevant customer data leading to a huge disconnect between consumers and marketers. Hence, people regularly get exposed to an array of irrelevant offers, thereby ruining their browsing or content-consumption experience. This is why consumers find advertising on mobile devices annoying.
A prime reason is because of the highly fragmented nature of the ad-tech ecosystem. It cannot be denied that the world of digital advertising has evolved considerably from traditional approaches to automated methods. However, the mobile data ecosystem is complex with different players – ad exchanges, data management platforms, demand side platforms, and supply side platforms which different slices of data. It is difficult to weave a complete consumer profile by stitching together data that typically exists in silos.
Telco data can reveal tremendous behavioural insights about consumers and provide real-time and relevant proximity based information about mobile users by using historical and current data – all of this in a more or less seamless manner. This can advantageous for marketers who can then use location-based mobile analytics and target those mobile users with the right promotional message when they are in the proximity or within a specific radius.
Personalisation – a differentiating factor
Marketers need to understand that mobile is a very different device as compared to television and desktop or laptop. They should remember the fact that people look into their mobiles differently than they do it passively from a third device. In other words, people connect with their mobiles at a personal level. Brand advertising on mobile will reach the pinnacle of success only when marketers shift their focus from traditional media to the mobile devices by personalising the message content.
A mobile-centric campaign comprising a personalised SMS is effortless and convenient for your customers. Campaigns like these are a great way to easily maintain a connection with loyal customers while stoking the interest of new patrons—without having to spend a lot of time and developing complex resources for the campaign.
While some may regard mobile advertising as a close relative to online advertising, its reach and penetration is far greater. Mobile advertising and marketing is becoming even more of a necessity for brands as customers are hooked to their phones now more than ever. Mobile devices have opened up a huge potential target market for all types of businesses with a promise of better customer engagement and return on investment.
The customers would want the marketers to conveniently reach them through timely and relevant information, promotions, and discounts right on their mobile devices. Such relevance coupled with a deeper level of personalisation is a win-win situation for both the marketers and the audience.