Four Factors to Drive Mobile Advertising in 2015
By : Flytxt
The smartphone penetration worldwide is set to reach close to 2.5 billion in 2015 according to various industry estimates. Everything from work, social interactions, shopping, entertainment and recreation, health monitoring, and fitness tracking to controlling other smart devices – all are getting shrunk into this ubiquitous hand-held device called the mobile phone. It is no surprise that advertising dollars are following customers where they spend most of their time. The mobile advertising spend is witnessing 100% growth year on year. The year 2015 will see mobile advertising having an increasingly prominent role in the marketing mix, with its industry practices getting widely accepted, proven and matured. Let us have a look at the mobile advertising trends that will define the year 2015.
Mobile Advertising gets increasingly data-driven
That data makes advertising more effective and output driven is old wisdom now. However, with new devices and sources of content consumption emerging from every corner and with the ever changing nature of the advertising landscape, identifying and combining different sources of data – be it cross-device, cross-channel, cross platform – will become imperative for better identification of the exact audience. It was seen in 2014 how brands felt the need to move to more targeted promotions from mere likes and fans in social media, similarly, they will also start demanding the same targeted engagements for other forms of digital advertising. Data Management Platforms (DMPs) will assume more importance as we move to a more data-driven advertising and only those with larger reach and deeper insights will be able to thrive. Telecom operators will emerge as the new Data Management Platform in 2015. As most advertising ecosystem players are adopting big data technology to perform smarter analytics on ever increasing volume of data in social and mobile space, this investment will start showing results in 2015.
RoI becomes more attainable and sought-after
With the advent of programmatic buying, digital advertising is becoming much faster and efficient. With programmatic buying, brands can reach the right audience across multiple channels, in the right context at the right time and at the right price. As more and more brands adopt programmatic buying, human intervention in buying and selling of ads will decline. As a result, a lot of smaller ad networks will either get consolidated with bigger ones or will simply face extinction. The data available to marketers through programmatic buying allows much better RoI visibility and measurement capabilities. In programmatic buying, the automated algorithm ensures that inventory is bought and sold at the best available price. This will eventually make smaller and niche ad networks irrelevant due to their limited capabilities in reach, targeting and optimized pricing. On the other hand, niche publishers with in-demand audience will be the biggest beneficiary of programmatic buying.
Engagement becomes truly Multi-channel
Mobile users have the power of choice and they are becoming increasingly discerning in what content they consume. As people spend more and more time on their mobiles, knowing where people spend most of their time on mobile, what content they consume and how they consume, what are the channels they prefer- all go a long way in ensuring what kind of advertisements will be most effective way of reaching out to them. Mobile ads too will need to get smarter, provide additional value and a richer experience rather than just inform. New tools like m-couponing will get more popular with brands trying to build loyalty among their customers and achieve greater responsiveness. Multi-channel ads will significantly rise, as no one channel will hold all users. Native ads will become default for reaching the premium segment. Rich media ads, videos, augmented reality, touch based ads will all gain traction as brands try to outflank each other in gaining the mobile users attention using the precise reach
Contextual Advertising will rule
As insights get closer to population scale, hyper location ads will be able to target mobile users at right context and geo-special ads will become a common currency. This will see increased participation of local brands, who will now be able to reap the benefits of big data technology too. With Mobile Operators making a foray as DMPs, contextual insights will be even more precise, resulting in greater responsiveness of mobile ads. The growth in mobile video ads will be the fastest ever this year as users spend more time with their mobiles. With the launch of Amazon Echo and Siri enhancements, in-app voice ads could be biggest hype in 2015.