As user targeting and tracking technologies become increasingly sophisticated, the relevance of mobile performance marketing also increases. Well-optimised performance campaigns can drive new installs or sales without the need to pay super high CPC and CPI rates, allowing advertisers to increase revenues in a measurable and risk-free way.
Mobile already accounts for 44% of digital advertising this year and is predicted to overtake desktop in 2017, so mobile performance marketing is only going to become more competitive. This makes it more critical than ever to keep up with the industry trends.
Here are 9 tips for savvy mobile marketers that will help you increase the scale and margins of your campaigns next year. Learn what are the currently trending ad formats, what’s new in mobile user targeting, and what performance marketing techniques and models will be big in the future.
1. Use banners AND videos
Banner ads are on the way out and video is taking over mobile performance marketing. Video ads far outperform banners, with CTRs being as much as 5 times higher compared to standard banner ads. They are great for even driving installs, with many F2P games offering in-app rewards for watching short videos. Facebook plans to go all video in the future, and mobile marketers should take note.
2. Deliver fully personalised ads
Despite ad blocking becoming more popular on mobile, most people are willing to watch ads if the content is of personal interest. Delivering ads whose content changes dynamically based on user interests will increase the chance of them making a purchase and not show the typical banner blindness towards your ads. There are several vendors (us included) out there who offer this kind of advertising.
3. Focus on mobile micro moments
Showing ads to the right users at the right time is the key to mobile performance marketing. People check their mobile devices many times per day, and engaging users during these micro-moments can increase your conversion rates tremendously. Understanding your target audience well enough to reach them in real-time will help drive sales to a new level.
4. Try location based advertising
Mobile devices offer the unique opportunity to track user location near exactly, so mobile marketers can greatly improve their performance by serving highly targeted ads that use precise user geos. This can be anything from sending them coupons to stores close-by to re-engaging them offline based on where they like to spend their time.
Depending on the campaign type, targeting or geo, there can be still issues with limited reach. Feel free to discuss with us where and how this makes sense for your mobile advertising activities.
5. Be more proactive with fraud
Mobile fraud is currently a threat to the general traffic quality, but its risks can be mitigated. Many tracking tools now offer features to identify fraudulent activity, such as low conversion ratios, mismatching user geos, and irregular traffic peaks. Mobile marketers should actively monitor their campaigns to make sure their ad spend doesn’t go to waste.
6. Implement marketing automation tools
Today, there are plenty of marketing automation tools or even CRM tools to track user behaviour: both online and mobile. This allows cross-channel marketing efforts to reach people no matter if they are using apps, email, or social media. Besides reach, these tools make it possible to build detailed buyer personas to determine the most valuable users and improve ROI dramatically.
One prominent example would be lookalike audiences, which can be applied to find statistical twins of your best users to focus your mobile marketing campaigns towards them. This can be applied not just on Facebook, but also on mobile performance platforms.
7. Explore new advertising models
The ways people consume media on their mobile devices is constantly evolving, and advertisers need to follow. Playable in-game ads and 360° videos are examples of new paid advertising forms that mobile marketers should consider. Adopting these trending ad models now to complement traditional methods is future-proofing your marketing efforts.
Our performance marketing tips for 2017 here are: 1) visual ads, no matter if it’s videos or emojis, 2) dynamic CPx and personalised ads, 3) AI chatbots and ads in messaging apps
8. Go programmatic
Mobile programmatic marketing has matured and self-service DSPs and experienced mobile programmatic agencies are now easily accessible. In many cases, programmatic has a steep learning curve, so starting up with an agency probably makes sense (without being too self-promotional).
Many mobile marketers are now investing heavily in programmatic to increase reach, maximise campaign performance and reduce costs. There has never been a better time to get into programmatic.
9. Use different social media ad platforms
Facebook and Twitter are still the top dogs in paid social, but there are newcomers and underdogs in this space that offer many opportunities for savvy mobile marketers. Snapchat has been growing fast as a video ad platform, and for niche campaigns or lower budgets there is Tumblr, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Don’t put all your budget in one basket.
Conclusion
Mobile marketers should always be on the lookout for new techniques and strategies to improve the performance of their campaigns. Keeping up with what’s trending in the industry is one way of doing it, but sometimes it’s just more efficient to consult an expert. To get started with mobile performance marketing, feel free to contact us.
