Three reasons why you should engage with mobile specialists
According to ComScore reports, 50% of time spent online is via smartphones (this indexes higher among 18-34 year-olds) and more than 85% of this time is spent within app environments. Even if we extract the likes of Facebook, the simple fact is that the in-app audience is significant and, according to App Annie, has created an economy worth in excess of $165bn.
Three reasons why you should engage with mobile specialists
Some of the largest business success stories of our time, such as Uber, Snapchat and Airbnb, are not only mobile-first but app native. However, there still seems to be of a lack understanding around the potential of mobile advertising.
Here are three reasons to engage with mobile specialists to gain clarity around the mobile opportunity and, specifically, how the data signals from mobile can provide unique audience based opportunities alongside the existing marketing mix.
Richer data signals
Lat long, beacons, and small and regular cell tower technology offer more granular levels of targeting than say an IP address in isolation. The application of location should be viewed as much more than hyper local brand messaging. Its true value is in binding together users’ real-world behaviours with digital habits and providing a consistent view across the purchase funnel.
For example, on the discovery and prospecting side, building profiles of auto intenders by combining a view of the types of car apps and sites they visit with physical visits to specific car dealers can provide actionable insights into prospecting and conquesting opportunities.
On the attribution side, developing technologies such as small cell technology and beacons can provide us with data on in-store interactions and assist in building a clear view of the users journey through the purchase funnel.
New entrants in the market
Telcos will play a large part in helping provide buyers with greater cut through in this space. Be it the media centric play from the likes of Verizon and (potentially) AT&T or Telefonica’s own data centric initiatives, the market should see an influx of carrier grade, mobile-first data that enriches some of the largest media properties and, in our case, can provide a privacy compliant way of trading telco derived data outside of walled gardens.
Of equal importance to the accuracy and scale of data that telcos bring to the market will be their expertise and ‘user first’ approach to ensuring data is handled in a privacy compliant way, mindful of the impending GDPR regulations.
The importance of understanding mobile in the cross-device world
It used to be the case that marketeers followed where the audience headed. Now, however, the greatest challenge that the likes of Adobe, GroupM and IBM are looking to solve is to follow the audience across all screens and provide a consolidated view of that user. Given that smartphone usage and in-app usage form such a significant part of our media consumption, the conversation needs to focus not just on the ‘match rate’ to mobile advertising identifiers, but also to the insights we can append to these users.
In summary, the growth of in-app usage has created a wealth of opportunities to target audiences across the purchase funnel. New entrants, such as telcos, are starting to make their data privacy compliant and available for use in an advertising and marketing context. The net effect will be to provide greater confidence in working with mobile-first data and subsequently more emphasis will be placed on the quality of the mobile data that goes into building a cross device view of a user.
Zee Ahmad, Director of Programmatic, Axonix
Email: zee.ahmad@axonix.com
Web: www.axonix.com
Twitter: @Axonix
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