A signal of intent: how to unlock the power of mobility data
For too long mobile has been considered just another media channel that sits in every marketer’s toolkit; a device through which to distribute advertising creative to communicate with consumers in their pocket. And there’s no denying that it works – after all, consumers don’t think of mobile as a channel, they think of it as a life device. But only when marketers start to look at mobile through a more human and data-led lens can they really start to unlock the rich, anywhere-accessible data that only mobile devices can offer.
How to unlock the power of mobility data
In this exclusive fireside chat, The Drum catches up with Mike Peralta, vice-president and general manager at Marketing Solutions, a division of T-Mobile, to discuss how the customer journey has become mobile-first and explore the opportunities for modern marketers to unlock the power of mobility data.
For someone who has been in the industry since the early 2000s, Peralta recalls the early days of SMS texting and how 2001 was predicted to be the year of mobile – but he notes a big difference between back then versus today. It all starts with how consumers use their mobile devices.
“When you look at it today, this device is inextricably linked to our everyday life,” he says. “Based on the industry research, consumers use their phones over 96 times a day. I probably use it 120 times a day. But that’s once every 10 minutes, over four hours of attention on a mobile device daily, and 88% of that time is spent within apps. Consumer life is now mobile-first and app-centric. Mobile is no longer simply a media channel. Marketers need to build and ramp up mobile-first strategies.”
The conversation moves on to look at the data signals Marketing Solutions, which focuses on app ownership and app usage, can glean about consumers – ranging from what apps they use, when they use them and how much time they spend on them. And then how it uses those signals to create different audience profiles and personas; however, Marketing Solutions does not have insight into what actions users take in an app.
Peralta also shares examples of how these signals can be used to benefit advertisers across all industries – ranging from food and hospitality to finance, retail, travel and more – by building interesting audience segments depending on the client’s objective or function.
Marketing Solutions has recently unveiled the beta launch of AppGraph+ – a unique data segment that is only available on the Magenta Audience Network. AppGraph+ leverages mobility data from T-Mobile’s diverse customer base to deliver insights, map audiences, and create personas.
Peralta explains how Marketing Solutions uses genuine mobile app interest and behaviors to create personas and audience segments, which enables marketers to better target consumers and that it’s not much different to a normal media buy on target audiences. The main difference, he says, is “the actual data itself”. Marketing Solutions is mobile-first aligning with the consumer shift to app-centric life.
Peralta goes on to cover the biggest challenges that marketers have today in terms of maximizing the potential mobile has and shares advice for gaining value from mobility data in a 5G environment.
“Different clients and marketers build their own consumer experience on the apps – you take your own experience online and you want to make sure that the app is something that the consumer wants to use,” he says. “It’s got to have some value. It’s got to be easy to use and offer a great customer experience. If you combine the targeting of our mobility data with a great consumer experience on your app, then you’re on your way to being successful in your mobile strategy.”
“Mobile can’t just be an add on or something you’re doing in addition to the rest of your marketing or advertising strategy,” Peralta concludes. “You’ve got to bring mobile front and center to be able to scale in this smartphone-focused consumer world.”
Watch the full interview above for more advice to help advertisers unlock the power of mobility data and insights on why m-commerce is set to be even bigger this upcoming holiday season.
Content created with:
T-Mobile Advertising Solutions
Advertising Solutions is T-Mobile’s fast-growing advertising technology business. It leverages high-quality mobile data from the T-Mobile network, enabling advertisers...
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