Using coupons to increase sales and strengthen the relationship with customer is one of most popular advertising methods for marketers; however, the medium that people using has been changing to mobile gradually. Mobile advertising can be very effective for company to reach customers and choosing the right tactic can dramatically increase the performance of a campaign and achieve goals. 

People generally feel positive about Mobile Coupons    

Many people are willing to receive coupons from their mobile device. According to 2016 Mobile Consumer Report form Vibes, more than 80 percent of people consider digital coupons are more convenient than paper coupons such as printed from web or got from newspapers and circulars. In addition, certain loyalty programs could be more successful if the company allows the customer to save and access information from their mobile device because it is more convenient and useful for the customers. More then half of US marketers believe mobile coupons are the best way for “attributing in-store purchases to mobile ads” based on the finding by Marchex and Digiday.

Many people are talking about beacons and some retailers start using it to create a better in-store shopping experience for customers. “Beacons are devices that communicate with a shopper’s smartphone in the hopes of improving the in-store shopping experience.” These Bluetooth-enabled devices are placed in stores and send ads, coupons or product information to the detected smartphone users. It can encourage the shoppers for specific products and reward loyal customers from the time they walk into the store. However, advertisers should consider carefully about what information they deliver to their customers. It could be annoying if receiving messages that are totally not interested in.

One major challenge for advertisers to use beacons is getting customers to download the store’s app and open it with Bluetooth signal on when they are in the store. In order to achieve it, some other mobile advertising methods will need to be cooperated and implemented in advance.

Video advertising on mobile is growing rapidly as it has the essential elements of sight, sound and motion which encourages the audiences engage in the advertisement. Most of the people preferred watching video rather than spending time to read and study about a product; therefore, it would be a good idea to include mobile video in the marketing campaign. 

People from different countries have different attention spans on watching mobile video. For example, people in the US are generally willing to spend approximately 20 seconds to view the mobile video, whereas, people in Canada are willing to spend around 15 seconds. Therefore, the marketers should deliver their message within these times in order to achieve higher completion rate. It is very important to do some researches on the specific country or region that you would like to target for achieving a better result. 

Apple and Android users are different type of audiences and understanding the differentiation may able to improve the performance of the marketing campaign. For smart phones, Android devices receive more completion rates compare to Apple advices in the US and the UK. For tables, Android devices also perform better compare with Apple devices in most of the cases; however, more impressions are placed in Apple devices in many countries. 

Choosing the suitable strategy for the video advertising can optimize the performance and achieve the goals. One of the popular trends of video ad is reward-based video which some people call incentivized video. The users can get reward or benefit if they watch a video, such as receiving some credits or points for the game. The users are willing to exchange their time for the things that they value.  Another common used video format is vertical video and it is comparably natural for smartphones. It only uses a small portion of the users’ vertical screen and requires them to turn the phone into landscape mode in order to access a full-screen mode. Mobile video will continue to grow and advertisers will keep spending more and more money in this medium. It is a time to take more attention in mobile video advertising. 

Using mobile advertising is a good way to interact with target audiences. However, which mobile medium can achieve better result and ROI? Some marketers would say in-app advertising, but some others may have different opinion. Let’s compare the performance of mobile app and mobile web. 

Many marketers said using in-app advertising can easier to achieve their goals, such as able to measure lifetime value of users post-install and manage the acquisition costs. In addition, many of them believed it is worth more to spend on in-app advertising rather than in-web advertising. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers’ report indicated that nearly 90% of time people spend on media through mobile app, whereas the rest happens via mobile web. Besides, it is more effective to identify the sources of traffic volume by in-app advertising. It also allows the audience to click straight through to do installation. Mobile app is becoming one of the most important mediums in digital media. 

A lot of articles explained how mobile app advertising is more effective than mobile web. However, some studies showed completely different results.  The research conducted by Morgan Stanley claimed that mobile web audiences are two times more than app audiences. The research also mentioned most of the mobile traffic come from mobile web browsers compared to mobile app according to many publishers. One important reason is the mobile users are quite selective when they download apps. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, people are spending a lots more time using mobile app then mobile web; however, it may not explain the whole picture. Many mobile users spend so much time on apps that they would use daily, which possibly lend the report favor in apps.

It is continuously debating the effectiveness of mobile app vs. mobile web, and each side has its strong argumentation. It is difficult to say which one is better than other because it depends on the different situations and circumstances. IAB’s study pointed that mobile users value both in-web and in-app almost are the same; therefore, including both mediums in a media plan would be a good choice. 

Using mobile devices as vehicles for content, communication and collection is growing rapidly. As mobile becomes a significant part of advertising budgets, we have to use it wisely and effectively. 

Video advertising on mobile is continuing to grow. More advertisers start to use videos inside apps with location and geo-targeting to reach consumers on their mobile. Targeting can be more effective by using mobile. Moreover, mobile video is considered one of the best ways to let customers exploring products and services according to the research conducted by Animoto, online video creation application provider. The finding showed that people preferred video rather than spending time to read and study about a product.

Providing coupons to customers is a good way to increase sales and marketing. Nearly half of the consumers are willing to receive relevant coupons on their mobile device according to HubSpot. Combining with the use of location targeting and automation platform can help the advertisers to deliver the relevant coupons to the related customers, which able to actually link a mobile ad to an in-store purchase. Moreover, many customers will redeem the coupons if it is relevant and attractive to them. 

Mobile is not only a medium but it is part of our life. Therefore, it is important for marketers to know how to use it widely, in term of promotion and resources. There are several areas that we have to take attention to nowadays, and these trends also emphasized in many well-known marketing experts. 

Programmatic buying in mobile is still a trend in advertising. As many buyers prefer automation, real-time bidding technology can save a lot of time and effort during the buying process. As increasing of ad blocking and need of accurately audience targeting, desktop banner ad is gradually replaced by mobile advertising. Using programmatic data in mobile advertising campaign is one of the most important factors to achieve an optimal result. Marketers can measure and optimize creative performance from the use of data science.  

Location data becomes more and more important to marketers. Location data sources include geo-fencing, behavioral location data, beacons, etc. A lot of marketers only focus on the location data that the customers are currently located in the specific area; however, it is also necessary to look at customers’ location in the historical context. These data can be used to predict their future behavior (how likely and frequently the customers will go in the future).

References:

Have you even seen an ad that you didn’t realize it was actually an advertisement at first? Native Advertising is doing well about it in mobile that an ad experience follows the natural form of the audience experience in which it is placed. Generally, it is an ad that matches the look of the sites or apps. It can be bought programmatically. Native advertising can create higher engagement with the audience. There are six common use layouts in below:

​App Wall
It fits sponsored content into a publication that draws a list offer view, which is usually used for offer walls, app recommendation sites and app directories.

News Feed
News Feed layout creates the integrated experience with news sites, content feed sites and text focused social media apps, and search engines.

Chat List
It is used in chat apps. If the chatting platform can be used for free, the users won’t be bothered too much by the sponsored ads once in a while.

​Carousel
It can show multiple images when the audience swipe sideways to view the images. It usually uses in news and content sites.

Content Stream
It is used in social media with image-focused layout.

​Native advertising works very well in combination of other mobile advertising format such as mobile display advertising. A report from eMarketer showed that native sales drive display ad sales at the same time. "Native works very much like a cherry," Tessa Gould, director of native advertising and HuffPost Partner Studio at The Huffington Post Media Group. 

​Programmatic mobile ad buying is growing rapidly and the main reasons are making the ad buying system more efficient and effective. Combining the element of human intelligence guiding can make the result more optimal. Every decision we make during the entire process is important to determine the outcome of an campaign, including strategic planning and implementation, audience targeting, optimization, adjustment and measurement.

​Before planning the solution, we had to understand the background and need of our client; therefore, defining a clear and measurable objective with the company is the primary step. Then, choosing an appropriate media and strategy are another factors to accomplish the goal. As more and more advertiser require to target their customers accurately, focusing on powered programmatic mobile advertising could much more targeted to their potential customers instead of displaying advertisements to a wide variety of people. A lot of wastage could be eliminated in the highly personalized nature. 

​After confirming the media choice, selecting the right target audience is another significant element we have to focus on. Targeting the irrelevant group of people could have completely different result; therefore, we have to make use of data accurately and carefully. We have to try using new attitude and look at new ways of seeing, understanding and leveraging the information.

Moreover, implementation was an important process that we had to monitor carefully throughout the process by our intelligence guiding and programmatic optimizing. Sometimes the strategy and implementation plan we set at the beginning may not always apply to every stage of the campaign. It is important to optimize and evaluate the performance throughout the process by both programmatic technology and our creativity.

Measurement is important to illustrate the overall performance of a campaign. However, using the incorrect measurement method cannot tell you the real picture. We have the article explained about it, which is “The must-know in calculating mobile vs traditional advertising ROI.” Mobile advertising is much more easy to calculate ROI. All the major factors can be controlled, such as number of impression, maximum of CPM and selection of audience.

​Using data creatively and accurately are the important factors to meet the objective and even outperform KPI.

​Everyone is talking about personalization these days. Giving consumers what they want can increase the chance of conversion. However, over 90 percent of marketers honestly believe they don’t have the tools to implement it. It may not that difficult to implement personalized advertising if we choose a right method. 

​A lot of media are trying to achieve personalization including both offline and online media. For decades, newspaper, TV, billboard, and other offline media provided a one-way communication. Using this way is not enough to meet advertisers’ goal anymore. Even offline media has to find a way to interact with customers, but it is not easy to achieve personalization. I believe MTR advertising preforms better in term of personalization among all the offline media. Many of their ads include QR codes and NFC tags for people to scan by their mobile devices in order to obtain more information. However, how many people would actually do that? 

​Using online media is easier to connect with customer personally, especially through mobile advertising. Mobile device usually will not share with others, so it can target them accurately; therefore, we are able to target the right people with the right mindset and ultimately winning consumers’ attention and loyalty. There are several factors that we have to pay attention to in order to create a successfully personalized campaign including the selection between different networks and exchanges and RTB platforms which make customers to take actions quickly and therefore has higher conversion rate.

​Reaching customers by mobile advertising with advance targeting can be very successfully because people will receive information that they want. Advertisers can also minimize a lot of wastage and maximize ROI. The Future is personalized.

​Personalization becomes the trend for advertising nowadays. Sending messages to the mass is not relevant anymore and will not able to achieve an optimal result. Giving consumers what they want is important, and many of them want personalization. Successful advertising campaign has to connect to their target customers instead of one-way communication. Personalization means a business provides some value information to the concerned customer that personally related to them which ultimately creates loyalty especially when coupled with rewards. However, how to deliver a message to the right people with right mindset? I will say mobile advertising.

​Thanks to the broadband mobile communication systems and smartphone devices, consumers' preferences are able to pre-identified, so advertising messages can be delivered to right consumers at the right time. Therefore, having personalized mobile advertising is one of the most important strategies to meet consumers’ need as well as satisfy advertisers’ goals. Over the years, mobile usage is growing rapidly and it’s playing a significant role in people’s daily lives. People are using it in many different ways including grocery shopping, dating, payments, health monitoring, and what’s more. Advertisers have to reform the shopping experience of using mobile advertising to achieve their goal.

​“Everyone is mobile, but not everyone is a mobile shopper,” said Paul Kultgen, senior vice president for mobile and technology advertiser solutions at Nielsen, Chicago.

​As mention earlier, consumers use mobile in a variety of ways such as searching nearby stores, comparing prices, researching or reading reviews of the interested items, or accessing mobile coupons, and those information can help advertisers to predict their need and interest. Interacting with consumers during the shopping process allow advertisers to understand customers’ mindset which able to enhance the overall experience.

​Mobile advertising can be very successful with the right formula,” Mr. Kultgen said.

References:
 
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162511001788
http://www.warp.ly/blog/personalization-mobile-advertising
http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/advertising/18055.html
http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/hot-mobile-topics-for-2016-esports-personalization-and-internet-of-things/

​A lot of managements and marketers pay attention to ROI when doing their marketing campaigns. The most significant element of choosing a media is cost less and offers more in return. Therefore, it is important to calculate advertising ROI accurately.

​We conducted a simple exercise to roughly compare the cost-effectiveness of a well-known newspaper in Hong Kong and mobile advertising. For the discounted price of that newspaper, it costs HK$3,000 per day for 1/6 page ads with around 400,000 circulations. Therefore, the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is approximately HK$7.5. Some people may claim the reader may share the newspaper to others. However, it is more important to think of how many people is the target audience of this ad among the readership. For example, there are 40,000 readers who are your target audience within 400,000 circulations. The CPM will dramatically increase 10 times to reach your target customer. Unfortunately, the difficulty is that we cannot even find out how many target audience has read your ad from that newspaper. 

​In contrast, using mobile advertising is much more easier to calculate ROI. All the major factors can be controlled, such as number of impression, maximum of CPM and selection of audience. Generally, the CPM of mobile advertising is around HK$15 to HK$20 and you can select your target audience to receive your ads instead of displaying advertisements to a wide variety of people. Comparing to traditional advertising, mobile marketing ROI performs better because a lot of wastage can be eliminated in the highly personalized nature.