If you’re planning to advertise your business, focus on mobile devices

3 min reading
Business development / 13 February 2014
If you’re planning to advertise your business, focus on mobile devices

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Traditional advertising has been declining for some time in favour of digital formats, a trend that continues to increase. Digital advertising strategies are already focusing on both smartphones and tablets. Why? For starters, because we’re talking about considerable figures, as reflected in the report  “Mobile Advertising: In-App, Mobile Internet & Messaging Strategies 2013-2018”.

As an entrepreneur, have you ever stopped to think that advertising in applications will grow by up to 500% in the next five years? The so-called in-app advertising will move nearly 17 billion dollars in 2018, according to aforementioned study by Juniper Research. In addition, it’s estimated that 70% of advertising investment will be captured by smartphones, a percentage to be reduced in a few years to 50% to give the other half to tablets, which are increasingly gaining market share.

Behind this large volume of business lies another key figure: in 2013 the use of mobile devices increased by 115%, according to data from Flurry, a company that manages up to 400,000 apps. Besides, sales of these devices were six times higher than traditional PCs, which have no choice but to accept and adapt to this change of model. Therefore, and given this overwhelming reality, digital advertising strategies are starting to focus on the impact that mobile devices are generating in people and potential clients, as announced by marketing experts from all over the world, such as Brian Bolland, VP Product Marketing Facebook.

Attention to social networks

Even though a large increase in downloads of apps on mobile devices is expected, when deciding where to invest your advertising budget you also have to evaluate the importance of social networks. There is no need to do a lot of research to realise that every day people spend more time with their mobile devices and connecting to social networks more than with any other means of communication. Therefore, it is not surprising that, according to Juniper Research, much of the in-app advertising spending will go to social network giants such as Facebook or Twitter.

But creating a good advertising strategy in the digital age is essential for reasons much more simple and obvious than the above mentioned: today’s users want to find services, directions, hotels, restaurants or general information instantly, just when they need it. Either it is using a keyword or detecting the user’s location, there are many possibilities. Therefore, returning to Bolland’s tips: “It’s important to find a good combination of segmentation, frequency and measurement of messages.”

It doesn’t hurt either to recall some old tips:  i.e. your ads should be relevant to your target in the platform where you advertise. Remember that, visually, you have less space than in traditional advertising, so you must be careful not to saturate the user’s screen.

Farewell to display

One final thing to note when undertaking an advertising strategy is that you must take into account that ‘traditional’ advertising on the Internet, the display system, produces scarce revenue. One of the main reasons is because users consider banners intrusive and click less on them.

The trend now in Internet is called programmatic advertising. According to Zenith Vigía, Google already gets more money in the US from advertising than all the country’s media through this digital platform. Its secret is none other than the great success rate of programmatic advertising: directed to the individual, personalised and geolocated.

The benefits of this programmatic modality for your business are clear: from a more accurate segmentation to a better control, as well as transparency in pricing and the ability to choose the impressions you want. It’s a new way to reach your potential customers because, for them, it turns to be mobile advertising with rich content, creatively focused and without cookies.

Finally, remember that the fact that the user sees the ad does not guarantee anything. Therefore, you have to offer promotions, coupons and other advantages, i.e. if they communicate with your business at that very moment, send an e-mail before a certain time or tweet with a hashtag of your brand. The use of smart actions will be the final incentive to engage users.

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