A recent Google/Nielsen study found that nearly 6 out of 10 consumers visit a business website through a mobile device. Your consumers are quickly shifting their purchasing behaviors to mobile platforms – so what can your business do to immediately target mobile-savvy consumers looking to make a purchase or search for your business using their mobile device?
In this world of constant change, here are some of the trends impacting mobile advertising that you should know about and consider:
- Multiple Devices
Fact: Most consumers own multiple devices. This trend requires your ability to effectively track when a consumer – for example – researches a product using their laptop, then makes the purchase later on their cellphone or tablet. You will need to track inter-device traffic from a single consumer.
- No short cut with cookies
Cookies are bits of code that allow display marketers to track consumers online, and thus enables them to serve shoppers relevant ads. While cookies can be very helpful to marketers, they are not applicable on many mobile devices. Therefore, marketers are turning to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to gain and analyze valuable consumer information. Technology giants like Microsoft and Google are also working on ways to bypass cookies to provide advertisers with a more efficient means to collect consumer data.
- Improving Bounce Rates
Bounce rate is the term used in marketing for the percentage of visitors who enter a website and immediately “bounce” – or leave – the site. Bounce rates are much higher on mobile devices than on desktops. This could be attributed to many companies not having mobile responsive websites.
- Location Based Ads
Marketers have turned to geotargeting as a way to find potential consumers by locating their IP address, WiFi triangulation or GPS. While locations can provide marketers with vital information, there are privacy concerns for many consumers. Location based ads are effective, however, not all businesses have the technology gather consumer location information.
- Programmatic Purchasing
Marketers are considering the upside of programmatic purchasing, which would automate the process of mobile ad purchasing. This faster, data-driven algorithm could potentially give markers the advantage of buying ad space at the best price and reach.
- Return on Investment
While mobile use is skyrocketing, mobile ad spending remains a low compared to companies overall marketing budgets. According to eMarketer, last year Americans spent nearly a quarter of their media time on mobile devices. Despite that high percentage, mobile devices’ share of ad spending alone was only 9.8 percent. Most marketers believe the reason for this gap is a lack ofreturn on investment (ROI) and a fear that they will be unable to accurately measure that ROI on their mobile ad spending efforts. Marketers will be challenged to find a more accurate ROI measurement than the traditional “Clickthrough” ads
