Mobile advertising, which covers both tablet devices and mobile phone platforms, is an incredibly potent platform, targeting consumers at a granular level that has never been available to brands before. The mobile platform will continue to develop, evolve and deliver in reaching a targeted demographic. M&C Saatchi Performance is seeing this first hand and on a regular basis. “Envisage the capacity to dispense targeted advertising the consumer is in fact interested in seeing? Advertising based on an individuals browsing habits and location? Mobile is the most specific and granular marketing platform ever made available to brands.”
A common question mobile marketers are faced with is whether mobile is a ‘viable’ advertising channel for brands? This is somewhat missing the point. Prospective brands are very intrigued by the industry but too often approach mobile with the same anxieties, citing various reasons, historic reasons, never really relating to what mobile actually ‘does.’ Data from Dynamic Logic supports our data by showing that the average mobile campaign outpaces online in the top five measurement categories. Advertising awareness alone was at over 19.9 per cent on mobile compared with just 4.2 per cent online. Mobile just works.
The most common question I’m faced with is: ‘If mobile works, why are mobile media clicks cheaper than online clicks?’
Firstly, this is not damning of the mobile platform but is instead a simple case of supply and demand. In 2001 web clicks were also cheap. However, as more brands realised the true value of clicks, demand for online media grew, outstripping supply, naturally pushing rates up. Admittedly, mobile is still in its infancy, in comparison to online. I’ve personally witnessed a steady and captivating rise. This is matched by the caliber of brands buying into mobile.
The supply of mobile media exponentially grew following the emergence of the Smartphone. As more consumers upgrade to Smartphones we are seeing an increasing number of brands commit to mobile media spends. The rates are gradually climbing just as the Internet did post 2001. Importantly, clients are seeing the direct results from our mobile strategies. Brands are now rushing to build mSites (mobile site) and apps which will unquestionably gain traction with the use of mobile ad traffic.
As an industry the mobile platform offers brands a vast opportunity, which in several ways, surpasses online advertising. Online targeting via an IP address is indeed interesting but not nearly as compelling as the ability to target the present and past location of the consumer. The ability to pinpoint someone to just a matter of meters is extremely powerful. Imagine alerting consumers to a special offer, they turn a corner and are presented with your store? We ran a campaign to engage active football supporters, we sourced these customers by seeing who attended the physical football grounds during home games. The best way for us to do this was by analyzing their movements via their mobile device. The web, alas cannot give the same insight and accuracy.
Since 2006 I’ve seen unprecedented demand for mobile advertising solutions and mobile media. This growth is driven by the careful measuring and recording of user engagement and ROI, which is continually being compared with other digital media. The vast majority of our clients spend more, month on month. In the current economic climate this would certainly not be the case if our clients were seeing poor results or crucially, if results were lower than other digital channels.
The so called ‘year of mobile’ has well and truly been and gone. With mobile access overtaking fixed line access in various markets, M&C Saatchi Performance is aware that brands need to understand how to capitalise via mobile as opposed to questioning the capability of the channel. When the .com bubble burst many brands indeed questioned the viability and benefits of the Internet. Generally, these companies no longer do this as, they are mostly out of business.
M&C Saatchi Performance is an award-winning performance marketing agency focused on driving measurable results for organisations in all industries. Feel free to get in touch with us about your new project.
