Brand Spend Moves In-App

martechadvisor.com

elissa Zoolof, Head of Communications at ironSource through an infographic examines how brands allocated their app advertising budgets and how their app advertising performed over the five-day Thanksgiving break, with a focus on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday

We all know that Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are traditionally times when advertisers - especially retail advertisers - spend big in order to connect with consumers when they’re primed to spend. But beyond the steady increase in digital sales or the breakdown between mobile, desktop and in-store conversions, we wanted to take a look at what happened in the app economy over the holiday weekend.

With apps snagging the majority of digital media time spent today, brands and advertisers looking to connect with consumers are upping their in-app spend, and our study showed increases in app-advertising spend, ad impressions and app installs across the holiday weekend.

Time for the holidays...or time for your phone?

Interestingly, although one might think that time spent on mobile devices would be reduced during the holidays, with family get-togethers and gatherings with friends, we saw quite the opposite: the number of daily active users and the amount of user engagement both increased over this holiday period compared to other weekends in November. It seems savvy advertisers are right to put their eggs into the proverbial app basket.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we saw that the advertisers who spent the most were from the shopping category, with retail advertisers looking to capitalize on consumers who opted to skip in-store chaos for the comfort of shopping from their phone. They were closely followed by lifestyle and entertainment advertisers, who likely were looking to make the most of increased leisure time over the long weekend.

The number of ad-driven app installs saw over a 21% hike during the Thanksgiving period, but taking a deeper look at some of the campaign objectives, it’s clear that advertisers were looking for more than just installs. The top KPI for the period was retention - at over 66% - and equally important were engagement and ROAS, highlighting the fact that advertisers today are leveraging the full power of mobile to align campaigns with clear and measurable business objectives.

Interestingly enough, it’s not just Americans who are more active on their phones during Thanksgiving weekend. The UK and India jumped on the mobile app bandwagon and saw the highest increase in daily active users compared with other countries outside the US. Germany and Brazil were not too far behind. It seems Black Friday fever is not exclusive to Americans.

The biggest winner this Thanksgiving, however, was mobile video. With all the increase in app installs and brand spend, one has to wonder if different ad formats are playing a role in making the ad experience more appealing to digital consumers, and our data revealed that mobile video comprised nearly three quarters of total ads served. Clearly, it’s the fastest growing ad unit for a reason, with both consumers and advertisers finding favor with video ads.