marketingland.com
As marketers spend more on mobile, contributor Cezar
Kolodziej suggests you leverage the investment by building a reusable asset,
rather than continuing to "rent" an audience.
Whether it’s a text message from Express for a “20% off a
$50+ purchase” deal or the instant video for Age of War at the end of a Ruzzle
game, lately it seems that nearly every experience on our phones involves some
sort of brand communication.
Now that marketers have determined mobile is an effective
method of reaching target audiences, more and more brands are beginning to
shift dollars toward mobile. In fact, mobile budgets have increased more than
735% between 2011 and 2014, according to eMarketer, and spending is
expected to continue to grow at more accelerated rates in the future.
With the allocation of additional funds for mobile efforts,
what is the best method for marketers to use in order to reach audiences via
mobile – ads or messaging?
In this column, I’ll examine the ecosystem of mobile
marketing and advertising – comprising display ads and direct mobile messaging
aimed at reaching target audiences within an integrated campaign.
Your Mobile Ad Investment
Why are marketers investing in mobile ads? Simply put, they
offer a broad reach among target audiences.
As we all know, mobile ads are segmented into two locations
within a Smartphone: mobile web and apps.
Even though eMarketer estimates mobile ad spending will
increase to more than $13 billion this year — more than spending for outdoor
and directories, and approaching spending on radio and newspapers — there are
still a few challenges marketers face when it comes to actually defining the
success of mobile advertising.
At the start of mobile advertising, advertisers believed
they could translate their methods of reaching users on desktop and apply it to
mobile. While this approach makes sense, mobile is a little bit trickier when
it comes to effectively communicating to users.
Desktop display advertising and retargeting has become a
science, where pixels (aka cookies) can be used to serve relevant content to
target customers to encourage them to reengage with the brand.
On average, the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) for
desktop advertising is around $2.80, while mobile rates range from just $0.20
to $2.00 for standard banners, the second-lowest cost among all advertising
touchpoints according to Monetizepros.com, 2014.
These numbers suggest mobile advertising still has a way to
go before it’s completely perfected.
The Tracking/Targeting Challenge
The primary challenge with mobile advertising is the fact
that advertisers cannot build a unified profile to identify users seamlessly
between the mobile web and an app, not to mention between mobile and desktop
screens.
Unless there is some sort of profile/login feature, brands
are typically unaware if a customer uses their app and then browses the mobile
web. This eliminates the opportunity for these brands to deliver a congruent
brand experience as customers navigate between any of their mobile platforms —
browsers, apps and messaging.
The unfortunate truth is that with mobile, the concept of a
cookie — which has worked so well for desktop – is not consistent, as the space
is fragmented across platforms. This makes mobile retargeting very difficult
and reduces the effectiveness of mobile ads.
Even though mobile ads currently have the lowest CPM across
all advertising channels, the cost is likely to increase year-over-year. This
means every year marketers will have to spend more to stay in touch with their
customers and, in fact, advertising only allows marketers to “rent” consumer
attention via the media property or app that the consumer is visiting.
As marketers, we need to get smarter about our investments
and keeping in touch with our target customers – we need to build and own a
Mobile Data Asset.
Building A Mobile Data Asset
In order to build a mobile data asset, we need to figure out
a way to identify our users via mobile so that we can bridge the gap between
mobile platforms within a device.
While the traditional methods of identifying a device
included using cookies, MAC Address, app identifiers, etc., these often limit a
brand’s ability to recognize users.
Meanwhile, Apple’s IDFA identifier, as well as the Android
Advertising ID, can easily be reset or changed entirely, similarly to the way
browser users erase cookies.
With iPhone MAC addresses specifically, brands will have an
even harder time attempting to find customers with the release of iOS 8. Due to
privacy concerns, Apple is making a change to better protect users by eliminating
easy access to a device’s MAC address.
All that being said, the one identifier that does not change
on any mobile device is the mobile number. This is an international standard.
The mobile number can be used online and offline, giving marketers the
opportunity to take retargeting much further.
How can we collect and use a mobile number? Your
call-to-action needs to include the user providing you with their mobile
number.
A successful program will rely on a strong call-to-action
where the customer will take the next step and provide you with their mobile
number. Many brands have already started to harvest these numbers including
Starbucks, Express clothing, H&M and IKEA.
Once the brand has collected these numbers, it can work with
mobile networks to retarget these specific users or take the experience offline
by using mobile messaging tactics to reengage the customer.
The unique opportunity with messaging lies in the fact that
it is a two-way communication model. Data about the customer can be built and
fortified over time — resulting in reliably predictive analytics about behavior
and how we can entice the customer to the next step in the purchase path.
Using Messaging To Reengage The User
Text and MMS messaging are very powerful tools, and our own
data shows very positive results: open rates close to 99%, response rates for
image-based messaging programs averaging 35% and opt-out rates coming in at
less than 1%.
With those levels of engagement, brands can be confident in
sending compelling imagery via mobile messaging to gain consumers’ attention.
Using technologies like Rich Media Messaging (RMM), brands
have the ability to send any rich content, such as device-optimized images,
video and long text to virtually any mobile phone regardless of its data plan.
This capability allows brands to retarget and continue the
conversation offline after acquisition at a much more affordable cost with
higher response rates.
These techniques can also be used to guide customers to
other mobile touch points to truly create a fluid conversation for the
customer, thus further enriching the brand experience.
The Bottom Line
With investments in mobile ads on the rise, it is becoming
more and more important for brands to take a look at how they are optimizing
their investments. The mobile phone number is the one true way to capture leads
via mobile and to retarget content both online and offline.
As brands get savvier, we will see a trend towards blended
offline and online experiences where retargeting will not only consist of smart
investments online, but also timely offline experiences using mobile messaging
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