Mobile’s Promise For 2015

For marketers and agencies alike, 2014 was considered the year of mobile. There were countless articles, predictions and reports this year about how mobile advertising spend would increase across industries.

According to eMarketer, total media ad spend in the U.S. saw its largest increase in a decade, and mobile was set to lead this year’s rise in total media ad spending in the U.S. with advertisers spending 83% more on tablets and smartphones than they did in 2013.

While statistics prove that mobile advertising definitely made its mark in 2014, next year will see even more growth and expansion in the mobile category. Here are a few things marketers and advertisers will need to work on as we head into 2015:

Increase Adoption Rate For Mobile

While statistics show that both digital and mobile ad spending is up and will continue to increase over the next couple of years, adoption rates are still slow for mobile. Many marketers still view mobile as the Wild West and have not yet been able to execute the mature mobile strategies they had hoped.

The slow adoption rate may be due to the lack of a strong cross-device attribution model. While cross-device attribution is still improving, more conversions are still happening on desktops rather than tablets or mobile device. This is largely due to the fact that consumers are more comfortable entering credit card and personal information on a bigger screen, as it’s a more trusted environment.

In a recent video interview, Paul Pellman, director/head of Adometry at Google said:

[blockquote]If you are really looking at mobile as a channel you want to use, you need to have a measurement platform that works with your media efforts to ensure that you understand the real credit that mobile is getting.[/blockquote]

While the final conversion may still be happening on desktop, marketers need to keep in mind that other devices, including mobile platforms, still have an impact on a brand’s bottom line.

One vertical that’s increased its mobile ad spend significantly in recent years is the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) category. CPG brands have been utilizing extremely creative ways to drive user engagement and brand awareness.

Take Clorox, for example:

[blockquote]As part of a marketing program around ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” bleach brand Clorox leveraged second-screen app Viggle in a campaign that resulted in a high percentage of consumers that completed actions within the app as a result of seeing a television commercial.[/blockquote]

Other CPG companies have taken to mobile video ads — which, according to research from AdColony and Nielsen, have been found more effective than ads on TV or online videos among American men.

Implement Omni-Channel Strategies

While many companies have budgets for mobile advertising spend, many are still not incorporating mobile into one cohesive strategy. In 2015, implementation needs to come from the top-down, and CMOs should be mandating that mobile be incorporated into a brands’ omni-channel strategy.

In February, a report by CMO Club and Visual IQ brought to light that “85% of CMOs say their efforts at implementing an omni-channel marketing strategy are being thwarted by a lack of access to data and inadequate tools/technology.” A strong majority also cited trouble measuring cross-channel performance and a lack of appropriate talent as barriers to successfully implementing an omni-channel strategy.

At Magnetic’s recent Mobile Attribution event in Los Angeles, Pellman also touched on the importance of ensuring that mobile is incorporated into a brand’s overall strategy:

[blockquote]If you’re a marketer that’s buying a lot of mobile activity, more than likely that conversion is not happening on a mobile device. If you’re not taking into account cross-device influences, you’re never going to be able to do mobile marketing well.[/blockquote]

Another panelist, Nick Jordan, SVP of Product at Tapad, also reminded the audience that they’re “not just marketing to devices anymore, you’re marketing to people.” And while the individual message may be different across devices, all messages need to work together to ultimately drive a consumer action.

Use More Data

With growth in mobile payments and hyper-local targeting technologies, bridging the gap between online and offline behaviors is affording marketers the opportunity to bring valuable insights and data to marketing strategies.

In addition, beacons are now a major industry trend, allowing for a 19x increase in interactions with advertised products when used in retail stores.

The rise of these technologies suggests that contextual data pushed to users is the future of mobile — so take advantage of the data you gain from using them and make sure to apply the learnings to your marketing strategy moving forward.

Pay Attention To How You Deliver Ads

With new technologies being applied to mobile strategies, there will be a shift from increasing conversion performance to ensuring the customer experience is a seamless (and pleasant) one. Whether it’s native ads or mobile video, the attention will be put on strategies that seamlessly fit into a customer’s purchase journey.

Therefore, marketers will have to set mobile-specific goals to accurately measure the efficacy of their brand. In addition, the last-click model will fall to the wayside as marketers shift to using click-to-engage metrics (e.g. calls, use of store locator and downloads).

As we look to 2015, mobile advertising will continue to play an increasingly large part in brands’ marketing strategies. Consider how you will prepare.