What is Mobile Advertising?

By definition, mobile advertising refers to any form of advertising that appears on smartphones and mobile devices such as tablets and e-readers. It includes all the interactive channels that are used by the advertisers to communicate or promote brand information, news or offers, through mobile devices or networks.

Mobile advertising can include anything from SMS offers, banner advertisements on websites, ads on downloaded apps and games, and much more. The goal of the marketer here is to ensure continuous engagement with the consumers by means of different types of updates.

Few Examples of Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is very common in our daily life, sometimes apparent and sometimes not so apparent. Mobile ads examples include Instagram Story Ads that pop-up in between your connection’s stories, text and image ads on Facebook, Carousel Ads, Snapchat Filters and Ads, video ads on YouTube, ads in-between playing videos or games, notifications from our downloaded apps, while browsing mobile websites and much more.

Objectives of Mobile Advertising

Increased mobile usage has defined several objectives for mobile advertising, which can range anywhere from new lead generations to customer retention through new offers, detailed information about a particular product or service by sending out the relevant news to the consumers, brand engagement activities such as quizzes and contests and more. The goal of the marketer here is to ensure continuous engagement with the consumers by means of different types of updates.

Benefits of Mobile Advertising

Large Audience: Research suggests that as much as 79% of people always have their smartphones with them. Further, it is no surprise that most of us are always online via mobile devices, be it social media, online shopping, emails or something else. This makes for a huge potential customer base that brands can target. 

Low Cost:  Mobile advertising costs way lower than conventional channels such as TV or print media. There are a wide variety of types of mobile media that you can use to affordably connect with your brand.

Easy Tracking: With the advancement in technology, tracking the performance of your mobile advertising campaign is now very easy. It offers quick and complete analytics of data metrics such as impressions, click-through rate, likes, shares, audience demographics and much more.
Quick Response: Since the target audience is almost always near to the devices, or watching the screens, response time is very quick. Either the ads will be acted upon or rejected in a miniscule time frame.

Geo Targeting: Once you have analyzed the received data and user demographics, it becomes very easy to selectively target that segment of your audience which is more likely to respond or engage in a particular advertisement.
Higher Conversion Rates: Thanks to the advanced targeting options, consumers receive ads that are of some benefit to them, hence, they are also more likely to respond to them and complete the call to action.

Why use Mobile Advertising?

Mobile marketing allows brands and advertisers to remain connected to customers 24X7. In a world where the consumer is always online, a good advertising campaign with a focus on the mobile audience can easily spell success for a brand.
Customers are no longer constrained at their homes or offices and the brands as well need to be present where their customers are. Mobile advertising helps brands to communicate with the customers on the move.
Mobile advertising, more than anything, is a personalized way of marketing. It gives advertisers a peek inside the consumer’s lifestyle space and lets them tap that with any form of media relevant. By being closer to the consumers, brands increase the chances of converting viewers into paying customers.
Mobile advertising makes use of a whole lot of advertisement types and styles to create user-friendly ads to boost brand names. It is more flexible, allows higher personalization and yields better results.

Types of Mobile Advertising

There are many types of mobile ads, most important of which include:

Push Notifications: The pop-ups that appear on a mobile device, delivered both while the user is active on the app and also when the user is not active.
Banner Ads: The most common type of mobile ads, which can be seen embedded on a website or an app. These include text ads, images, graphics or a mix .

Interstitial Ads: These are full-screen videos or graphics that are usually placed at app transition points. Have you ever observed an image or short video coming up when you watch videos or while playing games. These are interstitial mobile ads.

Video Ads:  Video advertising is a very powerful tool for any company that helps users when they are in the decision-making process. Interactive mobile video advertising delivers a complete visual experience, allowing the user to feel closer to the product or service in question.

Native Ads: Native ads are similar to banner ads but are displayed within the app’s natural environment so that they blend in with the flow and become less likely to be treated as advertisements. 

Location-Based Ads: These are marketing messages that are sent to the website or app visitors depending on the geographical presence of the visitor.
SMS Ads: SMS ads are efficient for broadcasting purposes, for a wide reach, because they are supported by major network carriers and are compatible on most mobile phones. SMS ads are also easy to create and understand by consumers.

Mobile advertising is a practical and cost-effective strategy that gives positive results without diminishing the quality of the campaign. With the consumer literally always scanning the ad placement location through their daily mobile usage, brands just need to be present in order to get noticed out there. It’s that easy. And with the increasing level of creativity available, mobile advertising is what you call a must-have strategy in this digital era that will help you grow your business.