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··10 min read

Mobile Advertising Guide

A strong mobile ad campaign captures the attention of your target audience, meets them where they are, and provides a solution to their immediate needs, but there are so many options available that a mobile advertising guide may be helpful. In today’s world, various marketing strategies saturate the sales landscape. Turn on the radio or television, and you’ll hear or see a commercial in a matter of minutes. Drive down the road, and you’re sure to see plenty of billboards along the side, one after another.

You may be wondering where your marketing campaign fits within the crowded arena of advertising. The answer you’ve been looking for involves the mobile phones and devices people carry with them every day. Mobile advertising is a powerful way to reach your target audience, generate leads, and convert them into sales.

What Is a Mobile Ad Campaign?

Mobile advertising involves ad campaigns and advertisements targeted toward and designed for mobile devices. Mobile devices include technology like tablets, smartphones, and even certain wearable devices. If you’ve spent any length of time browsing the web on your smartphone, then you may have encountered mobile ads within apps, on websites, or even on social media platforms when scrolling through your feed.

According to research in 2019 by the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), 5.2 billion people use mobile services. That number accounts for 67% of the total population. It stands to reason, then, that the mobile market is vast. It’s a market you want to make sure you’re tapping into with a strong, effective mobile advertising campaign. Forgetting the mobile market could mean potentially alienating these individuals. An inclusive ad campaign will make sure you’re reaching people who use mobile services.

But mobile advertising is more complex than some of the other forms of ads like TV or radio commercials. Advertising for mobile devices is also different than ads directed toward people who browse on a home computer. Mobile ads look and behave differently than the ones you see when surfing the internet on a desktop. This fact means the ads you use to reach your computer-using audience should be different than the ads you use to reach your mobile audience.

People’s behavior also changes when browsing the internet on mobile devices, which should influence your mobile advertising campaign. Plus, people who boot up their computer to make purchasing decisions may need a different kind of persuasion than those hopping from website to website on their smartphones. All these factors contribute to making mobile marketing a unique process. Use it the right way, and you’ll start making more conversions within your mobile device-using audience.

Mobile Advertising Statistics

Here are some mobile advertising statistics to help you understand why this realm of marketing is essential to your company’s growth:

  • Web traffic: Statistics from 2018 show that 52.2% of the world’s web traffic came through mobile phones. This fact means that more people are using their mobile devices to browse the web, opening up more opportunities for you to reach them with mobile advertisements. And as the number of people using mobile devices continues to grow, you can imagine that even more of the world’s web traffic will pass through mobile devices in the coming years.
  • Mobile-friendly sites: To tap into the mobile market, you need to make sure you’ve optimized your website for mobile use. Mobile-optimized sites look great and work well on smartphones, tablets, and other types of mobile technology. Google’s own stats show that 74% of individuals are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site when browsing on their mobile devices. Plus, 67% of mobile users report that they’re more likely to buy a product or service from a mobile-optimized site.
  • The power of Google: Google has become a household name, and for good reason. Since 2019, around 94% of all internet searches went through Google. This impressive stat shows that Google strongly influences how people experience the internet and gather information for their purchasing decisions. Consider advertising on Google to tap into this ripe market.
  • Mobile purchases: You may be wondering whether people use their mobile devices to buy things. Stats from 2016 show that 90% of mobile users have made an online purchase using their smartphone. People are getting more comfortable shopping with their smartphones as tech companies make the process easier with safe “fast checkout” services. Help your audience make confident buying decisions with great ads that help speed up the process.
  • Emails: Emails are still a strong way to reach your target audience, and this is especially true on mobile devices. Recent stats show that 71% of smartphone users prefer checking their email on their smartphones. Take into account the growing number of people worldwide who use mobile devices, and you’ll realize that a mobile email marketing campaign can yield great results.

Types of Mobile Advertising

Many types of mobile advertising exist. Each type has different strengths and serves a different purpose, so make sure you know their differences. Here is a closer look at the various types of mobile advertising you can use for your mobile marketing campaign:

  • In-app advertising: In-app advertisements appear in the apps people download to their smartphones and tablets. One of the main reasons smartphones have grown more popular in recent years is all the apps available for download. From fitness and dining to entertainment and banking, there’s an app for almost anything. You can use in-app ads to your advantage by aligning the app you choose with your target audience.
  • Mobile video advertising: Video ads capture the attention of mobile users scrolling through their feeds or playing the latest trending game. Videos stimulate the senses of sight and hearing to draw people in. These precious seconds can be enough to generate leads and eventually conversions. Videos are also a great medium to tell stories that can help give your audience an emotional connection with your product or service.
  • Location-based advertising: Location is a powerful tool to use when creating mobile advertisements. People take their mobile devices with them as they travel. You can meet these people where they are with location-based advertising. People want to learn about the products and services around them. Use location-based advertising to provide practical solutions for people within a certain area.
  • Banner advertising: Banner ads used to have a negative stigma for being too big or flashy, but these were all design flaws more than they were flaws with the type of advertisement itself. Find the right location for your banner ad and give it relevant, non-distracting graphics and content to generate leads.
  • Pop-ups: Since the popularization and commercialization of the internet, people have been experiencing pop-up advertisements. They appear over the content on a given website and either disappear after a set time or require the user to close the ad manually. Mobile pop-up ads use a sized-down version of this concept with some other added features like touch-based interaction.
  • Native ads: Native ads appear on websites or in social media feeds. The word “native” refers to their integration within specific websites. These ads use design and sizing schemes to fit the aesthetic and build of the site that houses them. The content of these ads should maintain a high level and avoid using pushy or “sales-y” wordage. The people viewing these ads should feel less like they are being advertised to and more like they’re being shown unique content that can meet their needs.
  • Voice ads: Using the internet with your voice is becoming a more popular way to gather information, make shopping lists, and even purchase items. Items like Google Home and Amazon Alexa make using voice-controlled technology easier than ever. As more people use their voices to find the information they need with these products, companies will continue developing ways to incorporate ads into the voice-search experience.

Examples of Mobile Advertising

You’ll encounter plenty of examples of mobile advertising whenever you use your smartphone to use an app or browse the web. For several years now, companies have been seeing that mobile advertising is one of the most powerful ways to market their brands and increase sales. People spend more time on their mobile devices than ever, and the large quantity of mobile ads shows that this knowledge is starting to catch on.

One of the reasons mobile ads are so successful is because of their flexibility. Here are some examples of mobile ads you might encounter regularly:

See also
  • In the search engine results pages (SERPs): When you search for something on Google or another search engine, the links you see appear on pages called the SERPs. Many businesses buy ads to appear for certain search queries. So if someone searched for “running shoes for sale,” the top of the SERPs could include ads from various shoe manufacturers. These ads could contain pictures of running shoes, contact actions, or information about the manufacturer.
  • Before online videos: If you’ve spent any time on YouTube, then you’ve experienced the ads that play before your video begins. Depending on the length of the video, you may even encounter ads that play during the video, like commercials on television. Often, these ads have something to do with the content of the video you’re watching or are a result of your product search history and recent search engine queries.
  • In your social media feed: As you scroll on social media, you’ll encounter ads sprinkled throughout the organic posts. This is a type of native ad that a business will purchase to encourage you to get more information about the company or one of its products.

Best Practices for Mobile Advertising

Many factors go into developing a successful mobile advertising campaign. A one-size-fits-all approach will yield lackluster results, so you should be sure to craft your strategy with specific outcomes and goals in mind. Know your plan before you begin so you can make the right adjustments as you go to have success. Here are some best practices to help you start the right way:

  • Cross-channel strategy: By now, you understand the importance of advertising on mobile. But you must make sure your entire ad campaign takes a cross-channel approach to reach the widest audience. Your internet advertisements should target people on each of the three major channels — mobile, tablet, and desktop. Only focusing on one group could mean missing out on a significant portion of potential conversions on the neglected groups. Make an ad campaign that works for all three channels, mobile included.
  • Responsive design: People love the opportunity to interact with a product before committing to it. It’s almost a “try before you buy” mentality, and it works for mobile advertising. Create ads with a responsive design that lets people play a little game, answer a question, or try one of your product’s features. You can also incorporate selections into your ad that let people email or call your business straight from the ad. Responsive designs make your advertisements useful as well as engaging to your audience.
  • Marketing via short message service (SMS): A comprehensive marketing campaign will have you targeting your audience in several ways. One of the most effective methods is reaching your audience through SMS. Marketing via SMS gives you a direct line of contact with your potential buyers.
  • A set of goals and key performance indicators (KPIs): Every successful endeavor begins with goals, so you should create attainable goals for your mobile advertising campaign. Examples include raising awareness of your product or service, establishing your branding, increasing your sales figures, steering web traffic toward your business website, and promoting a special deal. When you define your goals, you can track your KPIs to see how your mobile ads are performing for you. Develop goals and KPIs to observe valuable information for knowing whether your ads are generating new leads or need some adjusting.
  • App design, development, and promotion: The more creative you get, the better your chances of creating unique mobile ads that reach your target audience successfully. First, design an ad that captures your audience’s attention. Then start promoting your business. Your target audience will see your promotions and experience your unique ads. From there, they may be more likely to take action, even an action as simple as clicking your ad to go to your web page.
  • Testing, measuring, and optimization: Test your ads throughout the development process to make sure the final product is one you’re proud to attach your business to. After launching your ad, be sure to track success metrics to determine how well it is performing. This will help you throughout the ongoing process of optimizing your ads and your entire marketing scheme. Over time, you can find the right balance to reach the most people while increasing your conversion rate.

Jumpstart Your Mobile Advertising Campaign With Help From AUDIENCEX

At AUDIENCEX, we have the capabilities to help you reach your goals with your mobile advertising campaign. Our tdX service, also known as Trading Desk, sets us apart from other marketing solutions by giving you integrated access to 24 programmatic, social, and search advertising platforms in one convenient location. The platforms that come with tdX include the following:

  • Amazon
  • Facebook
  • Google Ads
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • Spotify
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Instagram

This is only the beginning. Get ready to take your marketing to the power of X with the help of AUDIENCEX. Contact us online today for more information. We look forward to helping you reach your mobile advertising goals.