Over two-thirds of the world’s population — 5.2 billion people — used a mobile device in 2019, spending more time on their phones and tablets than they spend watching television. Adults in the United States spent an average of four hours per day on their phones in 2020 and more than half of the web traffic was accessed through these devices. To reach these mobile users, mobile advertising expenditures in the U.S. exceeded $100 billion for the first time in 2021, surpassing U.S. television advertising expenditures.
Mobile advertising can also be a complex subject with diverse advertisements used to reach users. Such include in-app mobile ads, mobile game ads, in-app video ads, and more. Advertising best practices, including the tips below, can be used to get the most out of mobile advertising.
Read on for information on the various options for purchasing ads, app ad formats, optimizing app engagement, and how to reach and connect with users on mobile devices.
The Purpose of Mobile App Advertising
Mobile app advertising uses paid advertising to reach the growing market segment of mobile device users. It takes place on a mobile display as the user uses an app on their mobile device, being a smartphone, e-reader, various kinds of tablets, and wearable devices.
Ads such as banner ads or other types of ads are presented to the user as they use the app, whether it is a game app, mobile website, social media app, or any other kind of app.
This kind of advertising is possible since mobile app developers offer their screen real estate to advertisers to fund their app development. These developers offer their software for free and connect with advertisers to sell ad space in the apps. Users then download and use the app and the developers make revenue based on freemium features, such as in-app downloads or from advertising revenue.
Brands and companies who want to pay for advertising to reach mobile users can then use a trade desk, such as the platform leveraged by AUDIENCEX ,to connect the right ad space for that brand to reach quality users. The target audience then engages with the ad and eventually converts to paying customers.
Core Benefits of Mobile App Advertising Campaigns
There are several benefits of running in-app mobile ads as opposed to other types of advertising media, including:
- Reaching a more targeted audience
- Achieving better click-through rates (CTR)
- Getting a better return on investment for your advertising dollars
The following are the core reasons why a mobile app ad campaign can work for your product or brand.
Greater Ability To Reach a Specific Target Audience
Compared to other types of advertising, mobile apps are delivered to people using their user ID — as opposed to tracking cookies — to offer the most personalized ads. What’s more, mobile app advertising makes it easier to reach ideal customers compared to other forms. The goal is to find users, through testing and retesting, who will engage with your ads.
In-App Ads Are Unlikely to Be Blocked
Ads on desktop web browsers can be completely blocked by ad blocker browser extensions, such as AdBlock and uBlock Origin. This leads to decreased revenue for website owners and the inability to reach millions of online users.
It’s far more complicated to block in-app ads on a mobile device, making it exceedingly unlikely a typical user would do so. This allows advertisers to more reliably reach their targeted audience with far less obstruction, and without wasting an estimated 11.5% of their budget.
Strong Click-Through Rates
A click through rate is the ratio of clicks or taps (in the case of mobile ads) to impressions of those ads throughout an ad campaign. This performance metric can tell you how effective the advertising is at getting users to interact with the ad. It displays whether users continued onto a landing page after clicking or tapping the ad.
Mobile ads have been beating web-based advertising in terms of click-through rates. Data shows mobile ads getting a 1.53% CTR compared to web ads with a 1.12% CTR. With higher click through rates, mobile ads have a higher chance of success than other kinds of advertising.
In-App Advertising Targets Consumers Without Any Cookies
Both cookies and mobile advertising IDs are used in advertising to provide personalized content for users on the web or a mobile device. Rather than using cookies, which disappear in 24 hours, mobile in-app advertising uses a mobile ID to show specific types of ads that users are likely to engage with. This offers an ideal marketing opportunity since cookies are being faded out by Google.
Every mobile device has its own unique mobile ID. This ID tracks user behavior and gives advertisers a picture of what kind of person the user is and what topics – and therefore which brands, products and services – may be of the most interest to them.
Types of Mobile Advertising Ad Formats and How To Use Them
The decision for which type of mobile advertising format you use may be based on the content being delivered or the user and who they are. Formats include video ads, banner ads, reward ads, and native ads, as detailed below along with reasons for using each one.
Video Ads
Two-thirds of people surveyed said they prefer video content over any other kind of content to learn about a topic. This statistic gives publishers and advertisers a great opportunity to deliver what people want and get their interest with in-app video ads. Video ads commonly appear before another video, such as a YouTube video, or during the video in ad breaks throughout the video’s length, capturing a user’s attention.
Video ads are often short and to the point and can feature a person talking to the user and communicating a reason, or call to action, to tap the video to learn more. This type of personal feel has been shown to increase user engagement.
Banner Ads
Banner ads are display units served in dedicated spaces, often at the top or bottom of a mobile screen. The ads are familiar to most users and are unobtrusive, which can allow advertisers to cast a wider net while minimizing any negative impact on brand perception. They can also easily reach highly targeted users with a relevant advertisement to pique their interest, leading them to engage with the ad for more information.
This ad format was once stigmatized, but when done correctly with impactful visuals and a clear call to action, they can bring good results and remain one of the most common and cost-effective ways to leverage mobile app advertising to generate leads.
Reward Ads
Reward ads, either interactive ads or video ads, appear in game apps and offer a chance for the user to win something of value, such as game currency in exchange for watching a video ad or interacting with it.
This can be some of the highest value advertising because of the high click through rate and amount of user engagement. More than half of people surveyed said they played a particular mobile game longer because they received rewards from reward-based video ads.
Native Ads
A native ad is an ad format that looks and feels like the content surrounding it. It is served on mobile websites or social media feeds to blend in with the ad’s surroundings. An example would be a social media post that might look like another user posted it but was actually an advertisement.
Native ads can provide a good user experience because they mimic the rest of the app experience to minimize disruption. For example, a user may be scrolling or swiping in their social media feed and see a native ad that looks exactly like the other posts in the feed.
Tips for Better Campaign Performance
There are certain best practices you can use to make the most of your advertising campaign and get the best return on your marketing budget. Use the following tips when designing an ad campaign for optimal performance.
Keep App Experience and User Experience At Top of Mind
The importance of an app’s user experience also pertains to the app’s advertising. When developers design an app, they have a certain target user in mind to provide the best user experience. The ads shown to those same users should be congruent with the rest of the interaction and offer the same good user experience.
Anything that disrupts the user’s experience, such as obtrusive ads, slow loading time, loud or annoying ads, or ads that are difficult to exit, makes for a bad user experience. Keep app and user experience in mind when designing mobile ads.
Use Customer Insights To Make Changes
Mobile ads can allow for testing and retesting until you reach your advertising goals. You can make real-time adjustments to your campaign based on user behavior data and click through rates. Measure your ad’s CTR and compare different ad formats.
Testing can be used to collect data on an ad platform, ad format, advertising copy, calls to action, colors, images, animations, and any other elements in the ads. This data can then be used to optimize ads. Test across multiple channels to reach the widest audience and then find the best performing ads for specific audiences.
Craft a Solid Campaign Strategy by Using Programmatic Ad Buying
Programmatic ads allow advertisers to easily connect with publishers to purchase ad space and deliver their message on a publisher’s automated platform. A sophisticated targeting system is used to reach an ideal audience by ensuring your content is the right match for a specific subset of mobile users.
Programmatic advertising technology can be used to buy ad placements on enterprise media platforms such as The Trade Desk or MediaMath, through a self-service demand-side platform (DSP) such as Admatx, or managed by a partner like AUDIENCEX. At AUDIENCEX, our strategy teams develop custom approaches to each campaign and leverage our holistic tech stack to recommend the ideal buy across a multitude of enterprise platforms and DSPs, simplifying the entire process.
Is Mobile App Advertising for You?
With the increasing amount of potential consumers using mobile devices every year, advertisers and brands can’t afford to miss out on connecting with users in this growing segment of the market.
The following statistics show an increasing number of users of mobile devices and an increase in mobile advertising to reach those mobile users:
- Over five billion people own mobile devices.
- Mobile e-commerce sales are expected to make up half of all e-commerce sales.
- Over half of Americans have bought something on their phone.
- Mobile ad expenditures have surpassed desktop ad expenditures.
- 59% of mobile users are as comfortable with mobile ads as they are with television ads.
- 67% of shoppers are more likely to buy something from a mobile device.
These statistics show that mobile use is increasing worldwide, that people are comfortable shopping on their phones and tablets, and that they are comfortable with mobile ads. Knowing this, brands and agencies have an opportunity to tap into the expanding market of mobile device users and reach these potential customers with mobile ads.
Mobile ads can be delivered to users in different formats such as video ads, banner ads, reward ads, native ads, and mobile game ads. These types of ads take advantage of a high amount of app engagement from users who either watch or interact with ad content, ultimately getting a sizable amount of potential customers to click through and convert to paying customers. AUDIENCEX provides access and expertise across the full digital landscape, including mobile advertising, to help you achieve meaningful results. Our expert teams leverage the latest enterprise-level adtech, including programmatic access to 24+ DSPs to reach users on any device. Strategies are developed for each campaign’s unique goals and KPIs, and in-depth data is continually leveraged to optimize performance and get the most out of any ad spend. For more information on how to maximize your advertising performance, contact our team today.