A consumer packaged goods company that revamped its product line to reduce the company’s environmental footprint explored using mobile video advertising to target, reach and inform environmentally conscious audiences about the change. Mobile advertising offered an opportunity for the brand to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time. However, mobile advertising only delivers on that potential if the relevant data is both available and accurate.
“To leverage mobile advertising in support of your mobile marketing strategy, construct a mobile advertising foundation built on the two providers that offer the greatest insight into customer context,” said Charles Golvin, research director, Gartner for Marketers.
Facebook and Google are attractive providers for mobile advertisers because of their reach. Consumers now spend the vast majority of their digital media time on mobile devices. In June 2016, mobile accounted for 67% of U.S. consumers’ digital media time, up from 51% three years earlier. In the United States, Facebook owns the top two mobile apps, and Google owns the next five most popular apps. They also offer a variety of mobile formats for marketers to tailor ads aligned to any step in the buying journey.
Read More: What Type of Mobile Marketer Are You?
Mobile advertising with Facebook
Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook) deliver template-based photo and video ads into users’ feeds. Such in-feed ad formats align with mobile marketing strategies to meet a variety of objectives:
- Raise awareness of a new product or service to targeted audiences with in-feed video
- Link to specific websites where target audiences can fill out forms, add products to shopping carts or complete purchases with website conversion ads
- Include swipeable components of photo and video content within the ad to inform and nurture target audiences on their path to purchase with carousel ads
- Target products to specific audiences or retarget products that mobile web or app users previously viewed with dynamic product ads
- Localize content based on a user’s proximity to a physical store, prompting audiences to perform activities like getting directions to a specific retail location with store-visit ads
Mobile advertising with Google
Google’s role in mobile advertising spans multiple solutions and properties. Although search advertising is largely reliant on buying ads based on keywords rather than audiences, mobile adds new dimensions like location data and the ability to call businesses directly.
- Run standard display, video and interactive ads across the web and in mobile apps with ads in the display network
- Meet brand goals and appear prominently on YouTube’s mobile web and app home pages with TrueView discovery ads
- Pay only for impressions that prospects watch with TrueView in-stream video ads that audiences can skip after five seconds
- Acquire new users with YouTube ads that contain extensions such as mobile app installs
The breadth, depth and quality of first-party data is the other critical factor attracting mobile advertisers to Facebook and Google. Their apps include offerings where the mobile advertising opportunity is highly specific (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search) or relatively nascent (Facebook Messenger). Their efforts feed the provider’s data needs and increases their ability to present a timely ad to the desired audience.
Mobile marketers should not forfeit the data intelligence derived from these advertising efforts. Marketing leaders must assert their rights to the underlying data to prepare for the changing market, whether they opt to pursue their own proprietary opportunities or transfer investments to new market entrants beyond Facebook or Google.
“These providers offer a variety of mobile ad formats, enabling marketers to tailor ads to any step in the buying journey,” said Mr. Golvin.
