Welcome to part two of our look into Advertising on Mobile Ad Networks. With the number of mobile ad networks increasing exponentially along with the market penetration of mobile devices, choosing the right mobile ad network for your advertisements will get more and more difficult. We’ve decided to breakdown the process to help you make the right choice:

1.     Identifying Your Target Audience

By getting to know your customers you’ll start to develop a better understanding of their mobile web browsing habits. Once you have a better idea of this you can start to target their mobile destinations. One of the key benefits of digital marketing is the data you can generate; throughout the campaign you’ll only develop a better understanding of your target audience and can optimise to increase ROI.

2.     Analyse Your Objectives

To get the most out of your mobile ad campaign you’re going to want to set some objectives that you can measure your success against and determine your ROI. Make sure these objectives are:

• In-line with organisation objectives
• Reflect your target audience
•  Are measurable

Some common mobile advertising objectives are:

• Acquisitions/sales
• Lead generation
• Brand awareness

3.     Determine Your Budget

This is up to you and your marketing mix. For a bit of a look at what’s happening industry wide and the rising importance of mobile check out my last article Mobile Ad Networks for Advertisers – An Introduction. 

4.     Select Network Type

This should be based entirely on your mobile ad campaign objectives. Your current choices are:

• Blind
• Premium Blind
• Premium, and
• Incentivised Networks

For a full rundown of the pros and cons of these networks read my previous article.

5.     Consider the Best Cost Structure for Your Campaign

This should be based on your campaign objectives and budget and will ultimately depend on which type of ad network you choose and the individual company. The cost structures you are likely to come across are:

• CPC (Cost-per-Click)
• CPM (Cost-per-thousand impressions)
• CPA (Cost-per-Acquisition)
• CPL (Cost-per-Lead)

For a full description of these cost structures please stay tuned …

6.     Analyse, Assess & Select Your Mobile Ad Network(s)

The key with this whole process is to work out what you want. This knowledge will equip you in selecting the best mobile ad network to partner with.

·         Analyse their range of publishers

·         Assess the range of publishers ‘ relevance to your target audience

·         Bargain over the cost structure and pricing

·         Select the best fit

One thing to be mindful of, however, is that you don’t want to be ‘too pushy’. Think about user experience, would you be happy to receive a notification on your phone to download an app in ALL situations?

SMS

Whilst not as flashy as some of our other options, SMS is still an effective and low-cost means of reaching a large number of mobile consumers.

Below are some benefits of SMS:

• Highly targeted
• Time relevant
• Huge reach
• Higher click-through-rates
• Low cost

SMS can however be a little intrusive so you should be careful around the frequency of push through this medium. You will also need to ensure that any communications via SMS needs to take into account the Spam Act 2003.

ONLINE

This is probably the easiest avenue for you to encourage downloads of your app because essentially your prospects are only a click away. Again, it’s key to focus on the main online contact points you have with your audience and don’t forget to take into account the inherent differences with each type when you consider on how best to engage.

mSite

This is probably the perfect location to advertise your app; your audience is already interacting with you via mobile but by offering them the app, you’re actually offering them a better user experience and encouraging loyalty. You can get creative with how you do this, perhaps a mobile landing page? Maybe a banner ad or even a simple link? You could always try all three…

eMail

A 2011 Google study found that 82% of smartphone users check and send email on their device. You’ve already managed to capture their email, they want to hear from you, why not offer them your app? For a bit more push include the link/banner in your company’s email signature for a prolonged app discoverability technique. Like with SMS/MMS communications, you also need to ensure compliance with the Spam Act 2003.

Incentivised App Platforms

Incentivised app platforms like Tapjoy encourage app downloads in exchange for virtual currency which can be used to enhance the performance of other apps and games. They’re also based on a recommendation system a lot like the model pioneered by Amazon.

This type of app promotion is generally favoured by game developers and we probably wouldn’t recommend this strategy for branded apps designed around developing customer loyalty.

Social Media

Your social media followers are essentially a database of your biggest brand advocates. Chances are they’re accessing social media via their mobile devices so you should promote your app offering through this channel.

With Facebook set to improve their mobile advertising options in the coming months, the opportunities via Facebook should sky rocket.

The expected increase in mobile ad spend by companies worldwide is expected to grow from $3.3 billion to $20.6 billion by 2015 a recent report by Gartner has proclaimed. What’s more, this trend shouldn’t surprise any of us in our corner of the world as we’re feeling the mobile trend more than most!

 According to a study conducted last year by Google and IPSOS Research, Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world and this number is experiencing growth between one and two per cent each month.

What it boils down to is that mobile as an advertising platform is growing rapidly. That, coupled with the results from an Australian independent study which states that 75 per cent of Australian smartphone users are either ‘very comfortable’ or ‘somewhat comfortable’ with mobile advertising means you should probably start thinking about your mobile ad spend.

To get you off on the right track we’ve decided to provide you with a little introduction to mobile ad networks.

What is a Mobile Ad Network and Why Use One?

Mobile ad networks allow you to get your mobile ad in front of mobile users within your demographic. Benefits of mobile ad networks include:

REACH

Mobile ad networks are basically a syndicate of mobile websites and/or apps that serve your ads i.e. you don’t have to approach each individual publisher (mSite/app developer) as ad networks represent a host of sites and apps.

TARGETED

Although mobile ad networks generally have a pretty large reach this also means they have a pretty good spread of publishers. This allows your ads to be highly targeted as each publisher’s audience tends to be quite refined. You’re ad has a much higher guarantee of getting in front of your target demographic than most other advertising mediums.

An ad network will also have accumulated data including page impressions and unique browsers to help further refine your mobile ad spend.

TIMELY

The beauty of mobile is that marketers can reach potential customers during crucial moments of the purchase lifecycle because people have and use their mobiles regardless of time and location.

ENGAGEMENT

Mobile provides some excellent call-to-action opportunities like click-to-call and direct revenue via mCommerce.

The interactive nature of smart devices and recent technological advancements such as HTML5 means that mobile adverts have the potential to be highly engaging with extremely strong call-to-actions. If you’re able to target your engaging creative in front of your specific demographic then you should see high CTRs and if you’ve done everything right beyond that point, conversions and acquisitions.

Not All Mobile Ad Networks are Born Equal

When it comes to choosing a specific mobile ad network you’ve really got to have your advertising goals in mind. There are four main types of mobile ad networks:

BLIND NETWORKS

These networks tend to be the largest in terms of publishers, advertisers and impressions (i.e. reach) but don’t tend to provide a whole lot of options for targeting specific/niche websites and their audiences. These guys are great for building volume and impressions though and work well if your mobile advertising goal is to get your ads in front of as many eyes as possible to build brand awareness etc. As their name suggests, one drawback is that they won’t give you a great insight into the publishers your ads are appearing on.

PREMIUM BLIND NETWORKS

These mobile ad networks still won’t show you exactly who your ads are being shown on but will guarantee that they’re premium publishers such as well-known; newspapers, broadcasters or operator portals.

PREMIUM NETWORKS

These mobile ad networks have developed strong relationships with a handful of high quality, household-name type publishers. Think IMDb, Foxsports, Fairfax etc. You will often have to pay via a cost-per-impression model (e.g. CPM) which does mean you’ll want to be undertaking some pretty heavy duty campaign optimisation to ensure ROI. Premium networks often supply direct sales support and a plethora of targeting options, they also tend to be more forthcoming with essential data relevant to designing effective campaigns.. You'll have far more control over your campaign than the aforementioned networks which leads to a greater ability to refine and optimise the performance of your campaign.

INCENTIVISED AD NETWORKS

Incentivised mobile ad networks require the user to perform a specified engagement action in exchange for some kind of virtual currency. TapJoy is a leading example of this kind of mobile ad network where consumers get access to a range of free apps and increased functionality within these apps as long as they perform some kind of task set by you, the advertiser.

Stay tuned for more information on selecting the right mobile ad network.

• MobileActive’s 4th Screen Advertising Australia adds McDonalds to its mobile advertising client roster.
• 4th Screen Australia showing consistent client roster growth with delivered mobile advertising campaigns including Qantas, 20th Century Fox, Telstra and Spreets.
• Campaigns are delivering high performance, click through rates across 4th Screen’s expanding publisher network.

View ASX Announcement PDF

Key points of note:

1.  4^th-Screen Advertising debuts a calendar sync format that with one click synced all televised football games onto users iPhone calendars
2. Incredible results achieved, demonstrating that consumers are happy and willing to interact with mobile advertising provided there is something in it for them.
3.  4^th-Screen Advertising puts great brands such as the Guardian & Virgin Media together to deliver real value to the end user.

Click here for the ‘Mobile Marketer’ article:

Mobile Embrace has recently joined a growing number of businesses that are switching their email to Google’s cloud.

As more businesses switch to cloud email and Gmail continues to rise we decided to join local companies like AAPT, NZ post, Macquarie University, the University of Melbourne, Flight Centre, and Ray White and migrate to Gmail.

Here’s 5 Gmail practical and entertaining tools that we found during our migration:

1. Google Documents – A long standing feature of Gmail that allows you to open and edit all popular file formats. It’s a particularly powerful feature that lets you easily share documents and edit documents together in real time all from within a browser.

 2. Chat Search – Valuable conversations and links used to be frequently passed around our internal chat system and frequently lost. Gmail’s chat feature saves all this information and collates conversations for easy access next to emails. 

 3. Tree Theme – This is particularly popular in our office and makes you feel like you’re outside when you’re inside. It gives your email beautiful background pictures of the sky that change depending on what the weather is like in your local city.

 4. Undo Function – A lab function that allows you to undo your last sent email if it’s been sent in the last few seconds. Useful if you suddenly release you’ve left something out of the email you've just sent.

 5. Mail Goggles – A particularly amusing function that keeps you from sending emails when you probably shouldn't. Basically, you specific a time period and if you try to send email within that period it makes you do a couple math problems before it sends the message. Perhaps something we should all enable on Friday afternoons.

Have you switched to cloud email yet? What do you think of Gmail? 

The 1^st takes a punt on pico projectors showcasing a Mozilla Sea Bird concept phone: 

The 2^nd takes a look at Facebook and what it could mean for mobile:

What are your thoughts on Pico projectors?

The latest from statistics company Nielsen confirms the platform power play between Google Android and Apple's iOS devices. 

Key points to note:

• 'Android smartphone market share trails iPhone market share by a scant 9 percentage points'
• 'Android was the preferred platform of new smartphone buyers, suggesting that big-budget marketing campaigns for devices such as the Droid lineup and HTC's Evo were paying off.'
• 'Members of the under-35 crowd were more likely to be seen with an Android than were older folks. And BlackBerry held sway with users over 45. Apple dominated when it came to smartphone users ages 44 and under'
• Based on these trends, we fully expect BlackBerry devices to sink below iPhone in popularity within the next quarter. And we're sure it won't be too long before Android and iOS are neck-and-neck in competing for smartphone dominance.'

Click here to read

Article originally from Mashable

"

Report Summary:

- Mobile data usage grows

- Mobile applications downloaded by 41 per cent of respondents

- Over half of application users have paid for applications

- Consumption of information services rises

- Use of mobile commerce continues to steadily increase

- Nokia most popular handset followed by Apple 

"

Click here to view the report 

Video segments from the August 18th Australian launch of mobile web and app builder, Kilrush.

 Watch the full album here

Kilrush Segment 1: Introduction to MobileActive & Mobile Embrace – Allan Robertson from Mobile Embrace on Vimeo.