Originally posted on cio.com.
Over the last 10 years, we were all over mobile marketing’s proverbial map. From being a non-existent industry (literally) to one of the most milkable cash cows in the modern era, there seems to have not been many steps between the two extremes.
The increasingly rapid pace of industry development leaves a lot to be desired. At this rate, the mobile marketing trends of today are at -risk of seeming archaic another decade down the line. With that in mind, it is important to understand where we are today in mobile marketing as a starting point for what developments we can see unfold in the years to come. Here are prevalent mobile marketing trends as of late.
Real-time Targeted Content
Whether advertised content is relevant to a user predicated on their interests or geographic location, the mobile marketing world has started aiming its efforts towards targeted, calculated ad campaigns. There is more than a handful of reasons to adopt this tactic. For starters, the consumers being targeted actually benefit. In fact, seventy percent of consumers are on board with advertisements that cater specifically to their interests.
Considering we see up to 5,000 advertisements a day, it is nice to know that a percentage, no matter how big or small, actually revolve around a product or service we need. This being said, the next-gen of targeting will focus on real-life context, enabling predictive technologies to understand our intents, adjusting the content we see to our real-time needs. The Appnext platform is one the industry pioneers in this field, providing app marketers with the targeting capabilities that go far beyond generic demographic and location parameters.
Native Ads
Native ads work within a similar line of logic as targeted content. The basic idea of native ads is this: you slip an advertisement in a way that it is not so transparent. You mold the advertisement’s content to match the tone and overall theme of the channel through which it is provided. That way, the narrative, imagery, and the product or service itself is fitting to the demographic most likely to come across it. It can seem less like an advertisement and more like a word of advice from the publication that provides the ad.
As a relevant player in the mobile marketing world, native ads are on an upward trajectory. While it is fair to say most consumers are not aware of the concept of native advertisements, its anticipated value rings to the tune of $53 billion by 2020. In mobile, the highly anticipated avenue native ads will be taking is something called “native app preloads.” Companies like Digital Turbine have seen just how effective this methodology is for advertisers. The idea of native app preloads is to provide smart devices with, as the name implies, preloaded applications that can work with the unique set of information provided by a user, in turn uniquely crafting what the app gives to the consumer. The method may not be the most consumer friendly (people do not like feeling that there are subliminal advertisements in their daily devices), but its statistical effectiveness goes without question.
Apps, Apps, Apps
Seriously, apps have reinvented the wheel. Consider this. The average personspends nearly an hour and a half per day on their phone, and 85 percent of that time is spent on apps. That is over an hour and fifteen minutes daily that the average person is engaged in his or her cell phone applications. These statistics provide a plethora of opportunities for advertisers. It is not a mystery why we see such an outburst of startups paving their way in mobile platforms. There is no reason to believe that apps will not continue exceeding their ambitions with today’s relevancy of smart devices. Applications have become and will continue to be an easily utilized resource for advertisers worldwide.
What the Future Holds
As baseball legend Yogi Berra once joked: “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Mobile marketing trends have gone from non-existent to major leagues overnight. The usage of smartphones is anticipated to only go up, along with their intricacies and the intimacy with which consumers use them. By gathering relevant information about consumers, target advertisements have been incredibly effective, and this methodology has no reason to disappear. Native advertisements have seen their way into apps by, in a sense, sneakily inserting themselves into the views of consumers, adopting a publication’s tone and attitude.
Mobile applications as a whole are increasingly relevant and will be a major dictator with the direction that mobile marketing goes in. The last ten years have been pretty crazy, only time will tell how the next ten will transpire.