Learn More About Mobile Advertising Software
What is Mobile Advertising Software?
There is still rapid growth around mobile device usage, and it is showing no signs of slowing down.This can be attributed to the fact that consumers are rapidly embracing new technology that will make their lives easier. The rise of mobile device usage also brings about a rise in mobile advertising.
Mobile advertising software enables advertisers to publish graphics, text, or animated ads on mobile websites and applications; the software is often one part of a larger cross-channel advertising platform, which may also include capabilities across search, display, social media, and video. Make sure you have a unique mobile strategy in place before deciding which tool you want to use, and make sure that the tool you choose can accommodate the strategy you have outlined.
Key Benefits of Mobile Advertising Software
- Reach audiences on the devices they use most: their phones and tablets
- Convey time-sensitive messages that are more relevant to the consumer's individual preferences, buying behavior, and location
- Boost your advertising engagement rates, as users tend to spend more time with interactive ads
- Save money by running campaigns at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising channels
- Enjoy a higher click-through rate compared to desktop advertisements
Why Use Mobile Advertising Software?
The proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices is not a new trend, however, it is pushing advertisers toward an inescapable reality of using mobile advertising to reach consumers. As the desktop audience gradually decreases over time, it is important for in-house marketers and third-party vendors to reach consumers where they are: their mobile devices. That being said, while mobile ads increase in prevalence, mobile device users get more inundated with the number of ads they receive. Therefore, it is crucial to provide intriguing, relevant, and nonintrusive ads to consumers that tie in with your overall mobile marketing strategy.
With mobile advertising software, businesses have the ability to publish personalized ads targeted to the consumer's habits, preferences, and location. Due to the interactive nature of mobile devices, mobile advertising software removes barriers to responding and purchasing and gives consumers the ability to interact with your brand wherever they go. Mobile advertising software will also allow users to track engagement with their ads in real time. Finally, not only is mobile advertising more personal, it is also a cost-efficient way to reach a target audience as opposed to using traditional advertising.
Who Uses Mobile Advertising Software?
Mobile advertising software is typically managed by a company’s marketing team or a third-party advertising agency. With the ultimate goal of increasing sales, marketers are responsible for driving both brand awareness and direct response initiatives, both of which can be accomplished with the use of mobile advertising software. Specific marketing professionals that are most often involved in using mobile advertising software are listed below. That being said, depending on size, a company may not have defined roles for a marketer to focus on a specialized area.
Social Media Marketers — A social media marketer is dedicated to managing various social media accounts for a company with the goal to increase brand awareness and cultivate an online community. Part of creating that community includes paying attention to trends and audience preferences to ensure content is optimized over time. Social media marketers compose and plan organic social media posts, create ads on first-party and/or third-party platforms, respond to comments in a timely manner, and develop hashtags. Ad campaigns can be deployed and managed with mobile advertising software or other social media advertising software.
Digital Marketers — Digital marketers manage any kind of marketing that takes place online (i.e., involving the internet or an electronic device). If a company doesn’t have a dedicated social media marketing team, digital marketers would normally take on that responsibility. Digital marketers can use mobile advertising software to increase brand awareness, website traffic, and customers. Digital marketers also typically handle email marketing, SEO, and display and search advertising.
Kinds of Mobile Advertising Software
Not all mobile advertising platforms offer the same avenues for mobile ads. Between online banner ads, mobile video ads, in-app ads, native ads, push notifications, and SMS ads, there are a variety of options for reaching audiences on their mobile devices. Outline what kinds of ads will resonate best with your audience and make sure the platforms you consider are capable of these.
Online Banner Ads — Online banner ads, which can also be called web banners or display advertising, enables companies to advertise on a wide range of websites. Banner ads are image-based advertisements that can be one of two formats: static or animated. Static banner ads are fixed, clickable images you can use to direct your target audience to another webpage. Animated banner ads, on the other hand, are ads in which some part of the ad moves, whether that be the text or the image itself. You have more versatility with animated ads, as they can include interactive elements where the audience can take actions like playing a game or taking a survey. These kinds of ads typically appear on the side, top, and bottom portions of websites. Mobile online banner ads can be used for different goals, including brand awareness, lead generation, and retargeting.
Video Ads — Mobile advertising software can also be used to launch video ads, which essentially encompasses any online advertisements that have a video component within them. There are also specific video advertising software options that can help with buying, managing, and placing video ads online. As a medium, video makes it easier to tell stories and catch consumers’ attention while they are being exposed to increasing amounts of online content.
In-App Ads — In-application advertising involves executing and managing your ads directly in a mobile application. Mobile application ads are distributed through a mobile app advertising network, which connects advertisers and developers. App developers use in-app advertising as one mechanism for monetizing their apps. Apps on a mobile device are very personal per user, which gives advertisers a great opportunity to create effective, personalized ads. Advertisers can also put extremely precise targeting parameters around their in-app ads, since mobile applications can collect first-party data on an opt-in basis (e.g., gender, age, and other demographic information).
Native Ads — With the ever-increasing amount of online ads, consumers often face ad fatigue, or the feeling of boredom when seeing ads. What’s the consequence of ad fatigue? Consumers will simply stop paying attention to ads altogether. This is where native ads showcase numerous benefits. Native advertising promotes information in a way to look and feel like the platform in which it appears. Native ads don’t really look like ads; instead, they look like a natural fit of the original content and website’s style. This increases the likelihood that consumers will actually engage with your advertisement. Examples of native ads include sponsored content on a website or a sponsored video ad on a social media platform. Mobile advertising software will assist you in creating, launching, and measuring the success of your native ads.
Push Notifications — Push notifications are short alert messages that appear in an icon on a mobile device after a user opts in for this type of communication. Advertisements deployed through push notifications serve as a reminder for consumers to visit a brand’s website or social media channel(s) and will provide a further touchpoint for interaction. These types of ads typically have high engagement rates because they appear on a user’s home screen and, as previously mentioned, are opt-in notifications.
SMS Ads — You can expand your reach with short message service (SMS) ads because these can reach people that do not have a smartphone. Similar to push notifications, SMS ads are also permission-based and require consumers to opt-in to this type of messaging. SMS ads create another opportunity to interact with your consumers and continue to build loyalty.
Mobile Advertising Software Features
Throughout this software category, you will find a multitude of functionalities, most of which fall under the umbrella of these three main features: mobile functionality, campaign management, and targeting. The following list breaks down those three main features, as well as additional features mobile advertising software can possess.
Mobile Functionality — Not all mobile advertising software options were originally created specifically for mobile advertising campaigns. Mobile advertising is but a single channel in the online advertising ecosystem, and many platforms that support advertising on mobile devices are also capable of serving ads across various channels. That being said, there are certain mobile functionality features that you should explore when choosing the mobile advertising software that is right for you, including mobile tracking and mobile-rich media capabilities.
Tracking mobile impressions and conversions is more difficult on mobile devices, as cookies—the small pieces of data used for tracking on desktops—are not compatible on mobile devices. As such, mobile ad platforms use a variety of different workarounds to track campaign performance. Additionally, mobile tracking will allow you to monitor mobile attribution or determine where your users are coming from. Mobile-rich media capabilities are mobile ads that encourage viewers to interact and engage with your content (e.g., video ads). Due to the interactivity of this specific feature, it will allow you to glean more insights than with a traditional mobile ad.
Campaign Management — This feature can contain numerous functionalities, including campaign optimization, campaign dashboards, bulk editing and uploading, fraud protection, and frequency capping. Campaign management features will simplify launching, managing, and tracking your mobile ad campaign(s). A campaign dashboard will allow you to visualize and interact with your mobile ad campaign data, which can include the total number of sessions on an ad, total clicks, time spent on an ad, location data, etc. Some campaign dashboards will include dynamic filters so you can slice your data however you want. Bulk editing and uploading features aim to create a more efficient way of creating and managing your mobile ads. With a bulk uploading feature, mobile advertising software enables the creation and uploading of multiple ads at a time, which is beneficial if you are trying to simultaneously launch different types of ad campaigns. Bulk editing functionality will then allow you to make any and all changes to your ad(s) at once.
As technology continues to advance and allow marketers to advertise in new ways, it also creates new ways for people to commit mobile ad fraud. Mobile ad fraud occurs when an individual or group of people defraud advertisers and steal from their ad budgets, which can include fake or rejected installs or fake impressions. Mobile ad fraud protection is important to bring transparency to your mobile ad campaigns and allow you to tie them back to your budget. If you aren’t aware of fraud taking place, you won’t be able to truly track your RoAS (return on ad spend). An additional feature that will allow you to spend your ad budget wisely is frequency capping. Frequency capping helps consumers avoid ad burnout by limiting the maximum number of impressions they can see within a specific amount of time.
Targeting — This overarching feature can be broken out into ad targeting, retargeting, geotargeting, and contextual targeting. Mobile ad targeting will allow you to personalize content to your consumers based off of identifying criteria, which can include location, demographics (gender, age, marital status, etc.), and buying behavior. Mobile advertising software that has a retargeting feature will enable you to reconnect with consumers that have already interacted with your content by displaying ads to specific consumers that you have already identified. Retargeting enhances conversion rates by using cookie-based technology to follow your audience around the web. Due to GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, consumers will usually receive popup notifications on websites they visit to agree to the site’s privacy policy to be able to use their data. A geotargeting feature will allow you to refine your ad campaign to only serve specific audiences based off of their location. Finally, contextual targeting involves placing your ads on websites that are directly relevant to the ad campaign you are running. A contextual targeting feature will display your ad with content that is directly related to what your consumer is already viewing. The feature will enable the content in your ad to appear alongside relevant blogs, websites, images, etc.
Additional Features of Mobile Advertising Software
Cross-Channel Capabilities — A cross-channel advertising feature will enable you to place your ads across multiple devices and through a variety of channels. Not every tool performs equally across all channels, so be aware of how these channels differ from each other. This may urge you to use a variety of different tools in your advertising technology stack to increase and optimize the performance of each channel. (For more information about cross-channel advertising products, please visit our cross-channel advertising software category.)
Integrations — Depending on your company and existing software, the mobile advertising platform you choose will need to integrate with a variety of other software. Beyond other advertising platforms with which you may need to integrate, your mobile platform may also be used with marketing automation, CRM, email marketing tools, or data management platforms. Make sure your existing software has the ability to integrate with the mobile advertising tool you plan on using.
Custom Reports — Being able to track the success of your mobile ad campaign is essential. With a custom reporting feature, users can slice and dice their campaign data in a way that makes the most sense for them. Additionally, mobile advertising software includes the ability to generate reports across different advertising channels and offers access to real-time data. This feature will enable users to obtain rich insights into overall ad campaign effectiveness.
Potential Issues with Mobile Advertising Software
Tracking — Tracking the success of mobile advertising campaigns offers numerous advantages. However, potential issues in tracking mobile ad campaign effectiveness do exist. Since mobile devices are smaller than desktops, accidental clicks take place quite often on ads. Advertisers can get frustrated with this because they still pay for that ad click, but the data does not represent actual engagement with a company's brand. Additionally, cross-device tracking is nearly impossible unless the user is logged in on multiple devices.
