Every business wants to be on Mobile. Also the fact that businesses are searching out for the new advertising channels to advertise brings in Mobile Ads space in equation. Lots of companies still don’t have any allocation for the Mobile Ads spend let alone some of the other few who want to experiment with a miniscule ad spend as % of their total spend. Atleast those who are willing to spend have been guided by some agencies who are following the market trend. The problem is however compounded when the agencies propose to the companies a half baked strategy wherein they run only the so called Mobile Ads without worrying about to verify whether the business has a corresponding presence over Mobile platform or not. The running of Mobile Ads without a corresponding Call to Action on the mobile is bound to fail. We see reports everyday that people access more web over their mobile than their computers these days in India. Companies have to change fast as well if they are looking to tap this clientele.
The Mobile Ads strategy has to be complemented along with either a Mobile Website or a call to action which will make the user to download their “mobile app”. Some of the business who got it right are ClearTrip and FlipKart. There would be others also but these two are the ones who are clear about their Mobile presence strategy. I would imagine the volume of transactions from Flipkart’s Mobile web interface would be very very negligible as compared to the web revenues but still it fits into the overall strategy and the fact that user knows he can shop on his mobile also from Flipkart without going to the web on his computer or laptop.
Then there is a problem of where to run the Ads. Google’s (Admod) network is the trusted one and there are others like InMobi. But our experience has shown some of the reputed names in the industry (without naming them) are not able to provide us the “Fills” i.e we are surprisingly not able to burn our budget for running the ads although they are making tall claims. Also the Ads platform should allow the GEO targeting (within Indian cities) which some of them provide currently and that too not very accurate.
Overall Mobile Ads should definitely have a bigger chunk of the total ads spend for any business but it has to be done in a right manner accompanied by a friendly mobile website which can be used on a smartphone. Then only it will make more sense. Until then the Mobile spends won’t be able to show the “results” in the era of “misclicks”.
Deepak Mittal
Hi Vibhor,
Every network needs to be evaluated for performance, this is a tough ask since most networks are party to a syndicate with no clear detailed ROI practices, for instance you may get CPC indicator but if your end goal was to get an app downloaded, then that becomes your true ROI parameter. Further, how many downloads initiated by advertising on a network would continue to use the app and how different is it usage pattern from an average user acquired through other channels. the advertiser therefore must create some performance indicators and select/reject the network(s) after a test run with enough impressions and time on it which can safely be extrapolated on the potential reach of the network. I would again be vary of ascertaining the reach of the network going by their own claims alone. The reach of every network can be substantially different in a particular slot of the year which depends upon which apps/portal publishers are actively sourcing ads from them depending upon the ROI on offer for such publishers. The use of tools that adapt to the best ad sources ( in terms of profitability) dynamically by publishers is on the rise. The high ROI on offer to a publisher by a network is a combination of the overall strategy of the network where the advertiser’s goal is only a part of it at times. A campaign with a clear spend to number of downloads/hits ratio therefore are somewhat easy to monitor both by the network and the advertiser. For an FMCG promoting a new product it may be much harder to accurately assess the success.
Geo targeting based on IP addresses is what the networks are already doing, however on the apps connected via GPRS/3G is not happening with most networks. There are privacy issues if the ad SDK asks for GPS location permission upon installation. The industry is fast evolving with enough innovation happening which is the good part 🙂