The following is a guest contributed post from Dr. Mona Yousry, Chief Data Scientist, Sabio Mobile.

The amount of data that people generate simply by living their lives can be used to tell stories filled with context and insights. This information, combined with digital data, enriches our understanding of consumers and, by extension, the physical world. Big data, mobile phones, social media and behavior analytics each play a vital role in teasing out this understanding; as a result, they allow companies to gain a competitive edge, and are the future of business intelligence.

But what does data intelligence really mean? To put it simply, data intelligence is the ability to identify and analyze relationships, and to visualize the data associated with them. That is to say, business intelligence unifies sources of unstructured data together with up-to-date visualizations in order to access information on trends and experiences quickly.

Most people will already be familiar with the term “big data”. But what many people don’t realize is that the number of data sources that big data can draw from is increasing at a rapid clip, which in turn affects the quality of the insights that business applications will be able to generate. Having more – and better – data also allows for better AI, because the more high-quality data you have to train your systems, the better your AI algorithms will be.

Data opportunities and challenges

Implementing big data successfully is often a challenge for businesses, in part because of the oft-cited “Vs” of big data. Gartner’s 3Vs, variety, velocity, and volume, have traditionally been the way that most practitioners understand big data.

However, in some ways, the traditional way of thinking about big data ignores the larger picture – that is to say, how to interpret such massive amounts of data. As a result, we need to look beyond the original Vs, to what I call the 6V Wheel. In addition to variety, velocity, and volume, organizations also need to be thinking about validity, verification, and visualization.

Let’s start with the traditional Vs. Variety refers to the fact that not all data is created equally. No longer is it a set of observations and measurements that we can apply regression or time series to; instead, we think of data as a set of patterns that can drive amazing insights, particularly when made up of information from multiple sources. In the near past, a retailer might have relied on information drawn from e-commerce sites and social media – but now, with advances in location technology, one can look at data gathered from physical retail locations and points of sale, and subsequently gain more insight into shopping trends and behaviors. As mobile apps and devices have become smarter and more responsive to their environments, the variety of data available has exponentially increased. Most of this information is already in the hands of organizations, yet few are using it to drive value.

Velocity is a characteristic of data, frequently equated to real-time analytics. It is the rate of changes – about linking data sets that are coming with different speeds and bursts of activities. When the spatio-temporal relationship between two or more data sets changes, then everything else changes, even the definition of a “data event.”

Volume refers simply to the amount of data. Keep in mind that simply having more information than your competitor is not a guarantor of success; rather, it comes down to how effectively that information is being used to drive business performance.

Now for the three new Vs:

Validity refers to a question that our AI and machine learning intelligence is continuously addressing: how effective are these methods? For us, it is the accuracy and  how pervasive is our model. We look at many combinations to relate interactions, habits and behaviors, as only then can we start to understand audience needs (with their privacy still intact). For businesses, the power  is in the insights that allow them to measure performance, create value, drive awareness for new offerings, improve loyalty, increase sales, and countless other actions that are beneficial for their organizations. All of this is a validation of big data.

Verification is the process of establishing the accuracy of something; in other words, the establishment by empirical means of the validity of a proposition. Can a business verify that a customer responds well to a specific notification? How do you know if a particular ad was the reason someone visited a store? How good are your campaigns at driving attribution? How relevant are your ads to people? With AI, and the new types of data that are being collected, all of these questions can now be answered.

Finally, Visualization refers to how we dynamically see the data – and the intelligent decisions we make as a result of understanding those insights. Understanding data can be a complicated matter, and it needs to be easily digestible so that marketers and management can quickly assess what is and isn’t working, and make the right decisions.

While Gartner’s 3Vs provide a good baseline, this new 6Vs Vision creates a more holistic and comprehensive way to view data. This is especially vital as the importance of app science, geolocation, and mobile continue to grow exponentially, and as big data continues to create value for organizations.

The post 3Vs are Good, But 6Vs Are Better: A New Way of Understanding Big Data appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Jason Yim, CEO and Executive Creative Director of Trigger

Augmented and mixed reality experiences are powerful tools that can connect consumers to brands and products in meaningful ways. However, in order to achieve that meaningful connection, marketing strategists should always consider the overall customer experience when designing a campaign. More people rely on smartphones to cater their entertainment needs than ever before but still, a one-size-fits-all AR solution does not exist. After clocking more than 100k hours of mixed reality development for some of the world’s largest brand names, Trigger has identified seven different ways to integrate AR into your next marketing campaign.

1. Web AR:

Web AR is one of the fastest ways to deliver AR content to an audience because it works through a mobile web browser and does not require an app. Users are directed to a unique URL that can scan a target and launch an experience.

Advantages:

• User does not need to download an app
• Wide reach

Limitations:

• Technology is still in its infancy – limited 3D fidelity, limited recognition and tracking, less robust an experience
• Requires internet connection

2. Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) AR Content:

OEM AR content is embedded into a device’s native camera or pre-installed in an app on the device. The Google Pixel 2 is a perfect example of this.

Advantages:

• Higher performance as it is integrated directly into hardware
• User does not need to download app

Limitations:

• Closed development and publishing environment for these platforms
• Limited to a few handsets in the market

3. Social App Lens (Snap, Facebook):

Everything we do now almost always overlaps with a social platform, so placing AR content into an existing social app can be an effective way to access users already actively using those platforms.

Advantages:

• Targets large active user base
• Delivers measurable results
• Proven user behavior and content preference
• Broad reach

Limitations:

• Media buy often required
• Content size and interactive experience are limited by constraints of the platform

4. AR/MR Module in an Existing App:

If you have a large consumer base already, consider building an AR module into an existing (legacy) app. This approach enhances an existing experience and continues to take advantage of an established install base.

Advantages:

• No new app download required
• Feature set only limited by size of module and budget

Limitations:

• Technical integration with legacy app can sometimes be challenging
• Features could be limited by legacy app in terms of file size or conflicting technology

5. Dedicated AR/MR App:

Starting from scratch? Building an AR/MR app from the ground-up increases your ability to customize an experience without having to accommodate an existing app.

Advantages:

• Newer technologies are cutting development times for bespoke experiences down
• Customize the entire experience from start-to-finish

Limitations

• App install is required
• Significant app marketing and promotion is required to encourage downloads and installs

6. Ambassador-Driven Experience with Custom Hardware/Software:

This method is ideal for events and retail experiences where brand ambassadors are equipped and trained with devices to run an AR/MR experience.

Advantages:

• User does not need to download app
• Usually works best for a shorter experience with a social component

Limitations:

• Consumers cannot replicate experience at home

7. Location-Based AR/MR Installation:

Turn-key technological solutions for location-based AR/MR do not currently exist. An installation will likely require custom hardware/software.

Advantages:

• User does not need to download app
• Interaction does not have to be limited to mobile devices
• Experience can have a larger wow factor

Limitations:

• Experience can be limited to target ideal traffic flow and dwell times
• Significant commitment of time, space and money

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Yim is the CEO and Executive Creative Director of Trigger – The Mixed Reality Agency^TM with offices in the US and Denmark. Yim has led over 100,000 hours of development in AR/VR/XR, including as a Snap Lens Studio Partner and as a showcase developer for Vuforia and Google for clients including: Honda, Sony, Mattel, Disney, LEGO and more. For LEGO, he has developed mixed reality content and solutions for various product lines including LEGO Stores and the new LEGO Museum. Yim has two assigned patents in table-top AR play, with several more pending.

The post 7 Mixed Reality Technology Options for Marketers appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Harald Kratel, VP of Global Marketing, Smaato

Mobile has fundamentally redefined the marketing landscape in a dramatically short time frame. For the most part, as consumer time spent has shifted to mobile devices, advertising dollars have shifted as well. However, while a great deal of attention has been paid to the gross reallocation of these dollars, not nearly as much attention has been paid to the strategic shift required by marketers in terms of how those mobile dollars are spent.

Mobile devices will account for 73 percent of global time spent online in 2018, up from 65 percent in 2016. Within that time spent, comScore’s latest data indicates apps are responsible for more than 80 percent of the time people spend using mobile devices, with this number rising as high as 95 percent in some regions.

The dominance of mobile in-app experiences is good news for marketers, as more data is available in-app than with any other media format. Since apps can collect first-party data on an opt-in basis, they are also able to pass along valuable targeting parameters such as gender and age, which allow advertisers to precisely reach their ideal audience. Within the in-app environment, advertisers can also harness geo-location data.

In short, marketers now have easy access to the long-coveted “right person, right place, right time” marketing utopia. But far too few marketers today are structuring their campaigns this way.

It’s time for marketers to start thinking in micro mobile moments. Here’s what that looks like:

Dayparting – and Then Some

The concept of dayparting is by no means a new one, but it’s newly relevant in the mobile world. As in the TV world, dividing the day into several distinct chunks and tailoring messaging appropriately during each chunk makes infinite sense in mobile marketing. But marketers need to take things further.

Enter the micro mobile moment. The general idea of “micro-moments” was popularized by Google a few years back as a succinct way of referring to the instances within the consumer journey when decisions are made and preferences are shaped. In the mobile world, these are the instances where people turn to their devices to find, do, or buy something, and it is within these moments that marketing messages are particularly resonant.

Micro-moments take on special importance in the mobile realm, where in-app time is highly fragmented. On average, users spend three hours per day in-app, but the average app session is only five minutes long. On average, users check their phones 47 times per day, and many of these sessions are intent-driven micro-moments where the right messaging could make all the difference in an ultimate purchase decision.

Identifying micro mobile moments, and understanding them in relation to the individual who owns the device, lays the foundation for a solid mobile advertising strategy. Every daypart has hundreds of micro mobile moments. For example:

• Searching for healthy recipes before dinner
• Playing a game at home
• Seeking product information while in a store
• Checking restaurant reviews on a Friday evening
• Listening to a podcast on the train

These are context-rich moments that, in combination with knowledge of the individual, lend themselves to targeted messaging from brands. The key is understanding where a given brand can add value and have influence on the consumer’s journey. By effectively dayparting a mobile campaign according to micro-moments, marketers can optimize campaign performance, enhance user targeting, improve cost-efficiency, and maximize user engagement. The three steps to doing this effectively are as follows:

1. Identify your target group
2. Analyze their mobile behaviors (or work with partners to do so), particularly as it relates to app usage
3. Identify the right mobile moments that align with your goals.

OK, so the above steps seem simple enough. But what does the result look like? It might be simpler than you think. Here are just a few micro mobile moments that would be a fit for well-known brands:

• KFC: 12:15 p.m., food court, fast food lovers
• Bacardi: 1:10 a.m., party area, students
• Dreyer’s ice cream: 2:45 p.m., parks, sunny weather

The above criteria are all easily targeted within in-app experiences. Customized programmatic deals are an effective way to ensure that your in-app advertising campaigns reach their target audience at the right mobile moment. Not only do they provide more transparency and control, but they are effective tools for optimizing campaigns, inventory, and pricing.

The shift from desktop to mobile advertising is well-established, but the opportunities surrounding proper dayparting in the mobile environment are only beginning to be explored. Is your brand ready to seize its moment?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Harald Kratel

Vice President, Global Marketing, Smaato

With over 20 years of experience across the media and advertising industry, Harald (Harry) has proven himself as an innovative and effective marketing leader.

Harry has played a leading role in Germany’s digital advertising industry since 2000, when he became Managing Director of internet activities at G+J, one of Europe’s biggest magazine publishers. From 2005 to 2009, Harry served as the COO/CMO of Parship, Europe’s largest online dating service, where he was responsible for the company’s internationalization into 14 countries. Prior to joining Smaato, Harry was the Partner and Managing Director of mlv, a full-service advertising agency located in Hamburg.

Harry holds a degree (Dipl.-Kfm.) in Business Administration from the University of Münster.

The post A Marketer’s Guide to Harnessing Micro Mobile Moments appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Ronald Sens, EMEA Director, A10 Networks

Since Mirai and its subsequent variants let the genie out of the bottle, DDoS attacks powered by the Internet of Things have become ubiquitous. As more and more IoT devices join the world’s networks – predicted by Gartner to be 24 billion by 2020 – so the potential for cybercriminals to recruit unsecured devices to botnets and wreak havoc through DDoS increases, and we see advanced multi-vector attacks that evolve in sophistication almost as fast as we can register them. Figures show that there were 7.5million DDoS attacks in 2017, with the frequency of those passing 500GBPS increasing four-fold and some notable incidents reaching as high as 1.7 TBPS. A10’s own research found that 38% of organizations said they had been affected by a DDoS attack in the last 12 months.

When the numbers are this big, the argument is over and it’s time for a reality check: DDoS attacks will be a fact of life for the foreseeable future and this has changed the economics of protection. The way for organizations to take back control is by proactively changing the conversation away from a siege mentality and toward adopting a strategic approach. Once we accept that detecting and mitigating against DDoS attacks is now part of the cost of doing business, the way is cleared to selecting the best solution.

Of course, in an ideal world, we’d all be furnished with the financial resources necessary to protect against all kinds of attacks – but I did say that this was a reality check. While A10 research found that 63% of IT professionals believe that budgets will increase in response to the evolving DDoS threat environment, there will never be enough money to go around – this is where security professionals earn their stripes. The challenge is getting the balance right between performance and budgetary limitations to identify the most appropriate and cost-effective protection for the business. There are a few signposts on the road to success that will help in the quest to establish the right solution.

Scoping tailored protection for your organization

Bear in mind that, despite that intimidating statistics, most organizations don’t face 1TBPS DDoS attacks every day of the week – if you do, then we really should talk!

The first step to identifying the right solution is to scope out the level and types of threat that you typically face and establish the level of impact that the business is willing to support. It’s not a case of one size fits all but varies depending on your organization. For example, the lifeblood of the gaming industry is zero latency; any slowdown in the network constitutes an unacceptable customer service failure.  For this kind of business – which is also a primary target for DDoS – the highest priority is performance and the price for safeguarding that is well worth paying. Such organizations should opt for the gold standard of a proactive asymmetric deployment that delivers always-on protection, detecting and mitigating attacks in less than a second.

In other sectors, where latency is less of a mission-critical issue and volumetric attacks are less frequent, it might be advisable to trade a slight slowdown for a lower cost solution. After all, you don’t need a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

The best of both worlds – hybrid cloud DDoS protection

Of course, just because an organization doesn’t typically face volumetric attacks, that doesn’t mean that it never will. Cloud hybrid DDoS protection allows full visibility and precision to manage more sophisticated attacks or those that come into the “slow and low” category with on-premise appliances, but when a volumetric attack exceeds the organisation’s internet bandwidth capacity traffic is redirected to the cloud to be scrubbed and legitimate traffic allowed through. This mitigates the effect of the attack for as long as it persists and keeps systems available. It’s the equivalent of having that sledgehammer in your back pocket, just in case you need it.

One thing to note when selecting a hybrid solution is that you want to find a provider that charges based on the legitimate traffic that the cloud scrubbing lets through – maintaining your business systems availability – rather than on the volume of attack traffic that is stopped, otherwise you could find yourself signing a blank cheque at the mercy of the botnet.

In order to guarantee enterprises seamless hybrid DDoS protection, here at A10 Networks we have partnered with VeriSign to create A10 DDoS Protection Cloud. This means that customers are protected by the surgical precision of the A10 Thunder® 1040 TPS appliance to combat network-based, application layer and slow and low attacks, combined with cloud scrubbing capabilities powered by VeriSign’s cloud-based DDoS Protection Service when it’s needed to combat volumetric attacks.

Physical footprint

Coming down from the cloud, a more prosaic consideration is the space and support requirements for on-premise DDoS systems. How much space, power, cooling, monitoring and management will your appliances require? You’re effectively looking for as much performance as possible with the smallest possible footprint so that TCO is kept low – small yet powerful is the key here.

Bring intelligence to bear against DDoS attackers

Perhaps one of the most positive ways to be proactive about handling DDoS is to make use of threat intelligence services that are available to keep you and your systems up to speed on the evolving threat environment. They use intelligence gained from previous attacks on other targets to make changes aimed at preventing the same strategy succeeding in future. Threat intelligence services can include tailored malicious IP catalogues, protection against known botnets, custom traffic allocation via black and white lists and mitigation against inside bots communicating with outside command and control servers. Specific responses can be appropriate to specific industries, e.g. banking and healthcare industries would find it prudent to blacklist millions of IP-enabled cameras from accessing their applications.

Seizing back the initiative and viewing DDoS protection as a necessary and strategic element of business operations is a critical step in gaining an advantage over cyber-adversaries. In a world where DDoS attacks are inevitable, it’s time for organizations to get proactive and deploy solutions tailored to meet the threat environment that they are likely to face for the foreseeable future. Security professionals who want to learn more about how to gain an advantage over DDoS threats are invited to join us at The Shard, London on the 29^th of May 2018 where we’ll be looking at how organizations can balance protection, performance and budgets.

The post Op-Ed: It’s Time to be Proactive with DDoS Protection appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Keith Petri, Chief Strategy Officer of Screen6

The rise of the connected car has been swift. With most auto manufacturers beginning to offer apps on the in-car dashboard, integrations with voice assistants, and swipe navigation, the latest cars on the market seem more like software platforms that people just happen to drive. In the United States, connected car penetration is estimated at 38.8 percent in 2018, a figure that is expected to grow to more than 80 percent by 2022.

Of course, the marketing world has noticed. But to date, there’s been very little consensus on how exactly marketers should be adapting their thinking for what promises to be a profound shift in consumer access. No doubt, connected cars will change the world of marketing. But as with the car technology itself, the marketing play will be a slow evolution, not a static opportunity that can be plugged into the broader marketing equation or “customer journey” overnight.

It’s fun to speculate on the long-term and how the screen inside the car might become one of the most important screens in our lives. And no doubt, when autonomous vehicles become the new normal, marketers are going to be falling all over themselves to figure out the myriad things they can do with the additional screen time for everyday for consumers. For example, Apple recently filed a patent application for virtual reality experiences inside self-driving cars, sparking a good deal of speculation into the seemingly limitless possibilities such technology could enable.

But we’re simply not there yet. Right now, even in existing connected cars like Teslas, with their big screens, the advertising opportunity is limited. It’s simply not cool to be flashing ads that could distract drivers while they’re focused on the road. That said, while we await the autonomous future of car travel, there’s still an opportunity for marketers to incorporate connected cars into their strategies right now. Marketers can do so by tapping into the ever-growing data coming from connected cars to more fully round out their understandings of consumers and provide better experiences. This data allows for profiles that can include location data and retail proximity, travel patterns.

According to recent data from Screen6, connected cars have already started to yield useful insights for marketers. According to aggregate data, for every connected car we incorporated into a cross-device graph, we were able to match an average of 3.9 other devices. The data showed that 43 percent of the cars were connected to a mobile device, with 17 percent connected to a PC and 10 percent connected to a tablet. Not surprisingly, our data shows that connected cars are most active during rush hour, peaking at 8 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. We’ve also seen that PCs connected to cars are being used more after work, so it’s likely that these devices represent personal computers vs. work computers.

In essence, a connected car is like any other connected device. A connected car is simply a car that is equipped with internet access, and often a wireless local area network. This allows the car to share internet access with other devices both inside and outside the vehicle. This connectivity means there’s an identifier for connected cars that can be incorporated into cross-device graphs, and this integration provides insights into consumer behavior that was previously veiled to marketers.

Attitudes are also changing from car ownership to a more flexible, fluid approach to driving. As the auto market evolves from individually owned cars to shared automobiles, the marketing potential will explode. Data points and patterns like this will be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the insights that connected cars can deliver to marketers as they look to round out their cross-device understanding of consumers. While the future of land travel is likely to evolve significantly over the next two decades, marketers need not sit and wait to begin evolving their strategies alongside the connected car.

The post Connected Cars: The Opportunity Is Closer Than Marketers Think appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Alexei Chemenda, CRO for Apps and Managing Director, U.S., Adikteev

Mobile users prefer playable ads to most other ad formats. Yet, as of last year, only 4 percent of advertising budgets were going to playable ads, even though 71 percent of advertisers found them effective. Part of the lag in adoption is because marketers, and even vendors, don’t really understand how playables could, and should, be used.

For example, marketers most commonly use playables for user acquisition, but they can be powerful tools for retargeting, too. Marketers also think of playables as a gaming tactic, but brands across a variety of verticals use playables to engage their audience. Let’s take a closer look at the most common mistakes the industry is making when it comes to mobile playable ads.

1.     Playable ads aren’t just for user acquisition

Most large mobile advertisers use playables, but they are only using them for user acquisition – not retargeting. This is a missed opportunity. Marketers can create playable ads to target people who have stopped using an app, or to target active users to get them to spend more time and money within the app.

It’s a truism of marketing that it costs more to acquire a new user than to retain an existing one. Playable ads are a great tool for maximizing the value derived from your existing user base. One of the reasons app marketers have shied away from targeting their existing users is because they are worried about wasting spend. Their specific concerns are usually around wasting impressions targeting users who would have taken action anyway, even if they hadn’t seen an ad. It’s easy to neutralize this challenge by using incrementality –the measure of revenue lift provided by an advertising spend—in addition to Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Incrementality allows you to compare the audience you are retargeting to a control group that is not served ads so you can better evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign.

2.     Playable ads aren’t reserved for gaming

Playable ads are a tactic for capturing a user’s attention. Sure, gaming app publishers might do that by showcasing the game they are promoting, but brands in other verticals can create all sorts of interactive experiences designed to first, engage users and second, deliver some sort of targeted message. The e-commerce platform Wish demonstrated just how effective this strategy can be when it used a series of playable ads for a retargeting campaign that delivered better results than any of its static banner campaigns. The creative included a Spin The Wheel experience, in which users spun a virtual wheel to receive a free gift they could open inside the app, and a Choose The Right Box game, in which users had to guess which box a free gift was under after the boxes were shuffled.

3.     Don’t overinvest in your first playable experience

Advertisers and vendors often invest a lot of resources crafting their first playable experience in an effort to make it “perfect.” Marketers would be better off approaching their first playable iteration as a testing ground where they learn which elements perform best and then tweak their creative accordingly. Let’s take a simple gaming example. Rather than choosing one character from your game to highlight in your first playable, try letting users choose which character they want to interact with. After you have measured performance, you can double down on what is working and create iterations that feature the most popular character.

4.     You can overcome creative fatigue

One of the critiques of playables is that you can saturate your audience quickly. If you show the same playable ad too many times, users will start to ignore it and performance will suffer. This is a real advertising challenge, but it is not limited to playables. Serve any ad too frequently and performance will drop. Creative fatigue is perceived to be a  particularly big problem for playables because marketers often think that the playable experience has to mimic the app they are promoting. The aim of a playable ad isn’t necessarily to give users a sneak peek of the app. Its objective should be to capture a user’s attention. Then you can deliver the relevant marketing message.

With this in mind, marketers can create multiple versions of their playable ads and optimize them the same way they do with static banners and native Facebook ads. It is possible to create 20, 30, even 50 versions of the same playable ad. Doing so allows you to test out different scenarios, optimize per different audience groups and avoid creative fatigue.

5.     You can’t measure playable ads the same way you measure banners

With static mobile banners, marketers measure click-through rate (CTR) and installs, as well as what happens post-download, so they can determine the value of the user and the Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). With playables, marketers can go even deeper with the data. You can measure which buttons a user clicks and in what order, as well as time spent within the experience. The volume of available data can be overwhelming, and it can take time to determine what to measure and what to do with what you have learned. The insights can be used to improve your next playable experience, your audience targeting strategy or even other marketing campaigns. But one thing is certain—you can’t glean these takeaways if you are using the same reporting tools you use for your static mobile ads. Marketers need reporting dashboards that are specifically developed with playables in mind.

Playable ads aren’t just a tool for acquiring new high-value users. With the right strategies and measurement tools in place, marketers across all kinds of verticals can use them to retain existing users and keep them engaged.

The post Here’s Why Marketers Aren’t Spending More on Mobile Playable Ads: 5 Common Misconceptions about Playable Ads appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post from Rafael Andrade, Advertiser Business Developer, at Tappx

The way in which people interact and engage with ads is constantly evolving. It’s no secret that the present and future of brands is to leverage messaging across our vast mobile ecosystems of smart devices, and in particular, to utilize programmatic technology to communicate with users. Brands are constantly looking for new ways to excite and engage audiences. It’s not only important to solely focus on the channels which are used to impact users, but we also need to explore different methods where we can build within each channel, thereby maximising impact.

With the ongoing quest for new mobile ad formats, marketers are willing to go beyond the existing ones. There’s a constant need for new formats which take full advantage of new technologies and software. We’re constantly looking for new formats which offer deeper engagement, improved revenue streams, whilst being hyper-targeted for consumer interests. Smart devices are tightly woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. They’re a function for our lifestyles, hence an importance for the design, format, relevance and placement of ads served across our multitude of mobile screens. Out of all of these areas, the mobile ad format is going through a transformational period, with innovative developments right on the horizon.

Across the spectrum of current mobile ad formats, we must first discuss the present day king of the ad formats, the video ad. In the US alone, digital video expenditure is expected to increase at double digit annual rates until 2021, reaching a staggering $22 billion USD (Source eMarketer 2018).

Special mention must also be given to the rewarded video ad format, which is a hugely successful format used. Based on our extensive work in the mobile gaming world, rewarded video ads are highly requested from our ad partners across the Tappx network. Rewarded ads deliver a clear value exchange – when users view an in-game video ad, they are the rewarded with in-game assets, such as weapons, new lives and in-game currency, or new game level access. Video ad formats are hugely powerful on many levels, primarily because they help to communicate large amounts of information in a very short space of time.

Following video ads, we move onto 360 interactive ads. This format enables users to view products from multiple angles, including the rotation or flipping of an image, so users can gain different perspectives of products. New research from IPG Media Lab reported that video ads offering 360 degree functionality drive 7% higher purchase intent on smart devices, and a 12% increase in the belief that a brand has a “unique story to tell” when compared to video ads.

The next generation of mobile ad formats is the move towards true AR and VR. This year we will witness the real power behind AR/VR, in terms of the scope of technology, and embracement by audiences, empowering marketers to accompany their campaigns with increased interactivity, deeper immersiveness and hyper targeted personalization.

As gaming is a highly popular activity on smartphones, we shouldn’t forget about playable ads, and the near infinite forms which they can take. Playable ads offers users the chance to interact and engage with an app/game, before they have downloaded it. Try before you buy if you will. They offer attractive engagement and conversation rates.

The arrival of 5G is also going to take visual ad experiences to a higher level, and it will consequently create new spaces and metrics for measuring effectiveness, engagement and performance, such as tracking with metrics like post-view conversions, viewability and audibility ratios, and many more.

One of the most exciting yet “good old” ad formats that has witnessed a resurgence is the audio ad format. This increasing interest in audio formats is correlated to the large adoption by consumers of music streaming services. These types of audio ads, that can be served programmatically, opens new ways for segmenting audiences, like emotional segmentations according to the state of mind when people listen to certain genres of music. But there’s also a wider horizon for audio ads. In the future, they will increase their protagonism at the same time as the adoption of audio smart voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, Cortana continues to grow. There’s no doubt that voice technology will change the way that consumers engage with brands, and how the brands present themselves to consumers.

The future of the advertising industry is like the past, which means it’s in constant evolution and with the unfinished pursuit for the attention of people. What excites users in this industry is how technology is relentlessly merging and transforming across all aspects of human life, which opens up new channels and ways to communicate with audiences.

The post The Tappx Guide to Current and Emergent Mobile Ad Formats appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post from Andrew Dubatowka, VP, North America Performance and Marketing, AdColony

Six hundred years after the Chinese explorer Zheng He circumnavigated the world –  allegedly discovering America along the way –  the tables have turned, and it’s the Western world that has its eyes turned to China as the next frontier. But it’s not looking for a land grab. No, it’s looking at the 1.4 billion Chinese mobile users that are poised and ready for global brands and apps.

China is a mobile-first economy, with users in both urban and rural areas turning to apps and the mobile web for search, gaming, news, entertainment, and shopping – having completely leapfrogged the West when it comes to mobile commerce. As such, China is a veritable playground for mobile app publishers, rich with users who are both hungry for more apps and also accustomed to in-app purchases of all types.

The best part is, you don’t have to nab the majority. The sheer volume of China’s mobile base – they have more gamers, for instance, than any other country – means you only have to capture a small percentage to multiply the success you’ve already had elsewhere. As they say, if you break into 1% of the Chinese market, you’re made.

For advertisers, this means one thing: inventory – and lots of it. So much that it’s almost like an open field, just waiting to be sown. Mobile users in China are also more open to ads, possibly downright eager. Nearly 8 out of 10 (78%) Chinese consumers are more likely to click on a mobile ad if the content is relevant to them versus just 33% of UK and 29% of US users. Now is the time to get in, before more advertisers go through the floodgates and prices go up.

Because they will.

The mobile ad market in China is on a tear. By 2021, eMarketer predicts 82% of digital ad spending will be dedicated to mobile, and it will represent an incredible 60% of total media ad expenditures. Sure, three-quarters of that is going to go to the ad giants Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, just as Facebook and Google dominate elsewhere, but there is one big difference: In China, social media isn’t nearly as flexible and open to advertising as it is in the West. Instead, advertisers focus on online video, gaming, messaging apps, microblogging sites, and search engines.

While we all know that search will continue to grow, as will messaging, I believe that mobile video and gaming is where we see significant untapped opportunity. For brands, sight, sound, and motion can elicit emotion, deepen engagement, and put an indelible stamp on the psyche of a user. For performance advertisers, video is an effective way to fully convince a user that your app is worth downloading. It’s no wonder that in just a few years mobile video will comprise 72% of all video ad spending.

As mentioned above, China has hundreds of millions of heavy mobile game players, many of which would be considered “whales,” based on their higher engagement retention, and in-app purchase rates, all of which results in significant lifetime value for publishers. Why would you wait to get these big fish? They’ve never before been accessible by Western advertisers.

It’s very easy to say you should do something, and much harder to answer the question, “But how?” The truth is, entering the Chinese market is not simple; it requires three T’s, all of which have their own nuances of execution. But they are a great starting point:

TECHNOLOGY. Because China’s internet is separated from global internet, the first box to check is to make sure you are working with a partner who has a dedicated infrastructure in place. That way, you’ll have the speed and reliability required to serve ads to the users in China.

TEST. Don’t throw away your existing strategy; in fact, there are many best practices from your existing market and user base that will be invaluable as you break into this one. But be open to the fact that not everything that has worked for you so far – from your marketing approach to how you measure success – will work in China. Test them out, but try new things. Then A/B test them against each other. Then test and iterate again. Sound familiar? It’s really about getting back to what you did in the beginning that made you so successful.

TRUST.  Find local and/or international mobile ad partners that you can trust to guide you through this new market. This is also easier said than done, but the first thing to look at is their clients and their experience. Have they done this before? Then look at how they can customize service to your needs because you’re going to need a partner that can adapt to the changes you’re making across apps, campaigns, etc. – and even work with you to make them better.

The post Op-Ed: The Next Billion Mobile Users appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post from YouAppi Chief Revenue Officer, Leo Giel.

Reaching the right audience is a constant challenge for app developers, publishers and advertisers. Simply amassing a large audience isn’t easy – but more importantly, it isn’t strategic and doesn’t drive business growth or revenue. Without the right customers – those who will actively engage – a brand’s mobile app is doomed to get lost in the marketplace clutter.

The Price of Acquiring the Wrong Audience.

Acquiring an audience of any kind can be challenging, but acquiring the right users who will download a mobile app, engage frequently and make in-app purchases is even more difficult – not to mention expensive. Across iOS and Android platforms the average business cost per app download is $162.22. Encouraging the download itself, user registration, in-app purchases and retention each come with costs of their own.

Just when mobile app developers, publishers and advertisers think they’ve figured out how to reach their ideal audience, the market shifts and expectations rise. If they neglect or simply lack the skill to cater to the new needs of their target audience, they’re left with hundreds of app downloads that float in the ether and are meaningless to their Return on Ad Spending (ROAS).

One in five users will open an application only once and then abandon it all together. While this is an improvement from 2017, it still poses a noteworthy threat to app developers and advertisers. Why do some users lose interest after just one interaction with certain content? Is your brand securing the right audience for your app(s)? The challenge is to narrow focus and efforts on the right individuals who will be motivated not just to download the app once, but also to re-engage.

Delivering Content that Drives Engagement And Re-engages.

User acquisition is on the minds of mobile app developers and publishers around the globe, and with the high cost of acquiring users – including the wrong users – it’s critical that mobile app marketers know exactly how to deliver engagement-driving content. On average, users in the U.S. spend about 2.3 hours on their mobile device every day. This represents a significant window of time to insert your mobile brand into their minds.

A recent survey found that 85 percent of marketers plan to increase their investment in video in 2018, up a whole 10 percent from 2017. The digital landscape has shifted and video continues to grow in popularity year-on-year. Video is the future of mobile marketing and is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019. Investing in video can help your brand stay relevant in this mobile-first world.

Digital video marketing became a $135 billion industry in the U.S. in 2017. It’s a competitive, but also very effective space. With an audience’s ever-shortening attention span, video is top-of-mind for successful mobile marketers. Video caters to the needs of our mobile-first world and makes your brand memorable.

Attracting the Most Valuable Customers.

Data offers valuable insight to the minds of users and AI and machine learning open up possibilities to learn how and when a user is most likely to engage. Still, these elements are ever-changing. Brands need to focus advertising efforts on those they believe will truly benefit from or enjoy their application – things like App Store Optimization (ASO) efforts and social media utilization can be effective. Using a variety of resources can give you a leg up on other app marketers who focus solely on optimizing their app for the Apple App Store and Google Play. One in four app users discover apps through simple online searches unrelated to apps – well-timed ads and download offers can be highly effective as they relate to someone’s initial online search.

User acquisition is imperative to mobile application success, but it’s not the only element to drive growth. Engagement and re-engagement are the most important factors in forming a competitive growth marketing strategy. Once a user has already downloaded the app and shown interest, capitalize on this first act of engagement and motivate them to do more in the future. Upon app installation, the last thing a new user wants is to be bombarded with a myriad of questions, requests and verifications. Timing is everything, as the saying goes. Keep in mind the user experience and let it be a top priority – conversion rates will be greater as user experience becomes of utmost importance

Investing in user acquisition is necessary for any marketing strategy, but engaging and re-engaging with users is the key for premium mobile apps to see better ROI. And, given that users spend 30 hours per month in mobile applications, accessing the right people at the right time has never been more attainable.

The post The Laws Of Attraction In A Mobile-First World appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The following is a guest contributed post by Pat McCormack, Vice President, Publisher Sales Americas – Oath

True in-app header bidding is finally here. This is the year that developers finally begin to bring the benefits of header bidding — a way to have a unified, simultaneous auction from all of the advertisers bidding on in-app inventory — into the monetization stack for their apps.

 Over the last several years, the mobile app ecosystem has had a front row seat to header bidding’s impact and evolution across desktop and mobile web. They saw  savvy publishers achieve a greater level of control and efficiency from their ad stack by pulling demand partners out of the waterfall and calling all of them at the same time. They saw the market respond with off-the-shelf  “wrappers” to get rid of the added latency from having so much additional partner code on the page. And, most recently, they saw header bidding evolve server-side.

 This perspective has helped developers learn how to be successful and start with a more advanced solution on day one. And for developers considering header bidding “container” solutions, which manage all header bidding partners a developer wants to use, their decisions need to be built around a few guiding principles. Here are three of the most critical.

Middleman for the Tech, ONLY

On a basic level, the role of the container is to help developers run a more efficient ads business. The container is a framework. It’s responsible for paving a road between demand partner and publisher.  But publishers should be able to have direct commercial relationships with the SSPs and ad networks they choose to sell to without the container taking a cut of it — unless there is value being added to the request (for example in the form of data). Otherwise, the road shouldn’t carry a fee. Think of a freeway rather than a tollway. Further, the container should not impede how the developer sells their data. Want some of your partners to be able to store/decision upon your data for 180 days? As the technology pipes, the container should let developers have freedom to do the deals they want. Too many solutions don’t do this.

Connect to Everyone

In pursuing the goal of making it easier for a developer to run their ad business, the container should focus on maximizing the channels that the inventory can be sold through. This means a commitment to building connections to the SSPs and ad networks that a publisher chooses to work with. When choosing the right container partner, it’s in the developer’s best interest to consider not just the connections the container has built today, but also those that may need to be built in the future. Given how quickly new players in the space can pop up and make an impact, there will almost certainly be a need to add a connection down the road. On average, the 500 largest publishers in the U.S. use about six vendors to sell their inventory. I encourage all developers to dig a level deeper in their diligence on prospective container partners and understand HOW the downstream connections are made from the container to the other SSPs/ad networks. This way, when the day comes that the developer wants to do a deal with a hot new ad network, they know the work will be minimal and can start working with them ASAP.

Transparency is the Default

There is a level of trust inherent to any strategic partnership. In this case, the developer is trusting that the container will be conducting the unified auction in the developer’s best interest. Now, I believe you should trust — but you should also verify. Does your container partner have ways for you to audit the auctions? How do you confirm that the impression is always going to the highest bidder? Or that the container is not advantaging their own demand, which happens too frequently? Asking these questions and understanding how the container is thinking about them can provide valuable insight into the philosophy guiding their product and should be part of the overall diligence. More transparency is always be better — and those vendors willing to be open about their practices are always the better option.

App developers are ready and excited to capitalize on the yield-maximizing benefits of a unified auction the way desktop publishers already have. Having seen the evolution of header bidding, app developers are now armed with information on exactly what to look for as they evaluate potential partners. The future here is bright.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pat McCormack is Vice President, Publisher Sales Americas, at Oath, a Verizon subsidiary and the parent company of Yahoo, AOL, HuffPost, and other dynamic brands that serve a combined billion global consumers. Prior, Pat was Vice President of Publisher Sales for ONE by AOL: Publishers, at AOL Platforms, the advertising technology division of AOL. Before AOL, Pat was Vice President of Publisher Sales at Millennial Media, which AOL acquired in 2015. He held the same role at Nexage, which Millennial Media acquired a year earlier. Pat has also driven mobile ad sales strategies in senior roles at The Weather Channel and National Football League.

The post Mobile Developers: 3 Keys to Picking the Best Header Bidding Partner appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.