Until now there has been no clarity on how to test whether $58.3 billion in annual U.S. mobile advertising is having the intended effect. Emotional Brand Connections (EBC) Social Media Ad Testing from MFour and Kantar Added Value provides a reliable beacon to cut through the fog.

The new process takes place in test-recipients’ actual mobile news feeds. After picking the intended audience for the ad, proprietary technology injects it into panelists’ feeds, where it appears no different from the regular ads they receive.

First, tracking targeted consumers’ natural behavior on the social site captures important data about how long they view a test ad, whether they turn on audio, and whether they engage with the ad by liking, clicking or enlarging it. Researchers then survey the test ad’s recipients to measure a wide range of impacts, including brand recall, reaction to the content and caption, emotional connection to the advertised brand, and the ad’s influence on test recipients’ intent to purchase.

“Social media is where today’s mobile citizens congregate (91.5% of Facebook usage is mobile), and social news feeds are consumers’ windows on the world,” notes the official word shared with MMW. “EBC Social Media Ad Testing blazes the first reliable path to clear insights in this crucial marketing space.”

The post Mobile Heavyweights Announce Mobile Ad Testing for Facebook, Other Social Sites appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The latest smartphone OS sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows Android sales declined in the US, GB, and France, as iOS continued to make gains across most regions in the three months ending November 2016.

“For Android, this marks the sixth consecutive period of decline in the US, at 55.3% of all smartphone sales, down from 60.4% in the same period a year earlier,” the Kantar crew says. “In Urban China, iOS was down year-on-year at 19.9%, but continued strong period-on-period growth with sales from iPhone 7.”

iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s were the three most popular smartphones in the US at the beginning of the holiday period, for a combined 31.3% share. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge were the fourth and fifth best-selling phones in the US, with Samsung capturing 28.9% of smartphone sales.

“Verizon booked nearly a quarter of all US smartphone sales during the Black Friday period, playing a vital role for all brands, including Apple and Samsung,” reported Lauren Guenveur, Consumer Insight Director for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “Buyers were motivated by Verizon’s promotions on both Apple and Samsung’s top phones, including offers of free iPhone 7, 7 Plus and Galaxy S7 phones after trade-in and purchase requirements were met.”

The post Kantar Shows Renewed Mobile Momentum for iOS appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, for the three months to July 2013, shows that Android is far stronger than iOS across the major European markets and China where it accounted for around 70% of smartphone sales during the past quarter.

But in the United States, it’s a different story.

Apple continues to perform very well in the USA where it has grown its share to 43.4% of sales. It is also continuing to show strong year on year growth in Britain, France and Mexico.

But with Windows and BlackBerry still in the picture, Android and iOS can’t just worry about each other.

“Apple and Android must focus on a balance between retaining existing customers and attracting featurephone owners to trade up if they want to continue their success over the next year,” says Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

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