The following is a guest contributed post by Shai Gottesdiener, the General Manager of Growmobile by Perion.

Now that the holiday season is in full swing, we thought it would be a good time to pause and think about the amazing things that happened in the mobile marketing sector this year.

Here are the four trends we thought dominated the sector in 2015, as well as some thoughts on what will be big in 2016.

Mobile video: lights, camera, action

Mobile video advertising spend on mobile has grown massively in 2015. According to Venturebeat, spend in 2015 has tripled in size from an enormous $1.5bn in 2014 and shows no sign of stopping.

And the reason for that growth is simple: mobile video advertising is very engaging. You get to see and engage with more content, as well as have a more engaging user experience, in a 30-second video, rather than in normal creatives. Adding audio to moving visuals creates a really captivating ad and that’s very tempting for advertisers.

Sometimes it can have a downside though. Some of the gaming advertisers created amazing clips for their games, which didn’t match what users saw in the app. That means they ended up spending lots on advertising, because they spend whenever there is an install, without getting users engaged.

Takeaway: the more marketers learn about video advertising and the better they get at creating custom audiences, the more they can ensure their customers are getting a better user experience.

Retention and engagement: the rise of “get ‘em and keep ‘em”

Probably the biggest overall trend in the mobile marketing sector this year was the shift from thinking only about user acquisition to what happens to your user after they install your app.

At Growmobile, we found that many of our customers were spending decent amounts of money on getting traffic, but losing it very quickly. And with the likes of King, Supercell and Uber able to spend millions of dollars on acquisition, developers on a smaller budget – who aren’t able to keep their users interested – quickly find they’re losing out in the market.

As a result, we spent a lot of time this year connecting our acquisition, social and engagement parts of our business together to introduce our “get ‘em/keep ‘em”proposition.

By offering developers ways to better engage with their app users and measuring what users are doing in-app, whether it’s making in-app purchases or sharing, we’ve seen a bigger shift by developers towards preserving their client base to meet business objectives – rather than buying more, sometimes costly, traffic.

Relevancy and the fight back against the ad blockers

One of the big challenges the mobile marketing industry has seen in the last year is the rise of ad blockers on mobile. Ad blocking has already cost the desktop ad business potentially billions in revenues, so Apple’s decision to allow blockers into the App Store set alarm bells off for marketers.

So far, it hasn’t had much of an impact. The blockers only really affect the mobile web, so what we’ve seen is ad spend shift from there to native mobile ads in apps as a result. And we expect to see companies develop “ad blocker blockers” to fight back against people using the tech.

The biggest way marketers have fought back is by providing relevant ads to users on their mobile devices. Blocking started in the first place because we missed the point of the advertisement; there’s no point banging someone in the head again and again if they don’t want to see it.

But if I know you’re a male, of a certain age, who lives in a certain area and has a certain interest, then I’m able, more than ever, to better target the right creative at the right person – stopping the tension caused by low quality advertising on the web and beyond.

2016: rapid evolution of the sector

Finally, we think that 2016 is going to be a really good year for mobile marketing because companies are finally aligning their marketing efforts with the strength of mobile.

Although mobile advertising spend is growing, publishers have still been relatively slow to switch over to it. With its effectiveness demonstrated most clearly with the boom in Facebook’s revenues, we expect mobile advertising spend to increase significantly as advertisers come around to how effective a channel it is.

This will only likely increase as the technology continues to rapidly improve. New video formats on Facebook like “boomerang” videos, that play in reverse, and 360 videos, that allow people to look around within the video ahead of the arrival of VR next year, suggest video is getting ready to skyrocket.

And relevancy is only likely to improve as marketers get better at knowing their customer base. Devices like smart watches, which track users’ movement and behavior much more accurately, will help location-based advertising, while new channels like Instagram will offer great new formats to target a totally different audience.

As technology continues to get better and marketers get smarter, mobile marketing is only likely to improve. Are you ready to capitalize on it? (we know we are…)

The post Mobile Marketing Round-Up: Must Read Trends to Get you Ready for 2016 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to the list shared with MMW, Axway’s 2016 predictions focus on how organizations can enable digital business by improving operational efficiency, reimagining the customer experience and inventing new business models.

So what are the projections? Check out the list below.

• Unpredictability Will Become a Core Competency: Increasing regulatory and competitive pressures are constantly creating a new business normal. Organizations will embrace unpredictability – the idea that there really is no normal – and leverage integration and analytics technology to rapidly innovate in new and unexpected ways.
• APIs Will Be as Pervasive as Electricity: Driven by the growth of cloud services, mobile devices and the Internet of Things, the adoption of APIs will be analogous to using electricity – it will not only be ubiquitous, but necessary to thrive in the digital economy. From both external use cases like linking cloud applications with on-premises systems to internal use cases where automation of processes in backend systems is required, organizations will speed up their use of APIs in order to keep pace with the innovation curve.
• Context Will Define a Great User Experience: With consumers in the driving seat – thanks to digital technologies enabling them to instantly buy anything from anyone and have it delivered anywhere – organizations will have to be able to provide personalized, omnichannel experiences that seamlessly transition physical and virtual worlds. Data about consumer activity, behavior and buying patterns, enriched by the social graph, will be summoned to tailor each and every digital moment to consumer needs.
• Supply Chains Will Be Optimized for Digital Products and Currencies: With digital technologies dismantling traditional business value chains and fueling an ever-expanding supplier network, enterprises will invent new digital products and retailers will find new ways to apply loyalty programs that go far beyond simply collecting points. These new opportunities will be enabled by innovative digital business models that will empower new forms of connectivity and cooperation between business partners.
• Mobile Alone Will No Longer Drive Bolt-on Digital Strategies: Next year a mobile application will no longer, in and of itself, constitute a digital strategy. Organizations will focus on how they can fully embed digital technologies in order to move beyond functional efficiencies and enable entirely new business models. As organizations begin to think more holistically about digital, the focus will shift to digital enablement and how the underlying enterprise technology foundation can support digital connectivity, services and experiences.
• Microservices Hit the Enterprise, but with a Systematic Approach to Governance: The explosion of microservices architecture will force organizations to consider operational challenges. While the benefits are fueling demand – isolation of services for rapid, asynchronous and continuous delivery – enterprises will evolve their development methodologies and service operations to a DevOps approach.
• Banks Will Become Digital Disruptors: Banks will experiment with digital capabilities as customers look for new offerings. Fintech startups have made a lot of noise in the financial sector recently, and banks, traditionally viewed as slow moving and highly regulated, are adopting technologies such as APIs to power new functionality in the digital era. From blockchain technology to wearables, banks around the world will navigate global complexity to respond to startup disruptors.
• Cloud Computing Isn’t an All-Or-Nothing Strategy: Organizations fearful of moving entirely into the cloud will realize they don’t have to do so. The hybrid cloud will become the IT model of choice as CIOs choose to move only certain systems into the cloud while simultaneously adopting a variety of cloud native applications, such as ServiceNow, Salesforce and Workday.
• The Reality of a Digital Journey Will Set In: As enterprises attempt digital initiatives, they will encounter setbacks. Digital leaders will realize their ability to champion roadmaps consisting of focused projects with a measurable return in the boardroom is essential to their longevity. Yet, the most successful digital executives will drive the cutting edge of innovation by elegantly weaving together unique business models and experiences.
• Integration Ninjas Will Prevail: As the Internet of Things matures, mobile devices feeds instant gratification, Big Data becomes bigger and APIs proliferate, new ecosystems of developers and partners will form. From wearables to smart machines, companies in every industry will boost their mastery of integration and become capable of securely connecting anything to everything, removing borders between the physical and virtual world to reach the promised land of digital business.

The post Axway Outlines Ten Predictions for the Digital Economy in 2016 appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Citing data from global market research firm TrendForce, the total value of virtual reality market — including hardware and software — is now expected to reach $6.7 billion in 2016.

But by 2020, driven by the voracious appetite for all things VR by the connected masses, this market will “skyrocket” in value to $70 billion.

“These explosive growth projections actually do not sufficiently reflect just how hot the virtual reality industry is right now,” said Jason Tsai, TrendForce wearable device analyst. “The figures do not include the value of non-commercial uses of virtual reality technology. For example, the industry is currently pushing the development of free software and do-it-yourself apps. While these projects do not immediately generate revenue for the developers, they have a vital role in the promotion market growth and innovations.”

TrendForce analysts say that consumers’ exposure to virtual reality content will “explode wildly in the coming years with the help of social media such as Facebook and YouTube,” VRJournal noted Monday.

The post Virtual Reality Market Set for Big Gains appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Though media ad spending will grow, eMarketer now predicts it will be at a slower rate than previously forecasted.

“In 2015, total worldwide ad spending will reach $569.65 billion,” reports eMarketer. “This figure has been adjusted downward from $577.79 forecast in March due to lower-than-expected ad spending in Latin America, North America, and Western Europe.”

Spending on paid media worldwide is expected to grow 5.7 percent in 2015, propelled by increased investments in digital advertising.

“As digital changes the way people access and consume media, it is also driving advertiser optimism and ad budget growth,” notes eMarketer. “Global digital ad expenditures will jump 18.0 percent in 2015 to reach $170.17 billion, or 29.9 percent of the total advertising market.”

Growth estimates vary widely across regions. Western Europe will experience the slowest growth and Latin America should enjoy the fastest, based on a variety of factors, including economic growth and the level of digital media maturity.

Though North America has the highest ad spending worldwide (with $195.26 billion predicted in 2015), by 2019 Asia-Pacific is expected to overtake North America as the leading advertising market by $1.35 billion.

“Growth in North America is slower than previously forecast,” notes eMarketer. “Total ad spending will grow 4.5 percent this year, less than the 5.2 percent forecast in March. The downward adjustment is the result of lower-than-expected expenditures on TV, newspaper, radio, and magazines in the U.S.”

The only winning ticket? Digital, it appears.

“Advertising investments in traditional media like TV, newspapers, and magazines have been negatively affected by increased spending in digital formats, such as online editions for magazines and newspapers, and digital video replacing traditional TV,” said eMarketer analyst Shelleen Shum.

The post Global Media Ad Spending Growth Slows; North America, Western Europe Revised Downward appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

In the past, Apple has on occasion dished on preorder totals the Monday following the start of preorders. So will that happen once more today? For now, we don’t know. What we do know, however, is that consumer interest in both iPhone 6s and iOS 9 is very, very high.

Last Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook did more than just tout his company’s new flagship smartphone as the most advanced in the product line’s history. To Cook, the new iPhone 6s is the most advanced smartphone ever created.

And he may indeed be right, particular since the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus introduce an array of impressive technologies, like 3D Touch, which senses force to enable “intuitive new ways” to access features and interact with content.

The two phones, which feature Retina HD displays, also introduce a transformative new approach to photography called Live Photos, “bringing still images to life by capturing a moment in motion.”

Live Photos, 3D Touch and other advancements in the new iPhones are powered by the Apple-designed A9 chip, the most advanced chip ever in a smartphone, delivering faster performance and great battery life.

“The only thing that has changed with iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus is everything — 3D Touch lets users interact with iPhone in entirely new and fun ways, and the innovative Live Photos brings your pictures to life,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “These are the most advanced iPhones ever, with 7000 series aluminum, ion-strengthened glass, the new 64-bit A9 chip, 12-megapixel iSight and 5-megapixel FaceTime HD cameras, faster Touch ID, LTE and Wi-Fi. Customers are going to love them.”

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus is available in gold, silver, space gray and the new rose gold metallic finishes.

To learn more about the new flagship iPhone, click here.

The post Will They or Won’t They? Apple Investors, Analysts Want Preorder Numbers… Now appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

As far as we can tell, however, the rumor mill has already figured out what to expect.

Later this morning, Apple will likely raise the curtain on iPhone 6s, watch OS 2, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, and — if there are any big “surprises” in store — possibly a new Apple TV.

“The market pretty much figured this out,” says tech industry watcher Brian M. Seahwell. “Apple really isn’t going to break any molds next week, but that’s not to say we won’t be impressed by the upgrades in store.”

If Apple really does have “one more thing” to surprise us with, we won’t have to wait long for it. The press event kicks off today at 10 a.m. PST. Apple will have a live stream available on its website for iOS, Mac, and Windows 10 users.

The post The Stage is Set: Apple to Unveil Next-Gen iPhone and More Today appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Worldwide PC shipments are expected to fall by -8.7 percent in 2015 and not stabilize until 2017, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker.

“The latest forecast has growth declining through 2016 –which will make five years of declining shipments,” reports IDC. “Growth should resume in 2017, led by the commercial market, while consumer volume continues a small decline through the end of the forecast in 2019.”

Though the IDC had expected the second quarter of 2015 to be better as vendors prepared for Windows 10 systems coming on board, final results nonetheless shrank even more than expected “due to a stubbornly large inventory of notebooks from prior quarters and severe constraints posed by the decline of major currencies relative to the US Dollar.”

“In addition to economic issues, free upgrades of Windows 10, a relative dearth of newer models in the short term, and channels that are reluctant to take stock also makes the prospect of growth unlikely through 2016,” the IDC reports summary reads.

There are signs of a broader pullback and mobile devices can no longer be the sole culprit for PCs demise.

“Except for smartphones, which are still growing, the combined volume of PCs, tablets, and smartphones is expected to grow only in the single digits from 2015 through 2019 as saturation and “good enough computing” sentiments spread even into tablets, which are expected to see further volume decline in 2015,” notes the firm.

“Although the shortcomings of the PC business are obvious, a silver lining is that the industry has continued to refine the more mobile aspects of personal computers – contributing to higher growth in Convertible & Ultraslim Notebooks,” said Jay Chou, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide PC Tracker. “The de-emphasis of touch on Windows 10 also paves the way for a more familiar experience and continuing unit growth on large-screen systems, particularly All-in-One PCs.”

The post Honey, I Shrunk the PC Shipments: Currency Devaluations, Inventory Constraints Worsen Outlook, Says IDC appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

That’s the upshot from a recent CMO Survey which included data culled from a poll of 255 U.S. marketing leaders.

“This whopping 160 percent increase reflects a growing reliance on mobile to interact with customers where they look for information and make purchases,” reports CMO. “On top of it, companies hope to reach customers closer to the time of purchase in order to make them aware of offerings, deals, and additional information that may help close more sales.”

But so far, results are rather lackluster. Queried marketing pros reported only “modest success” from their mobile marketing activities.

When asked to rate the performance of their company’s mobile marketing activities on a scale from 1-7 where 1=poorly and 7=excellent, only “customer engagement” breached the halfway mark, while “delivering your brand message,” “customer acquisition,” “customer retention,” “sales,” and “profits” were all below average.

The CMO report noted that the most important steps are fundamentals of marketing strategy, including selecting target customers, developing and communicating a benefit that meets customers across all aspects of your marketing, including mobile, and then figuring how to reach and engage customers at the right time and in the most effective ways.

The post Mobile Marketing Will Grow 160 Percent, But Performance Issues Remain appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, 26.5 million smartphones were shipped to India in the second quarter of 2015 (2Q15).

Based on IDC’s data, that’s up 44% from 18.4 million units for the same period last year.

This strong second quarter performance saw smartphone shipments grow by 19% following a sluggish first quarter this 2015. However, this growth was specific to smartphones as the overall Indian mobile phone market shrunk by -6% in the second quarter of 2015 on a year-on-year (YOY) basis.

“IDC expects India to maintain a double-digit growth rate in the smartphone market over the next few years as people switch to smartphones and gradually upgrade to 4G smartphones as well,” IDC reports. “By 2017, we expect India to overtake the United States as the second largest smartphone market globally.”

To learn more, check out the report here.

The post India’s Smartphone Market Heating Up appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

But the deal in question is a highly complex and nuanced one, and certainly an agreement that has implications well beyond the realm of nuclear weaponry.

As economic sanctions are lifted, so too are barriers to access with regard to cutting edge consumer technologies like smartphones and tablets.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the deal with Iran could make it a prime target for leading tech makers like Apple.

“Apple Inc. has been in touch with potential Iranian distributors, according to people familiar with the matter,” the WSJ is reporting.

But Apple likely won’t be alone in its prospective efforts. All the major mobile tech players and service providers may want to capitalize on Iran’s youthful, tech-hungry population.

“Iran’s nearly 80 million residents—60% of whom are under 30—already have an affinity for Western brands, especially American ones,” the report concludes. “Internet penetration is 53% across the population, and that rises to 77% in Tehran, according to government data. About 11 million Iranians have mobile Internet access.”

The post Iran May Be Mobile’s Newest Emerging Market appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.