[Innity Insights] Are you connecting with your mobile users?

Mobile has become our daily companion where it’s constantly in our hands or at least always within reach. It is often the first thing we look at in the morning, and the last thing we check before bed. According to Smaato’s Q1 2017 Global Trends in Mobile Advertising Report, Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for mobile ad spend at 14% over the last year and eMarketer estimates that mobile advertising will hit 64.2% of all digital ad spend in Asia Pacific, a figure that translates to $55.7 billion. As we can see, mobile is known as an important medium that boosts the overall digital ad spend as high as 40%.

So, are you still left behind?

However, there is an advertiser’s nightmare – banner blindness (a phenomenon of a person’s ability to either consciously or subconsciously ignore banner ads online.) Why do people tend to ignore ads?

“Users today are well-informed and know what they want. They only pay attention to ads they are interested or somehow related to them. Not only that, we noticed that some mobile ads are not well designed or executed. This is why they’re not clicking on the ads,” said Mei Kuan, Business Development Manager of Innity Malaysia.

Statistics showed that:

• 54% of users don’t click banner ads because they don’t trust them and are worried about getting virus from the ad itself.
• Other than that, a survey showed that 63% agree that most online ads today do not look professional and polished.
• 43% say online banner ads don’t seem interesting or engaging for them.

From there we understand that ads create security concerns among users. Many websites host third party advertisements and most of the time they do not have the full control of the quality of the ad and its contents. This could probably affect users’ perception of the site, and at the same time, jeopardize genuine advertisers’ chance of gaining trust from the online audience.

We also found that bad ads affect the load time of a site and bandwidth usage. How long are you willing to wait for a website to load before leaving it completely? According to Google, 53% of people will abandon a mobile site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. 3 seconds! In fact, heavy ads will increase the load time of a website. If an ad takes too long to load, it impacts both publisher and the advertiser negatively.

People have the perception that ads, both on display and mobile, are boring and dull. Users would try to avoid clicking the ad and most likely won’t even remember seeing the ad if the ad itself doesn’t stand out.

So, what should a brand do to connect with their mobile users effectively?

• Have a good story with emotional connection

People tend to watch and remember an ad with a good story – a story that’s more than just an ad without only focusing on the product. A good ad forges an emotional connection with users would lead them to engage with your ad. According to a report from IPG Mediabrands’ Media Lab, 43% of people felt engaged by an ad when the content has high levels of emotions.

• Personalize your campaign and target people who like your brand

To stand out from the clutter, brands should fully utilize their data to create highly relevant and personalized campaigns for their audience. Even on mobile, ads should be targeted based on context (channels) as well as behaviour and demographics to effectively deliver the brand message to the targeted audience. To achieve this, working with an authorized ad tech provider with data analytics and advanced campaign management tools is crucial.

“This is why we suggest advertisers to deliver more targeted and personalized ad as this encourages the m obile users to click on the ad. And advertiser may also look into running ads that blend into the content, e.g. native ads,” MeiKuan said.

• Utilize creative and high-impact ad units for your campaign

Mobile ad units are largely focused on driving clicks thereby losing out on other opportunities to engage the user. Interestingly, people are more likely to engage with creative ads that include gamification, videos, and photo galleries. We found out that there are limited mobile ads in the industry that are engaging and impactful. Hence, Innity developed its high-impact mobile ad units to cater to the market’s needs.

Mei Kuan explained that Innity’s High Impact Mobile formats are meticulously designed and tested in-house based on specific criteria like branding and user experience. The technology is executed in the form of best in class ad-serving, tracking, content management and data management, while the creativity is delivered through creatives that evoke user engagement. All these combined has made Innity one of the strongest solution providers in high-impact mobile ads.

Here are some examples of high-impact mobile ad units which are engaging and impactful: mobile first view and mobile engage plus pull up. These ad units allow advertisers to insert videos, social buttons, games, and more to better engage mobile users. More importantly, Innity offers cross-channel compatibility where display campaigns can be extended to mobile with formats like the Responsive Over The Page(OTP), and the Innity Responsive Lightbox.

So, now you get the idea, why not start your mobile marketing with us?

Or drop us an email to enquire: sales@innity.com