Tag: Mobile Advertising

Facebook’s Creative Hub Helps Businesses Make Effective Ads

Facebook has launched Creative Hub, a platform for its mobile advertisers to learn, create and share ad media. Creative Hub is billed as “a new way to create mockups for ads, share them with anyone and experience your work as though it’s live.”

Creative Hub is already getting rave reviews from advertisers and agencies. “I am in no way exaggerating when I say that when I first used it, I sent an internal email to the whole department declaring (and I quote) ‘it is sick… IT WILL CHANGE OUR LIVES’,” exclaimed Ben Shaw, Head of BBH Live at BBH London.

“We designed Creative Hub to be a faster, easier way to produce ideas that capture attention and delight people where they’re spending their time—on mobile,” noted the Facebook ad team in a recent blog post. “Today, the Creative Hub is available to the entire global advertising and marketing community.”

Facebook has been testing Creative Hub since June with selected ad agencies and is just now making it available for all advertisers. They have since added a new Inspiration Gallery showcasing examples of inspiring mobile creative across Facebook and Instagram.

“We developed Creative Hub in response to the needs we heard from the creative community, who told us they needed a tool to help them experiment with content creation on Facebook and Instagram—including trying new formats, previewing ideas on mobile screens, collaborating internally and sharing mock-ups with stakeholders,” noted Facebook.

With Facebook Creative Hub advertisers can be inspired by a gallery of creatives from various brands and agencies in all available formats including 360 video, carousel, canvas and video. You can even mock up your own ideas within the various ad formats and save your work to view later, or even share and collaborate on your creative work with your team.

Once you have mock-ups, you can preview your ad as though it’s live in a mobile feed, and you can also see how it might look on Facebook News Feed or Instagram feed, according to Facebook. The Hub will provide you with a URL of your work to share with staff and clients as well.

December 1, 2016
Facebook’s Audience Network Ad Platform is All About Conversions

Since Facebook’s Audience Network ad platform was launched, they have always been about differentiating themselves from Google Adsense by focusing more on conversions. Recently, they announced that they would start pricing clicks differently depending on where the ad was placed, with the idea that not all clicks are created equal.

“Not all clicks are created equal, which creates a dilemma,” said David Jakubowski, who is Director of Publisher Solutions for Audience Network. “Marketers commonly pay the same amount for someone who clicks on an ad and completes a purchase as they do for an unintentional click. In both cases, publishers are delivering exactly what they are asked for – clicks – but advertisers find wide variations in value.”

Facebook is doubling down on their conversion strategy announcing updates to Audience Network that will utilize the data they have from conversion signals to price ad spots based on their history of converting. Signal information includes app events, the Facebook pixel and other feedback touch points.

Facebook sees higher converting ads spots as more valuable to the marketer and thus worth more. It’s likely that this will cause the price of clicks to go down on poor converting spots and increase on high conversion placements. It will also be a way for Facebook to rate the overall quality of their partner apps and websites from an advertiser perspective.

“At Audience Network, we believe it starts with quality,” says Jakubowski. “We define quality as ads served to real people, on brand-safe properties, with engaging experiences that lead to real outcomes for advertisers and sustainable businesses for publishers.”

If you’re unfamiliar with Audience Network here’s a great overview video:

October 31, 2016
New Facebook Ad Tools Help Businesses With Global Marketing
Facebook has added a feature within their Lookalike Audiences tool that helps businesses reach target customers in new countries who are similar to their existing ones. With the tool, a business can upload a list of leads or their current customers and Facebook will find potential similar leads. Prior to today, this was not available cross-country.

With the Lookalike Audiences tool, marketers can find potential customers to target their Facebook ads, now to many countries, based on:
- People who like your Page
- Custom Audiences derived from email or phone numbers
- Custom Audiences created from website or app data
- Similar location
- Age
- Gender
- Interests
Facebook sees this as primarily a mobile advertising opportunity, where the majority of its ad revenue now comes from. According to an August 2016 eMarketer report, by 2018 there will be an estimated 2.3 billion people worldwide accessing the Internet via mobile devices. Facebook is one of the few platforms on earth that can market to almost all of these people, excluding Communist China. Although, Mark Zuckerberg is not giving up on China, having started his personal quest to learn Mandarin Chinese in 2010.

“On mobile, and on Facebook, people engage with the things that matter to them, even in other countries,” posts Facebook. “More than 1 billion people on Facebook are connected to at least one business in a foreign country, and 1.57 billion people visit Facebook monthly on mobile. In the US, 60% of people on Facebook are connected to a business in a foreign country.”

Facebook has also added extended location targeting capabilities, where advertisers can expand their website conversion or mobile app install targeting objectives to a worldwide region or trade zone. Facebook says it will “optimize delivery to the countries with the greatest return.”

They have added training tools as well to help businesses get started with global marketing including webinars and a handbook.
September 9, 2016
Are You Ready for the New Mobile Gold Rush?

“Are you ready for the new mobile gold rush? Of course you’re not,” said Jim O’Leary, Sr. Manager Mobile Solutions Marketing at Cisco. “Though truth be told, the pending growth in mobile video may be more like a video tornado and only a handful of mobile operators are prepared.”

What Jim O’Leary is talking about is the rapidly changing landscape of content viewing. Multi-device viewing is now the norm and the dumping of the old cable content bundle is well under way. Over-The-Top content (OTT), where content is consumed without going through the traditional gatekeepers such as the cable or satellite provider, is bringing complete and utter disruption to the cable and broadcast companies.

(Related: How Google Measures Cross-Device Ad Conversions)

However, with disruption comes opportunity.

Video now accounts for the majority of global mobile data traffic and is forecast to be the key driver of data traffic growth globally. To date, mobile video (and the ability to monetize the content) has been dominated by Internet players, such as YouTube, Netflix, with the operator role simply one of connectivity provider.

However, a number of operators are developing their own content delivery platforms. Singtel, Verizon and PCCW are three prominent examples of this trend, with their HOOQ, Go90 and Viu video platforms respectively. While HooQ and Viu are variants of the subscription-based model, Go90 more closely resembles the Internet business model, with a reliance on advertising for revenues and a focus on millennials. – Jim O’Leary, Cisco

“Mobile operators across the world face the same twin challenges of slowing growth and ongoing disruption of core services by new Internet & OTT players, even as the broader mobile ecosystem continues to see significant revenue growth,” O’Leary posted. “So if you are tired of being just an operator that carries mobile video and prefer to be able to monetize it, read on.”

Mobile Video Watching is Booming!

O’Leary sees a significant monetization opportunity for mobile operators with video for a very good reason, the exploding growth in using mobile devices to watch videos. An On Device Research study commissioned by the IAB in 2015 (Download PDF) confirmed the changing landscape for mobile globally, with 35% watching more video on their smartphone versus last year.

In February 2016 Cisco released a study predicting that by 2020 there will be 5.5 billion global mobile users which is up from the 4.8 billion currently, and those millions of new mobile users will be watching video too!

More astonishing, the study says that by 2020 there will be 11.6 mobile-connected devices! This is indicative of another emerging trend, connecting ALL devices to the internet via mobile operators where internet content and data can be consumed and sometimes produced on and by these devices.

Gartner estimates that the Internet of Things (IoT) is currently connected to 6.4 billion devices and will connect to 20.8 billion “things” by 2020. Some of these “things” will be video enabled devices as well. For instance, watching a video of how to make vegan scrambled eggs on your refrigerator door!

Mobile Operators Can Play “Central Role” in Content

So mobile operators have massive connectivity with virtually everyone 12 years old and up having a smart phone and if they can play a central role in providing content they can benefit from the “emerging online video value chain.” It’s about using great content to boost usage of their mobile broadband service. O’Leary believes that Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and others should take advantage of this “content opportunity” in order to cash in and drive business growth.

The biggest impediment for mobile phone companies entering the video content space is their tendency to charge high rates for large bandwidth consumption. Mobile broadband carriers should eventually come to the realization that their businesses are tied to consumers needing them and it is in their interest to provide inexpensive ways to consume high bandwidth mobile content or they will by bypassed by new mobile broadband competitors that get it.

Mobile is the New Video Distribution Platform

O’Leary predicts that OTT, where the internet is used to bypass traditional content middlemen like cable, is the driving motivation that should entice broadband providers to enter the content space more aggressively over the next few years. He advocates mobile operators creating a “cloud based platform” and then partnering with content producers in order to “scale their video infrastructure efforts and deliver high-quality, live video and on-demand content to consumers on any device — be it their smartphone, tablet or connected television.”

Content producers will likely consist of a wide variety of players from traditional sources like ESPN and Disney to well funded content upstarts such as such as Amazon, Apple, YouTube and Netflix. Content alliances between mobile operators may also include more direct deals with talent such as successful independent internet based content stars on YouTube, Vine and even Snapchat. Mobile is already the primary platform used to consume video content so the next step is to cut out the middleman and partner directly with popular content providers.

“In growing numbers, consumers are replacing their traditional cable and satellite TV packages with smaller, more customized, and often less expensive mixes of programming, cobbled together from an array of online and on-demand services,” said O’Leary. “As more consumers replace their big-bundle TV packages with à la carte online offerings, an opportunity is emerging for mobile operators and other service providers to combine mobile broadband (MBB) packages with compelling “over the top” content.”

Mobile operators should realize that they are the distribution platform for millennials, they are the network and they are the new cable and satellite companies. With that in mind, they don’t need the networks or cable to drive viewership and usage of their platform, they simply need great content however they can get it, even if it means becoming content creators themselves.

July 13, 2016
How Google Measures Cross-Device Ad Conversions

Google recently conducted a live video hangout discussing cross-device measurement, which is extremely important to advertisers to properly attribute which ads are leading to sales. “With the proliferation of mobile devices we all know that user behavior has changed quite significantly over the past few years,” said Meghan Lee, Agency Development Manager for Google AdWords. “It’s very natural for marketers to start to think of new methods and new ways to measure mobile more accurately. The challenge is that measuring mobile really isn’t easy with consumers constant connectivity via mobile creating many new touch points.”

“When we look at how people traditionally measured advertising, if you go back and kind of look at other mediums like the billboard, print, TV, radio, it was always difficult to measure the exact return on ad spend,” commented Matt, who didn’t provide his last name, but who is a Product Specialist at Google that works with Meghan Lee. “People invested a lot of money on these platforms but they had to have good faith that it actually led to bottom line conversions.”

“I used to work in the TV space and although we have these measurement tools such as Neilsen ratings, it really is very difficult to pinpoint which ad led to a sale,” Lee said.

“In 2000 Adwords was born, and the whole point is that digital marketing completely revolutionized the way we think about measurement,” Matt said. “We have this kind of spectrum of accuracy and it was the first time that we could accurately measure the return on investment right from a click to an actual conversion and part of the reason for it being so revolutionary at the time was because it was a one device world. Because cookies lined up across desktop we were able to easily match the research and discovery with that final purchase.”

“Over 90% of people use multiple devices sequentially to accomplish a task,” says Lee. “Adwords advertisers are used to a very simple and clear way of measurement and they have that same expectation on mobile.”

“Mobile has been fracturing the consumer journey and it has made things more difficult to measure, but the hard part is the growing pains of having to rethink how we measure things more accurately,” said Matt. “Part of the reason it is difficult is because if we do the same comparison to what we looked at before cookies don’t line up right across mobile and desktop and so it has become more difficult to match the research and discovery with that final purchase. Although it has made things more complicated and it’s important to admit that, we do offer a solution that when pieced together can give you a holistic view of your mobile performance.”

The two solutions that Matt is referring to are “cross-device conversions” and “attribution modeling with cross-device.”

Here’s how a Google White Paper (Download PDF) describes calculating cross-device conversions:

The consumer journey has become more complex, spanning multiple devices, channels, and media types. Because 90% of people start an activity on one device and finish it on another, it’s especially important to capture how marketing influences actions across phones, tablets, and desktops.

Cross-device conversions start as a click on an ad from one device and end as a conversion on another device (or in a different web browser on the same device). In order to measure cross-device conversion statistics, we use aggregated and anonymous data from users who have previously signed into Google services.

We start by looking at a marketer’s ad clicks that led to cross-device conversions from users who have previously signed into Google services. Next, we expand the model to show how many cross-device conversions a marketer would report if all of their AdWords clicks and conversions came from previously signed-in users. We can do this by customizing our cross-device calculation model based on several factors unique to each marketer to optimize the accuracy of the model for each campaign and ad group. Finally, we only surface the reporting if we are 95% confindent that it reflects the real cross-device user behavior.

Watch the full Google Hangout video on cross-device conversions below:

July 10, 2016
New YouTube Tools Makes Video Ad Making Easy

YouTube today introduced a suite of tools for business of all sizes to make video ads. At launch, YouTube Director includes three main tools that let’s businesses, especially small businesses, make video ads with a professional look and feel.

The first tool allows you to create a YouTube video ad right from your phone. To try it out simply download the free YouTube Director for Business app which is available on the iPhone in the U.S. and Canada with an Android version coming soon. The app is designed for the non-techie… so go for it! Another perk for small businesses is that they can use the app to create a video without any obligation to run paid ads on YouTube. Just make the video, upload it and promote it on your small business website, on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

To prove that anyone can make a professional looking video ad YouTube provided the example of Woody Lovell Jr., owner of The Barbershop Club in Los Angeles. Woody created his own video ad in less than 20 minutes and ran a campaign on YouTube promoting his business. Woody said that the campaign is already seeing positive results.

Youtube invited The Barbershop Club and four other businesses to take part in the YouTube Director Video Challenge. They asked each owner to make a video about their business, film it, edit it and put it on YouTube in 20 minutes or less!

First, they were asked to create a video ad without this new tool. They did it but it wasn’t easy. Using YouTube Director Video they were all able to create great videos in under 20 minutes using YouTube Director and couldn’t praise it enough.

“It’s perfect, a lot easier and so easy,” commented the business owners. “It’s like a big budget. It’s so much better and it walked you through it giving you tips. One, two, three, four… it was as easy as ABC! It was designed well. An instant commercial. The app worked as the director. It cost nothing and it’s so easy and you can just publish it.

Here’s the video made by the Pink Family of the world famous Pink’s Hot Dogs in Hollywood, California. I’ve been to this place and it’s great and you can get a vegan dog too. Keep your eyes open because this is a popular celebrity hangout!

Woody did a great job making The Barbershop Club video. It really has a professional feel. The Barbershop Club is based in Los Angeles at the Original Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, which opened in July 1934. As Woody says about his shop, “It is where young men come learn the ways of manhood, men come to talk with ease and both are made to look like true gentleman when they leave.” Couldn’t have said it better!

Chef Roberto Martin of eLOVate Kitchen produced the video below. eLOVate is a vegan restaurant in Santa Monica, California, one of my favorite cities, and as a vegan I’ll be trying this place out! I guarantee you, non-vegans will like it too.

Here’s the video ad made by Sarah Wolfgang of The Dog Cafe. Sarah started an interesting new concept of dog adoption making The Dog Cafe a gathering spot for dog lovers to meet and mingle with each other over a latte and with rescue dogs looking for loving homes. Way to go Sarah!

Nadia Geller of Nadia Geller Market created a nice video ad in just 20 minutes! Nadia Geller Market is located in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles that carries home products with a tongue in cheek vibe. It’s part of a larger business Nadia owns called Nadia Geller Designs which is an upscale interior design firm. Nadia is somewhat more sophisticated in marketing than the other businesses YouTube chose to highlight in this product launch.

YouTube’s promo video on YouTube Director:

YouTube also announced a service called YouTube Director Onsite, where YouTube actually will send a professional videographer to shoot and edit a video ad for any business that spends a minimum of $150 advertising. That is an incredible deal and a great way for small businesses to get started with video advertising. YouTube Director Onsite is launching in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.—and coming to more cities soon.

For businesses that are integrated in mobile apps, YouTube also announced YouTube Director Automated Video where YouTube will create a video ad from existing creative found in your business app such as logos and app screenshots already uploaded to the app store. This is available worldwide. YouTube is asking that you call one of their experts (1-855-500-2756) to try out this service.

June 15, 2016
Facebook Will Be All Video In 5 Years

At Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women International Summit in London, Nicola Mendelsohn, VP EMEA at Facebook, predicted that the Facebook newsfeed will be all video in 5 years. “It will definitely be mobile. It will probably be all video,” Mendelsohn said. “I just think if we look, we already are seeing a year on year decline in text. We’re seeing a massive increase as I’ve said on both pictures and video. So yeah, if I was having a bet, I would say video, video, video.”

“I think that’s also because it helps us edit,” added Mendelsohn. “You talk with your business about how this is an era of storytelling. The best way to tell stories in this world where so much information is coming at us actually is video. It commands so much more information in a much quicker period. So actually, the trends help us to digest more of the information in a quicker way.”

Pattie Sellers, Assistant Managing Editor of Fortune Magazine who interviewed Mendelsohn remarked, “I don’t want writers to go out of business though!” Mendelsohn had the perfect retort, “You have to write for the video!”.

June 15, 2016
New Facebook Features: Increase In-Store Business & Measure Results
Facebook has announced new features that will help drive more business to brick & mortar store locations while accurately measuring a businesses Facebook mobile ad campaigns contribution in doing this. New Local Awareness Ads are designed for the small business with a single store all the way to enterprise corporations with thousands of locations.

This is the holy grail for convincing brick and mortar advertisers that Facebook is an effective platform to drive in-store business, assuming the data shows their advertising working. It could also be Facebook’s achilles hill if advertisers discover that their ads aren’t driving business.

The new features announced by Facebook today turn the giant social media site into a direct lead to conversion platform with the metrics informing businesses if they can capitalize on where 90% of retails purchases still happen… in physical stores.

Facebook is launching a native store locator that helps users find and get directions to the nearest store right within a Facebook ad. The ads will offer call-to-action such as “Get Directions” designed to help drive new business. Facebook notes that last year they launched a tool that now integrates with this new feature enabling businesses with many locations to create ads dynamically within one ad campaign.

From Facebook:

Store locators on a business’s website can be frustrating for people on mobile, requiring several taps or typing a postal code into a small form. The new store locator removes that friction to help people on mobile find business locations quickly and easily.

The store locator shows a map of all the locations a business has nearby. People can click on the map in the ad to see information about nearby locations. Without leaving the ad or app, they can view the address, hours, phone number, website and estimated travel time for each store.

The store locator can be added to any local awareness ad and is available now to all advertisers.

Facebook Launches “Store Visits” Ad Reporting Metric

Along with the Local Awareness Ads Facebook is adding a new tracking metric called Store Visits to give businesses data on whether their ads designed to bring people into physical stores are working.

Advertisers can use store visits reporting to:
- See how many people come to your store after seeing a Facebook campaign
- Optimize ad creative, delivery and targeting based on store visits
- Analyze results across stores and regions to plan and optimize future campaigns
According to Facebook, store visits is an estimated metric based on information from people with location services enabled on their phone. The metric will be rolling out to advertisers globally over the coming months.

Offline Conversions API

Advertisers can connect their in-store and over the phone transactions to their Local Awareness Ads as well as other ad types via Facebook’s new Offline Conversions API. The API lets businesses match their transactions within their point-of-sale cash registers to their ad reports on Facebook. Currently, point-of-sale tools businesses can connect their data to include IBM, Index, Invoca, Lightspeed, LiveRamp, Marketo and Square or with Facebook directly.

This data will allow advertisers to see the real-time effectiveness of their Facebook ads to see if they are driving business as projected, what the demographics of in-store purchasers are that come to their stores via a Facebook ad are and enable them to adjust and test their ads to make them more effective.
June 14, 2016
PwC: Internet Advertising To Overtake TV Advertising

PwC released their annual Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report, predicting that internet advertising will overtake broadcast advertising by next year. PwC’s report forecasts media and entertainment industry revenue and ad spending over the next 5 years.

By 2020 total spending on internet advertising is expected to be $93.5 billion while TV ad revenue is projected at $81.7 billion. Overall entertainment and media spending will be $603 billion in 2015 and reach $720 billion by 2020. The U.S. will continue to lead the world’s in internet advertising market. By 2020 the U.S. will receive $93.5 billion in internet ad revenue and China will be a distant second with $44.6 billion spent.

The PwC study also looked at the changing media landscape, asking, “Can anyone be a media company?”

According to the US entertainment and media outlook: 2016-2020, the next five years will hold major changes for how people watch TV and video.

As consumer wants and expectations continue to change, so too does the TV and video industry. Today’s and tomorrow’s definition of what it means to be a “media company” will continue to evolve, as companies — not just entertainment and media companies — invest in content and direct customer media relationships. We will continue to see a rapid increase in new entrants and competitors in the space as subscriber-based businesses continue to consolidate. Operators are also attempting to target cord-cutters and cord-nevers by marketing their OTT streaming and download services–two areas that will represent tremendous growth potential for this industry’s foreseeable future.

OTT (Over the top) streaming subscription video on demand revenue is expected to go from $6.4 billion in 2015 to $10.4 billion by 2020.

Also of note is the rise of mobile which the PwC report predicting that mobile will go from 35% of total advertising revenue in 2015 to 49% by 2020:

US internet advertising revenue will continue to surge forward, with mobile seeing the most rapid growth–all forms of mobile advertising will continue to grow in the coming years. One key driver is the shift in search from laptops to mobiles, with mobile paid search internet advertising having seen tremendous recent growth.

The report also looked at the music industry and predicts that music will continue to see major evolution. By 2020 digital music streaming will dominate:

While the music industry’s first stage of digital transition saw downloads overtake physical formats in terms of retail sales and revenue, the current stage has consumers moving away from ownership towards access. Subscription music services will soon be the primary form of paid content in revenue terms.

The PwC study also looked at the movie industry and noted that for the first time electronic home video revenue eclipsed the movie box office in 2015. Home revenue was $11 billion while theater box office revenue generated $10 billion. PwC is also predicting that the US will lose its top market position to China in 2017.

Looking at the video game market, PwC expects the video game industry to thrive over the next 5 years.

June 8, 2016
Instagram Announces New Tools For Business

Taking the lead of its Mother Ship Facebook, Instagram announced some new tools designed to make Instagram a better place for business. Instagram is already being used by many businesses, both small and large, to effectively promote their products and services. After listening to customer feedback three key needs became clear to Instagram: Stand out, get insights and find new customers.

With this in mind Instagram is adding Business Profiles, Business Insights (Analytics) and a Promote Button, sometimes known as an Action or Buy Button. Using several actual businesses as examples Instagram described their new features this way:

With these new business tools on Instagram, the furniture store in San Francisco can receive emails from customers saving valuable time responding. The retailer in Austin can better understand its audience, tailor its content and refine its marketing strategy—even beyond digital. And the do-it-yourself craft shop in New York City can quickly fill a seat, move a product or get people into its store with ads on mobile.

Business Profiles will be free to all businesses and may include a contact button that enables a visitor to call, text or email the business. There will also be an included map and directions to the business location.

Instagram Insights for business on Instagram will provide information about who their followers are and which posts do better than others from within the mobile app.

The Promote Button lets a business pick a post they’ve already shared on Instagram and add a button encouraging potential customers to take action. Instagram enables a business to target the audience seeing the button and will suggest targeting as well. This is likely a for-fee advertising feature just like Facebook, but incredibly this aspect is not mentioned in their blog announcement.

Instagram Business profiles, insights and the ability to promote will be rolling out in the US, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months, and will be available in all regions globally by the end of the year.

May 31, 2016
Study Looks At Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Ads

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a new study conducted by Ovum looking at over 200 brand marketers and their perceptions of mobile advertising. It found that most (76%) perceive programmatic buying to be an important development in mobile advertising, but that few are currently buying programmatically.

According to the study, two in five (41%) marketers said mobile programmatic advertising would help them reach their target audiences, but only 27% are actually buying inventory that way. 18% use private exchanges and 17% use open exchanges. Some use both.

“It is clear that programmatic advertising is strongly embedded in the minds of many mobile marketers,” said Anna Bager, SVP, Mobile and Video at the IAB. “However, there is still much work to be done before mobile programmatic can reach its full potential. IAB is committed to educating mobile marketers about the benefits of this growing format and, towards that end, recently released a Mobile Programmatic Playbook. Our efforts on the mobile programmatic front have only just begun, and we look forward to increased adoption as familiarity improves.”

73% said they’re interested in connected TV advertising opportunities, while 69% are interested in opportunities in cars. 66% are interested in wearables. The IAB notes that mobile marketers that rate themselves as being “fairly or very experienced” at mobile see greater potential for these platforms (80% connected TVs, 78% connected cars, 75% wearables).

Here’s a look at buying habits:

The study found that 65% have been spending more on mobile over the past two years, and 9% have increased their mobile budget by over 50%. Budgets being affected by mobile ad substitution include PC/desktop digital (31%), TV (31%), Outdoor (20%), and Radio (18%).

87% of marketers say they’re satisfied or fairly satisfied with the performance of their mobile ads, while 8% say they’re completely satisfied. 14% expect their companies’ mobile ad budgets to increase by over half in the next two years. 57% they expect them to rise by under half.

Privacy concerns remain with 37% indicating privacy is a very important issue compared to 22% in 2013. Other concerns include device operating system fragmentation, lack of standardized metrics for measurement, lack of agency expertise in mobile, and there being too many different ways to source or buy mobile inventory.

“With mobile taking a more prominent role in consumers’ lives each year, an uptick in marketers’ potential concerns surrounding mobile privacy is no surprise,” said Mike Zaneis, EVP, Public Policy, and General Counsel at the IAB. “The IAB is in full support of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s work on this front. Its recent release of new user-friendly tools for mobile choice and transparency brings new level of consumer control to the fast-growing mobile medium.”

Here’s a word cloud looking at thoughts on the state of mobile advertising on one word:

It looks like advertisers are pretty optimistic.

You can find the study here.

Images via IAB/Ovum

March 30, 2015
How Might Google Change Online Advertising in 2014?

2013 has been quite the year for online advertisers, especially those who rely heavily on Google.

During the first half of this year, Google transitioned its AdWords customers to its Enhanced Campaigns. The new campaign management interface met with a mixed reaction from advertisers, though Google provided a nearly endless stream of educational material ahead of the upgrade deadline.

How have Google’s 2013 ad changes affected you? Tell us in the comments.

While Google’s traditional search advertising offerings underwent significant changes, the company’s focus further shifted toward mobile this year. Mobile ads are nothing new for Google, which has been trying out various mobile ad offerings for years. 2013, though, marked a shift in ad priority not just from Google, but from other mobile platforms as well.

Google itself is steadily growing Android into the Windows of the mobile world, with the mobile OS appearing now on a vast majority of the smartphones shipped throughout the world. Though the freedom of Android has enabled the software to proliferate, it could also mean that companies use the OS to support their own marketing. Amazon’s Kindle Fire devices are a perfect example of this, with Amazon going so far as to sell ad space on users’ lock screens. For the most part, though, Google Play and Google Search are front-and-center in the Android experience.

Apple, of course, is still a leading mobile advertiser that takes a major chunk of global ad revenues each quarter. Confident in its mobile success, Apple is rumored to be moving into Google’s search territory as more and more of the world’s searches are performed on Apple’s mobile devices. Signs point to the company soon diving into search, possibly with its own mobile search platform.

Samsung also forged ahead with its mobile ad strategy, though its time may have to wait until it can challenge Android’s mobile supremacy with its Tizen OS, which reportedly won’t happen any time soon.

With the mobile ad landscape growing and taking shape, another of Google’s ad priorities is the world of social networking.

YouTube is still a prominent ad platform for Google, and the site featured more and a larger variety of ads than ever in 2013. Traditional advertisers have certainly come around on YouTube as a legitimate platform for video advertising as Google has taken great strides to accommodate traditional content holders with its shoot-first policy on copyright offenses. YouTube viewers and advertisers can look forward to even more ads in 2014, along with expanded video content offerings.

Though Google has a habit of giving up on even well-loved projects that just aren’t popular (see Reader, which died an untimely death this summer), the company still seems to be leaning hard on Google+ for its social network strategy. In fact, Google seems determined to push Google+ despite outright hatred for the platform from some segments of the internet.

Google+ was a large part of the backlash against the YouTube comments change that rolled out in early November. YouTube users spoke out loudly against the changes, which include integration of Google+ comments, accounts, and circles, as well as a comment surfacing system that seems to bury comments with plenty of thumb-ups.

It is still unclear how Google hopes to use Google+ in its overall advertising plans, though the company might see the platform as necessary to compete with top social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Whether Google+ is up to the task or not, it’s clear now that social media is an El Dorado for advertisers and Google will continue to grab for its chunk of the market. Twitter ads have become more targeted than ever this year, and Facebook has begun competing directly with YouTube for advertisers through its new autoplay video ads.

Will Google ever be able to break into social media in a big way? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

So that’s where online advertising stands for Google at the close of 2013. The trifecta of search, mobile, and social is a lucrative one for advertisers, and Google in particular. With search practically locked-up and the mobile and social realms quickly becoming saturated, however, strong future ad growth will need to rely on something new.

Sure, Google Glass might usher in a new era of Google ads projected directly into eyeballs, Google’s vehicle technology could mean driverless taxi cabs covered in Google ads (inside and out), and Boston Dynamics-created robots could deliver ad messaging up the sides of buildings – but all of these things are still years (if not decades) away. In the short term, there is still one screen beyond the PC, smartphone, and tablet that Google has yet to conquer in the home.

A new report out this week suggests that Google may soon shift its TV strategy more toward its Android platform. Though Google TV can arguably be called a flop, the company’s recently-released Chromecast appears to be a genuine hit. The inexpensive USB/HDMI dongle seems to have finally connected the TV and second-screen devices in a way that resonates with customers.

Google’s quick shutdown of a local video streaming app for the Chromecast shows that Google has big plans for the device, and those plans include keeping Chromecast content securely gated. This could suggest that Chromecast is being groomed as a platform for both banner and video ads – a merger of web and mobile advertising that would seem to flow straight from Google’s current initiatives.

With more content available to stream through services such as Netflix and Hulu, the way that consumers watch television is changing rapidly. Though manufacturers have tried to get ahead of the market in the past few years with set-top boxes, video game consoles, and smart TVs, it could be Google’s small Chromecast dongle that brings streaming video (and ads) to consumer living rooms. That would certainly represent a huge opportunity for both Google and advertisers – and it could begin happening as early as next year.

How do you think Google will change online advertising next year? Let us know in the comments below.

December 27, 2013
Facebook Launches New Call To Action Options For Mobile App Ads

Facebook has announced some new mobile app ad options to developers to help drive up engagement. The ads let developers make use of seven specific call to action choices to include in their apps.

These include: Open Link, Use App, Shop Now, Watch Video, Listen Now, Book Now, and Play Game.

The idea is that a retailer, for example, could use the “Shop Now” call to action when advertising a 24-hour sale for purchases made within its app or a game could use “Play Game” to get existing players to come back to play new levels. You get the idea.

“Now mobile app ads can keep existing users active within your app, even after they install,” says Facebook’s John Ketchpaw. “You can now use deep-links for your mobile app ads, letting you direct users to a customized, specific location inside your app, such as a sale, promotion or specific content such as a new album or hotel listing.”

Ketchpaw says, “Our aim is to provide an end-to-end mobile solution that helps app developers reach the right people, acquire new users, keep those users engaged, and measure the performance of their campaigns. As always, we will continue to improve upon the user experience and performance of our mobile app ads.”

Facebook says that mobile app ads have driven over 145 million installs since launched last year.

October 1, 2013
What Will Mobile Bring to Consumers and Marketers in 2013?

The mobile landscape is set to change in a big way in 2013, and though some of the coming changes can be predicted, others will provide big (and perhaps unwelcome) surprises for both consumers and advertisers.

As seen at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and Mobile World Congress, tech companies are focusing more than ever on smartphone and tablet devices. Companies such as Sony, LG, Asus, and even HP unveiled new devices that will enter a market already largely controlled by the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Amazon.

What mobile devices do you intend to acquire this year? Let us know in the comments.

What is somewhat surprising is that many of these companies might actually have a chance, considering how quickly the mobile industry is growing. On March 4, ABI research estimated that mobile users will download 14 billion tablet apps during 2013. Almost three-quarters of those apps will be running on a iPad device, but Android devices are now set to lead in the number of smartphone app downloads, which ABI predicts will reach 56 billion in 2013.

For consumers the proliferation of more devices with a wider variety of features could mean confusion and burnout. It also means that consumers have never had more choice, and more power, than they do now. The choices they make this year about the devices they purchase and the technologies they adopt will shape the technology landscape for years to come.

Apple stock has had a rough winter, in no small part to the Apple Maps debacle and the fact that the iPhone 5 failed to iterate significantly on the device’s past models. While Android devices are introducing larger smartphones, NFC technology, wireless charging, and features such as water resistance, Apple’s credibility as a innovator in the market segment it created is shrinking.

As Apple now begins to follow industry trends with the iPad mini and a less expensive version of the iPhone, Samsung is poised to become a market leader. The Korean company will unveil its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S IV at an Apple-like announcement in New York on March 14. Samsung’s hefty manufacturing capabilities and willingness to mimic Apple have propelled it to the forefront of Android smartphones, but the company’s new marketing (another thing it has taken directly from Apple’s playbook) is also beginning to become part of the cultural zeitgeist.

The mobile market right now might be considered tablets and smartphones, but later this year Google will introduce a completely new type of mobile product with Google Glass. Though the device’s success is far from certain, it could introduce an entirely new mobile category, propelling the industry forward with even more constant connectivity. Glass’ ability to record on the fly also brings privacy concerns, meaning laws and social norms will be further tested by advancing technology.

With all of these changes coming to the mobile space, it’s worth considering how advertisers will adapt. While having consumers constantly connected and consuming content may seem preferable for advertisers, the abundance of that content can make it difficult for ad campaigns to target their audience. At the same time, the abundance of content and metrics can put consumers in control of much of the advertising they see.

As Susan Wojcicki, senior VP of advertising at Google, recently put it in a Google Plus post, “We are living in uncharted territory.”

Wojcicki argues that as always-connected devices continue to proliferate, advertising will quickly move into a “choice-based economy” where users will be able to control the content and ads that they see. She writes that “ads views will effectively become voluntary.”

It’s not hard to imagine how advertisers will have to adapt in that type of ad economy. Choice-based ad models will have to cater to consumers at an individual level with adaptability and engage customers in nearly the same way that content itself does. Wojcicki suggests that future technologies will provide more “interactive and beautiful” ads, but that’s only the beginning of how mobile advertising will change in the coming years.

Accepting that consumers are no longer a captive audience for ads may be a terrifying prospect for both advertisers and content creators, but consumer choice is only continuing to increase. This could make solid advertising opportunities more expensive, but also means that brands will have to adapt their ad techniques to grow a fan base or to provide upfront value to consumers.

How do you think advertising should adapt to consumer choice? Tell us your ideas in the comments.

As the nature of mobile advertising changes, how advertisers measure the impact of their campaigns will have to change as well. Wojcicki puts it bluntly by stating advertisers will have to develop “standards beyond the click.” However, it’s hard to predict just how those measurements will be made in the future, particularly in light of the growing backlash from privacy advocates.

Wojcicki stated that Google is beginning to to roll out surveys to provide advertisers with a way to measure the performance of their display and video campaigns. Google’s skippable “TrueView” ads are also now integrated into mobile AdMob apps, allowing consumers to decide for themselves what ads they will view.

As the future of the mobile industry finally begins to take shape this year, consumers have never had more choices with regards to hardware, software, and services. However, the plethora of choices thrown at consumers can also create confusion, and will inevitably lead to a few trusted brands leading the way. While advertisers attempt to pare down consumers’ choices for them, future technologies, such as Google Glass, will continue to continue to change the way people interact with technology and their environment.

March 10, 2013
Mobile Ads Could Rake in $11.4 Billion in 2013

A new Gartner report estimates that worldwide mobile advertising revenue could reach $11.4 billion in 2013. That would be greater than an 18% increase from 2012, which saw $9.6 billion in mobile ad revenue. The analyst also predicts that worldwide mobile ad revenue will reach $24.5 billion in 2016.

“The mobile advertising market took off even faster than we expected due to an increased uptake in smartphones and tablets, as well as the merger of consumer behaviors on computers and mobile devices,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “Growth in mobile advertising comes in part at the expense of print formats, especially local newspapers, which currently face much lower ad yields as a result of mobile publishing initiatives.”

Japan and South Korea, with their large mobile adoption rate, currently have a lead in mobile advertising. Gartner predicts, however, that China and India will increasingly drive mobile ad growth. Also, as mobile ads become more integrated into large ad campaigns, it is predicted that the U.S. and Europe will catch up to Asia by shifting ad spending away from print and radio.

“Smartphones and media tablets extend the addressable market for mobile advertising in more and more geographies as an increasing population of users spends an increasing share of its time with these devices,” said Andrew Frank, research vice president at Gartner. “This market will therefore become easier to segment and target, driving the growth of mobile advertising spend for brands and advertisers. Mobile advertising should be integrated into advertisers’ overall marketing campaigns in order to connect with their audience in very specific, actionable ways through their smartphones and/or tablets.”

Gartner warns, though, that ad inventory is growing significantly faster than advertisers can shift their spending. The analyst firm compares “paid discovery” advertising by app makers to early web advertising, and states that it creates “an inflated picture of revenue that may ultimately prove to be a bubble.”

“Some correction in the growth rate must occur before demand from brand and local advertisers catches up with supply, and more sustainable economics support a faster growth rate commensurate with consumer adoption,” said Baghdassarian.

January 17, 2013
Google Gives You A 30-Minute Presentation On Getting Started With AdMob On Android

Google has put out a presentation about getting started on Android with AdMob on its Developers YouTube channel. If you want to monetize your business using Google’s mobile platform, it might be worth a half hour of your time.

Earlier this year, Google integrated AdMob with AdWords.

December 21, 2012
Online Ad Revenues Reach Historic High

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released a report on Internet ad revenues, which the organization says climbed to an all-time high of $17 billion in the first half of 2012. This is, in fact, a 14% year-over-year increase (compared to the previous high of $14.9 billion in the first half of 2011).

The second quarter alone also saw a 14% year-over-year increase, hitting $8.7 billion (up from $7.7 billion during the same period last year).

Here’s a look at the yearly increases for the first half of the year since 1996:

“This report establishes that marketers increasingly embrace mobile and digital video, as well as the entire panoply of interactive platforms, to reach consumers in innovative and creative ways,” said IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg. “These half-year figures come on the heels of a study from Harvard Business School researchers that points to the ad-supported internet ecosystem as a critical driver of the U.S. economy. Clearly, the digital marketing industry is on a positive trajectory that will propel the entire American business landscape forward.”

IAB SVP, Research, Analytics and Measurement, Sherrill Mane, added, “Solid double-digit growth in a stagnating economy is a significant accomplishment. There is evidence that CPMs are maintaining, and even increasing, further substantiating the vitality of the internet ad market.”

Mobile nearly doubled year-over-year for the first half of the year, rising 95% to $1.2 billion, compared to $636 million from the same period last year. Digital video increased 18% year-over-year, reaching over $1 billion in revenue (up from $900 million from the same period last year).

“The tremendous growth of mobile advertising revenue over the past year is an indication of the importance of location to advertisers and mobility to consumers,” said David Silverman, a partner at PwC US, which prepared the report for the IAB. “Bringing the power of the internet to mobile devices has opened up a world of possibilities to both consumers and marketers.”

Search revenues totaled $8.1 billion, up 19% from $6.8 billion. Display revenues hit $5.6 billion, up 4% from $5.3 billion in the same period last year, and accounting for 33% of the first half of the year’s ad revenues.

You can find the full report here.

October 14, 2012
Opera And Google To Remain BFFs Until 2014

Most major browsers currently available on the market use Google as their default search provider. Mozilla continues to utilize the search engine in Firefox after announcing an agreement in December that will extend their partnership for at least three more years. Opera has just entered into a similar deal.

Opera Software has entered into a new agreement with Google. The Opera browser will continue to use Google search as the default until 2014. The deal contains a number of perks for both Google and Opera as they continue their mutual friendship.

It was revealed in Opera’s quarter two report that the deal with Google will last until August 1, 2014. The deal will see Opera serving as a vehicle to promote various Google products and services. The agreement also covers Opera’s desktop and mobile browsers in all global territories.

Opera’s desktop browser has never really taken off, but its mobile browser is one of the most popular on the market. It plans to grow its mobile and desktop business throughout the year to gain more of a foothold in the highly competitive browser market. It remains to be seen if their agreement with Google will help the company realize its goal.

Opera itself runs a number of online advertising services that directly compete with Google’s own AdSense. The agreement doesn’t seem to be slowing down Opera’s own expansion of their online advertising business. The company expects to generate far more revenue in mobile advertising in 2012 than it did in 2011.

The increased focus on mobile will definitely be a strong point for Opera this year due to their already popular browser. Compared to Google’s mobile Chrome browser, Opera Mini can be installed on far more devices than any other competing browser. Google might be using that reach to advertise their own products and services through Opera’s mobile browser.

Google’s agreements with both Opera and Firefox will end around 2014. It will be interesting to see if these companies will still continue to use Google’s search engine as their default or switch to a competitor. Another possible scenario would see Chrome growing so large that Opera bows out of the browser market entirely. The Web can change a lot in a year with such disruptions becoming more commonplace. We’ll check back with Opera in 2014 to see how they’re doing.

August 22, 2012
Can Mobile Turn Twitter Into an Ad Platform?

Twitter is very influential in the news world. Stories often break and and new details constantly emerge from the millions of tweets going out every day. In the financial world, however, Twitter doesn’t hold a candle to larger social platforms such as Facebook, or even LinkedIn.

With the popularity of Twitter still growing, it would seem the company is overdue for a Facebook-style IPO, but the company has struggled in the past to monetize its service. Sure, Twitter now has promoted tweets and ads, but most of its members access the service from mobile devices. Mobile advertising it still a relatively new and unreliable marketing scene, meaning mobile ads are often much less expensive than those for websites. Twitter, though, charges the same rates for mobile or web ads, and it was revealed earlier this month that Twitter is already making more from mobile than the web, and it has begun to aggressively expand its advertising reach.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Twitter may be turning a corner on its revenue woes. It cites the case of P.F. Chang’s, the Chinese-American Fusion restaurant chain, which it says recently converted its entire Twitter ad budget to focus on mobile. The key, and what surprised P.F. Chang’s the most, was how often Twitter users interact with mobile ads. The Wall Street Journal quotes Jason Miller, digital content and community manager for P.F. Chang’s, as saying the results were “staggering.” Miller admitted that Twitter on mobile might not be best for highlighting brands, but speculated that “time-sensitive” ads work well on the platform

Other social platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, have only just begun to experiment with mobile ads. Advertisers have, thus far, been less than impressed with Facebook’s new long-term plan of mobile monetization, though Android Facebook users seem to enjoy it. LinkedIn, which is known for its careful planning with regards to its revenue sources, is only trying out mobile ads on its newer iPad app, and only with Cisco and Shell.

June 29, 2012
Google Integrates AdMob With AdWords, Previews New Interface

Google announced today that it is integrating AdMob into AdWords, enabling its over a million AdWords advertisers to run campaigns across over 300,000 mobile apps running AdMob ads on over 350 million mobile devices. Of course, it can all be managed from the AdWords interface.

There’s a new campaign type in AdWords called Display Network only (mobile apps):

Advertisers can launch mobile app campaigns from AdWords, and target specific devices or specific manufacturer brands, in addition to the already available targeting by operator, wifi or OS version. Another targeting option is by individual app. Google says it will soon provide an estimate on the number of devices reached and impressions targeted.

“It also helps AdMob developers and publishers increase their revenue by giving them access to a large number of new advertisers,” says Jonathan Alferness, Director of Product Management, Mobile Ads. “AdWords advertisers can now manage, measure and adjust search, display and video ads, reaching people on more than 2 million websites and hundreds of thousands of apps, across all screens.”

Google says the move complements DoubleClick Digital Marketing, which it announced earlier this week.

“As mobile usage continues to explode, businesses increasingly need to adapt their marketing strategies to mobile platforms and mobile-specific consumer trends,” says Alferness.

As far as developers are concerned, Google Mobile Ads product manager Vishay Nihalani says, “All filters you currently use for AdMob ads will be respected for AdWords ads as well. However, please be aware that your filters will still not apply to Google Certified Ad Networks. You will be able to opt out of showing ads from Google Certified Ad Networks if you require filters across all your inventory.”

AdMob’s network reaches 23 countries, each generating over one billion ad-requests last month, according to Google. That’s up from 11 countries in April 2011.

Meanwhile, Google has also been working on a redesign of the AdWords interface, and this is now available for preview.

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@adwords We’re giving the AdWords interface a visual refresh, and want your feedback on the redesign. Check out the preview: http://t.co/rIeutD7z
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“This refresh aims to get the interface out of the way, so that the important things – such as your data – stand out,” says Greg Rosenberg on the Inside AdWords blog. “We integrated the latest client side technologies to make the AdWords interface more visually appealing and scalable.”

Here are some screenshots:

June 7, 2012
Social Media Overtakes Search in Advertising

Social media is on a trajectory to become the main focus of advertisers, according to a new survey conducted by Strata, a Comcast-owned media software firm. The quarterly report queried a broad pool of over 1,000 U.S. ad agencies processing over $50 billion in media annually, and revealed that 69% of firms regard social media advertising as being the focus of ad spend, up 32% over the previous year.

A similar study by Pagemodo recently showed that 90% of businesses at least incorporate some form of social media into their marketing plan, with 93% reporting the practice to be beneficial. While only 43% of advertisers in that study reported seeing an actual boost in sales via utilizing social ads, social proofing, or using a sort of digital word-of-mouth to promote a product or service, does significantly increase brand exposure.

Strata President and CEO John Shelton, referring to the survey taken by his company, states, “The survey demonstrates that there has been a shift from search, which has dominated the digital part of the business for the last five to 10 years – to social.” Still, display ads are number one, with 71% of advertisers focusing on platforms like TV. Though, Shelton points out that TV ad spend will be inflated, due to the Presidential election and the Olympics.

Mobile advertising is expanding, with roughly 30% of agencies incorporating it into their campaigns, and 75% of firms target the iPhone in that market. Android was second with 57%, and iPad came in third at 44%. The Strata data also revealed that Android’s popularity fluctuated between 46% and 70% over the last 2 years, and “continues to look for stability in the mobile arena.”

Now to cite the obvious – Facebook takes up 85% of all social media advertising expenditures, and has achieved at least 80% over the last 7 quarters. Though, I must point out that the Strata study relates to advertising focus, and no dollar amounts were mentioned.

May 3, 2012