Strategies for Successful Mobile Advertising Campaigns

Introduction

This presentation is an insight into mobile advertising campaigns and covers:

Aspects of successful mobile advertising campaigns

Self Service vs. Managed Campaigns

Successful mobile campaign

A Campaign is defined as successful if it has met the key objectives of the advertiser

Though all other metrics are important, end results is what matters to all advertisers.

In mobile advertising, high Click-Through-Rates (CTR) is not uncommon but high CTR is not always equals to great results.

Plan the campaign

Choose your right target audience based on the kind of targeting that is available.

Choose all types of applicable ad mechanics

Have multiple creatives for better results

Start with a right bid – a low bid might not get you the right traffic. A high bid may exhaust your campaign budget early .

Test the campaign

Test the campaign creatives & landing pages

Check if the ad creatives confirm with the ad guidelines.

Make sure that page load times for the first landing page are extremely fast .

Test it on a number of actual handsets of different makes and models.

Note --

Emulator does not equal to a handset.

Results always vary from handset to emulator

Ad Mechanics: Call to action modes

Click to download: Click to download works well for most campaigns and with anything that is FREE. If you charge, don’t forget to inform the users before you actually charge them.

Click to do locate etc: Click to view maps / locate etc. works very well for high end phones that have support for maps. Target the campaigns only for those kind of phones.

Click to sign up: This is also a very common type of campaign that works reasonably well. Please remember to keep the sign up form, really simple and short.

Creatives

Use multiple creatives right at the outset of the campaign.

Refresh creatives frequently.

Use a combination of text and banner ads diligently to attract the end user.

Use trigger words like “ FREE ” in your ad text wherever appropriate.

Personalize your message, with the help of segmentation and targeting.

Targeting

Make sure you select the right set of options for targeting.

Too much / Too less - could adversely affect campaign run

Daily budget and bid amounts

Tune the daily budget and bid amount to acquire desired traffic.

Increase it as results start to meet expectations.

Always keep a close check on your Cost Per Acquisition / Action (CPA).

Use Tracking tools, Reports

It is a great idea to use tracking tools and reports on an everyday basis to measure the results of the campaign.

There are several free and paid third party tools that provide detailed information which could be useful, which includes

Conversion rate

Unique users etc.

Close monitoring enables fine tuning the campaign at any point of time.

Measuring Campaign Effectiveness

Key points to be taken care of include:

CTR: A high CTR could mean a well executed campaign. But your CPA results must co-relate and must be proportionately high.

CPA: Total amount spent divided by the total number of downloads, registration or leads is calculated as CPA.

High CPA=Dissatisfied advertiser Low CPA=Satisfied Advertiser

Other success factors in mobile advertising

On-deck vs. Off -deck Inventory: Some campaigns work very well on-deck, some only work off deck. This really depends on the kind of product the advertiser is selling.

Note: Products that are on deck are always best sold on-deck.

Products that are out of the walled gardens are best sold in similar

inventory.

Self Service vs. Managed: Some campaigns are best self run whereas some campaigns may require experienced executives to make them successful.

The upcoming section talks more about it.

Self Service and Managed Campaigns

Self service: The advertiser creates and manages his mobile campaigns through a self service enabled ad platform/network.

Managed : Managed campaigns or campaign management is a process of creating, executing and tracking the performance of the campaign by an external entity – network or agencies to meet advertiser expectations

Self Service

Advertisers manage the entire campaign execution by themselves

The campaign execution options are limited but visible to advertisers

Self Serve

Advertisers can quickly create, schedule, execute and track mobile campaigns by themselves.

Advertisers can easily measure the campaign performance and adapt services if necessary.

Advertisers gain exposure to customer centric info, which can be used in segmentation and targeting.

Various advertising activities of the company can be integrated and supplemented together.

Risks in Self Serve

Lack of expertise to handle campaign related issues.

The company may under-utilize the potential of mobile campaigns, while giving more importance to the other forms of advertising.

Advertisers may not be equipped with information related to Inventory allocation or mobile publishing techniques.

Advertisers might not be well versed in appropriate Ad positioning techniques.

Managed Campaign Model

Follows the ad agency model.

Executives, acquire specific inventory, according to campaign requirements.

A dedicated campaign management execution team, manages the entire campaign.

Monitor the campaign closely on an everyday basis.

Optimize campaign, based on performance.

Campaign Planning

Campaign Initiation

Performance Tracking and Reporting

Campaign performance is closely monitored through detailed analytics and reports.

Campaign performance is constantly enhanced, by refreshing ad creatives, revised positioning & ad mechanics.

Advertisers are regularly updated with the campaign budgets, status & performance.

Non Performing ad traffic may be routed to other campaigns

Non performing ads may be removed and new ads may be refreshed

Self Serve vs. Managed Campaigns

Advertisers manage the campaigns

Allocation of traffic is automated

No Choice in Positioning of the Ad

Advertisers have to monitor the performance vigilantly

Dedicated campaign management executives, manage campaigns

Traffic is manually allocated based on performance

Control over Ad inventory placement [publisher sites]

Campaign executives track performance and report to the Advertiser

So which approach is the best?

If you’re new to mobile advertising, it is better that someone else does the campaign management for you.

Also if you have already run campaigns and if the CTR rate and click through are dropping, or the results are not satisfactory, then managed campaigns can drive better results.