Why 2015 Is The Year For Mobile Advertising

29
Jan

It’s that time of the year again. With 2014 behind us, we have come up with a few predictions for 2015 regarding the mobile advertising industry.  Mobile is continuing to disrupt the industry, and the most successful marketers in 2015 are the ones that will embrace what mobile has to offer, but do so responsibly.  As the technology available becomes richer, and as consumers continue to become more entrenched in mobile, the opportunities to engage with them continue to increase.  Marketers need to capitalize and harness the big data that they have to drive engagement and that engagement needs to move well beyond the click.  At the same time, the industry needs to continue taking measures to combat ad fraud.

Here’s a snapshot of my predictions for the year:

Mobile Won’t Be Synonymous With ‘Simple’ Anymore
During 2015, it will become acceptable to expect mobile users to complete more complicated tasks that were typically reserved only for their desktop counterparts in the past. Marketers will no longer need over-simplified conversions for mobile devices.  Purchases that require long sign-up forms (insurance quotes, product signups, shopping cart completions) are no longer daunting for the experienced smartphone user and this provides marketers much more flexibility in what they can serve.

Hyper-Local Conversions Will Actually Happen
We’ve heard about hyper local for years, and beacons have been all the buzz in the last year or so.  In 2015, I believe that brick and mortar businesses will begin to fully harness hyper-local technology, such as iBeacons.  They’ll use these not only to connect with consumers in the area, but to track in-store conversions with consumers that they’ve previously engaged with via advertising. These type of in-store conversions have largely been ignored up until now and will be an exciting opportunity for marketers in 2015.

The Internet of Things is Expanding
Mobile won’t just mean iOS or Android anymore. This year, more semi-mobile devices will be allowing limited advertising, such as set-top boxes, TVs, kiosks and self-checkouts. To the contrary, wearables that have become mainstream in 2014 will not really have an impact on the advertising landscape in 2015.

Bigger Data in Mobile Continues to Grow
Big data in mobile will only continue to get bigger. Better cloud technology combined with a continued shifting of online traffic to mobile devices will force mobile-centric companies to scale rapidly or be left behind.  This will be a challenge for marketers as many aren’t able to properly harness and analyze the big data that they have now.  It is crucial for marketers to find platforms and networks to capitalize on this data and use it to drive engagement and revenue.

Fraud and Viewability Protection is Improving
Improved fraud and viewability protection in 2015 will force apps and websites that foster fraud or a poor advertiser experience to get better or risk losing their inventory buyers. This means that standards like 3MS and their associated metrics will begin to gain significant traction within the industry.

Good Bye, Click
There will be a shift away from CTR, to qCTR (Quality Click Through Rate), where the number of post-click engagements is the real measuring stick on mobile. It is becoming increasingly clear that the outdated metric of “CTR” is no longer valid in this age of fat-finger clicks and “snow cone” clicks.  With the level of interactivity in Rich Media, there’s just no need to focus on the click.  Marketers need to look at secondary engagement as their measure of success.

One thing is for certain – 2015 is going to be an exciting year!