5 Tips For Creating a Successful Programmatic Mobile Campaign

In today’s media mix mobile should form a key part of any digital strategy, and for programmatic display the same is true. However, many agencies and advertisers are still unsure of the best tactics to apply to make a success of this channel.

There are several things you need to consider when delivering a successful mobile campaign. Here are 5 of our top tips for succeeding in this space:

1. Know your target audience

We can use a whole range of different targeting criteria for mobile campaigns – we can target by audience, using contextual targeting (targeting specific content, articles or keywords) or by precise pinpoint location, all of which are powerful tools to help you reach a desired audience. It’s important to know your audience so you can work out the best way to reach them.

For a recent campaign for a children’s brand we wanted to reach mothers of young children, but how did we identify them? We started by overlaying the right demographics (female, age 25-40) and targeted audiences reading articles about children/ babies in the right locations i.e. stores like Mothercare or nurseries – which gave us the perfect solution for the brief. The results spoke for themselves, with CTR increasing from 0.11% to 0.21% and CPA dropping by 30%.

Fully understanding your target audience allows you to engage with them in the right place, at the right time and with the most engaging message, ensuring you don’t waste valuable marketing budget on an irrelevant audience.

2. Use mobile ad formats

In much the same way that repurposing video creative made for linear TV is a poor strategy for online video, repurposing desktop display creative is likely to provide a poor user experience on mobile. Advertisers need to think about developing engaging mobile creative built specifically for mobile devices to ensure that it provides cut-through without interrupting a user’s experience.

3. Geotarget key locations

Some campaigns call for broad reach targeting but when you wish to target very specific locations then mobile is the ideal channel. Mobile campaigns can target hard to reach audiences and then retarget them over the coming hours, days and even weeks with relevant messaging. For example, someone visiting a competitor’s store/ location gives you an opportunity to target them with messaging highlighting the benefits of your own brand. Having the ability to target potential new customers who are already in-market is a valuable strategy and mobile can provide the perfect opportunity to do just that.

4. Respect the audience

People have a unique relationship with their mobile phones and running advertising that interrupts a user’s experience has the potential to create a negative association, so brands must carefully consider the context of their advertising and creative messaging. Deployed correctly, mobile ad formats can complement mobile web and app pages.

5. Do the analysis

This is true for any programmatic (or indeed any digital) activity. Analyse your results to see what works and what doesn’t and tweak your campaigns accordingly to deliver incremental improvements and inform other parts of your marketing strategy.

Getting it right in the mobile environment isn’t always easy and there’s a lot to consider, from targeting and environment to creative formats. However, with mobile usage growing year on year, the risk of missing out on valuable customers means that this is something that all advertisers and agencies must master.

 

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