Many of the tasks that used to be done on a desktop have become just as easy on a phone. Shopping, as an example, is accessible the second a consumer thinks of something they want or need to buy. They can look it up on their smartphone, check out without even needing to grab a physical credit card, and have the peace of mind that the item will be delivered to them within just a few days.
Over the past several years, we have seen more and more consumers make purchases right from their phones, and e-comm businesses are responding with company apps, an influx in SMS marketing, and various promotional initiatives associated with a mobile-first consumer experience. Because of this, mobile advertising and app advertising are a must in many industries if you want to maximize revenue potential.
Tips for Creating a Great Mobile Experience
Creating a mobile ad will be different than creating a desktop ad. Here's what you need to know to start an impactful and effective mobile ad strategy:
Design Your UX to be Touch Screen Friendly
Mobile users have different patterns and utilize other features than desktop users. Touch screens are a big part of this user experience as a touch screen inherently creates a different way of navigating your site, such as zooming in or swiping side to side.
Some ways to do this effectively include:
- Placing primary content and actions in the center of the screen, using the edges for secondary activities and tabs, and incorporating tertiary functions behind menus.
- Consider how the user interacts with their device and what is on the screen as a part of that device, such as the grip of their hands, what fingers they use to complete various tasks, and the context of your website, app, or advertisement within the greater UI. An Apple user may have different needs than an Android user. The size of a tablet could change how prominent your design features need to be.
- When in doubt, remember that recent studies have shown users predominantly touch the center of the screen and use their devices in various ways, challenging the assumption of the "Thumb Zone" designers once had. All these nuances will change how the user interacts with your brand and will have a powerful subliminal effect on how that individual perceives your brand.
Make Creative and Visually Engaging Mobile Ads
Mobile advertisements have a lot of potential to showcase your company creatively. There is a lot of opportunity to show off products and services. Here are a few ways you can ensure the design of your ads is as impactful to potential customers as possible:
- Size matters: Any images will need to be sized correctly, and they will need to be of high quality to draw your audience’s attention.
- Keep it short and sweet: Attention spans can be short, so you must catch the consumer's attention within seconds. Knowledge of your ideal customer persona is crucial. Know what your customer will like about the product and immediately showcase that feature. Or, if it is a video ad, add a hook at the beginning of your message to draw immediate attention.
- Stay on top of trends: You can even use current trends and use that to come off as organic entertainment. Just ensure the message clearly and accurately represents what your company is all about while employing a catchy trend.
- Use every design or content tool you have at your disposal: There is a huge opportunity in both mobile and in-app advertising to push the envelope in creativity. The best marketers are doing this by leveraging augmented reality (AR) to create immersive experiences, using creative GIF animations to boost engagement, incorporating location data for personalized targeting, and employing personalized messaging for effective communication.
Diversify Your Advertising Placements to More than one Platform
To effectively advertise on mobile, it's crucial to understand the different types of mobile ads, such as app ads, social media ads, mobile banner ads, in-app display ads, interstitial ads, SMS ads, native ads, video ads, and audio ads.
Mobile ads on platforms like Spotify, TikTok, Facebook Stories, and Instagram Stories have proven effective in reaching and engaging audiences. Implementing interactive mobile ads and utilizing formats like Facebook Collections ads can also boost user engagement. Next, we'll dive more into mobile and app advertising specifics on each social media platform.
Paid Social for Mobile
Social media has become a popular pastime for adults, with growing numbers of daily users. This presents a valuable advertising opportunity, allowing you to reach large audiences, increase visibility, and engage with users through your social media presence. Look at some of the complexities that go into each social media platform's available advertising placements.
Instagram story ad
This is a great example of creating an ad that goes along with the patterns of smartphone users. If a user clicks through stories and your ad comes up, they will most likely pay attention to it since they anticipate something new with each click. Some ways to make a great story ad include: maximizing fullscreen usage, highlighting your call-to-action, incorporating text overlays, using audio enhancements, making your ads interactive, consistently branding your ads, and incorporating motion.
Snapchat ad and filter
Snapchat ads are a great way to introduce your organization to a new audience. Snapchat may have different users than other platforms, which is beneficial for retargeting. You can also have your own filter showcasing your brand or product. Many users look through filters to find new or creative ones, and if they choose to use them, they create more reach when they share their image paired with the filter on their personal profile.
Recently Snapchat has introduced a set of instructions for devising potent Snap Ad campaigns to assist businesses in connecting with its 375 million daily users, primarily composed of Gen Z and millennials. Essential advertising principles the company highlighted involve prominently displaying products, adopting a sound-on design, and employing goal-oriented bidding. In reaction to Apple's iOS 14 update, Snapchat suggests widening targeting scopes, underlining the importance of suitable content for the most valuable leads.
YouTube ad
YouTube has a large audience reach, and people use YouTube for many different reasons. Video ads can help you connect with your audience as you show more about your brand. There are also options for retargeting.
The best strategies to creating an effective Youtube ad are: surprising the viewer with unexpected content; improving on competitors' ad concepts; continuously testing and adjusting content; using storytelling to draw in viewers; incorporating user-generated content; emphasizing the benefits of the product or service being advertised; and optimizing content for different viewing devices.
Facebook story ad
Like any other story ad, you can increase reach significantly with Facebook story ads. This type of story ad will take up most of the smartphone screen, just like Instagram. By creating an immersive experience, the goal is that your content will captivate the audience's attention.
Creating story content is quite straightforward, involving choosing the type of content, customizing it, adding custom links and buttons, and sharing it. Businesses can further optimize their use of Facebook Stories by creating exciting, time-sensitive content, making it interactive and actionable, sharing third-party content, and regularly tracking performance to polish their strategy.
Website display ad
For this ad type, you will want a high-quality, interesting image to draw in your audience. You can create custom audiences by using pixels and tags to target the same people across different platforms.
Keep the design simple and instantly readable, use buttons wisely, and ensure a clearly defined frame for your ad. Animations can improve performance, but they should not distract from your message. While your ad should complement the website it is on, it still needs to be distinctive. Consistency with your brand is crucial, as is instilling a sense of urgency. Images, if used, should be directly related to your product, and the colors chosen should evoke the right emotions in your audience. Keep the file sizes small for faster loading and use appropriate formats such as JPG, PNG, GIF, or HTML5.
Twitter ad
You can grow a larger audience on Twitter by promoting your tweets. This should boost your followers, and then these users will continue to see your organization's tweets over time.
To effectively use Twitter Ads, it's essential to follow five critical steps. First, research your competitors to understand which strategies have been successful for them, and take note of the types of offers that generate the most engagement. Second, gather social proof by initially advertising to less expensive audiences to increase engagement before targeting your primary audience. Third, use A/B testing or split testing to determine which elements of your ad perform best, testing one variable at a time. Fourth, avoid including hashtags or mentions in your promoted tweets to ensure your call to action remains the only clickable element. Lastly, create a specific target segment for mobile users, as they comprise about 80% of Twitter's monthly active users. Remember, the goal is to create ads that attract attention and encourage user interaction.
App Advertising Placements
Apple Search Ads
Apple Search Ads (ASA), first introduced in 2016, have recently expanded significantly. The new ASA inventory includes two additional placements: the Today tab and the bottom of individual app product pages. The Today tab is the landing page for users upon opening the App Store, and the new ad placement allows developers to promote their apps alongside daily editorial content. The guidelines for these ads are comprehensive, including a limitation on promotional messaging to 50 characters or three lines of text. Also, the ads must use app screenshots as their main feature. These new placements are expected to increase exposure due to their visibility and broad reach.
The second new ad placement is located directly within the product pages of individual apps, appearing under the “You Might Also Like” section. This provides developers the opportunity to place ads on the pages of other apps. Unlike the Today tab ads, these do not require a custom product page for ad creatives; they are created using the assets already uploaded on the App Store product page. However, due to their location at the bottom of the page and considering that many users download apps directly from search results without visiting product pages, the impact of these ads might be less than those on the Today tab.
Google's Universal App Campaigns
Universal App Campaigns (UAC) is an automated ad type offered by Google Ads, providing an efficient way to advertise mobile apps across Google's extensive ad networks, including search, display, YouTube, and the Google Play Store. UACs utilize machine learning to showcase the most relevant and high-performing ads to users, driving conversions and app installs. The ad campaigns are generated using supplied text lines, images, videos, or HTML5 assets, and over time, the best-performing combinations are identified and displayed to users. UAC ads can run across different Google properties such as Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network, as well as on both iOS and Android devices.
Creating a UAC requires manual inputs, including a daily budget, a target cost-per-install (CPI) or cost-per-action (CPA), target location and languages, and up to four text lines. Further, optional media assets can be added to aid in the creation of the ad. When setting up a UAC, selecting the right campaign objective is crucial: "Install Volume" for attracting new users and "In-App Actions" for users likely to complete actions within the app. Google suggests different budget strategies depending on the chosen goal. Finally, setting up UAC involves selecting a device type, adding text ideas, setting location and language targets, defining the campaign goal, budget, and bid amount, and establishing a campaign run date.
Test ads across multiple platforms and determine what works best for your marketing strategy. Advertising across multiple platforms can help increase brand awareness. As mobile devices have become more needed for day-to-day routines, it has created a great opportunity for phone ads. Mobile advertising and app advertising strategies have made it easier for marketers to make ads more personalized for consumers. It can give consumers insight on the brand and what they have to uniquely offer.
To optimize your mobile and app advertising strategy, start working with a MarinOne expert today.
