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Paul Gubbins, UK sales director, StrikeAd
One of the most-used words in mobile advertising is 'potential'. Mobiles are unique as an advertising opportunity because they're never out of the hands or pockets of users, are filled with their most personal data, and are part and parcel of their everyday life. The number of mobiles being used every day now numbers in the billions, so there's no hyperbole in saying that the potential of mobile as an advertising medium is greater than online. So what's holding mobile back?
At StrikeAd, we think it's down to simplicity: there's simply not enough of it. The ability to use location, to track unique users and offer targeted vouchers and QR codes anytime and anywhere has completely revolutionised advertising, but at the same time has added new levels of complexity to campaign creation and management. We also need to remember that for many media buyers mobile is still new and unproven when it comes to running bigger campaigns.
That's why we believe mobile demand-side platforms will shift the balance away from complexity. DSPs have been growing online, but their use for mobile is new, and potentially far more important. Without a mobile DSP, challenges around measuring campaign success and a lack of transparency become daunting, even for the most experienced planners and buyers. The difference between online and mobile is like night and day — what works for one doesn't effectively translate to the other. So until now, mobile campaigns have lacked the scale and complexity of what's possible online simply because of the number of different platforms and networks involved.
Often, agency teams assume they can just translate the management of their online campaigns to mobile. But agencies need to remember that mobile isn't a single, consistent platform; there are many subtleties which are part of its complexity, but this is also the same reason why it can be so effective and compelling.
There also needs to be a lot more information about how to create and execute mobile campaigns. The media planners and marketers coming into the industry now are the ones who will be tasked with delivering mobile campaigns over the coming years. So collectively, the mobile industry needs to be much better at handholding through this early growth phase; it's not enough to build technologies and expect agencies to hit the ground running.
Put simply, mobile advertising is just too important to be allowed to fall into the 'too difficult' pile. Third-party ad serving and tracking on a single platform is the future of mobile advertising. With this, agencies will have the tools and confidence to harness and grow the billions of ad impressions already being served on mobile.