4 Things Your Mobile Tells Marketers About You

May 15th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Martin Hayward is the Director of Marketing at Mirror Image Internet. Follow the company @MirrorImage_CDN.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know smartphones are penetrating the market at a rapid pace. As with any category that experiences rapid growth, questions arise equally as fast regarding market intelligence, and how it can help achieve tangible business results.

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With this in mind, marketers have a new set of demographics to consider — device demographics. Traditional targeting was once based on demographic profiles and assumptions built on previous purchase behavior. Device demographics have helped bring an end to this predictive targeting. Instead, they deliver relevant ads to a user who has elected to belong to a specific group. In other words, it’s essentially basing ads on what mobile device a user has and how they interact with content on that device.

Customizing the content and experience for each mobile device type presents lucrative opportunities for marketers and their brands. But it can create challenges as well. Below are four key benchmarks that marketers should consider when optimizing device demographics to maximize ROI for their campaigns.

1. Likeliness to Respond (Purchase Intent)

The devices we use tend to shape our behaviors, therefore adding an extra layer of insight into click-through habits and preferences. Tablet owners, for example, are more receptive to ads viewed on their device than smartphone owners. According to Nielsen Research, they’re almost twice as likely to click on an ad for more information about the business and use or request a coupon through the ad. Since iPhone users are known to be disproportionately young and affluent, click-through rates for mobile Apple users in this demographic are typically higher.

Technology today gives marketers access to a more complete consumer profile, enabling campaigns to be more tailored to consumer preferences and relevant to their needs. With this level of insight, marketers can reach those consumers who are not only most likely to respond, but most inclined to complete the purchase funnel cycle, from click to buy.

2. Preferred Ad Type

Mobile media can take a lot of forms. For example, mobile video is becoming marketing’s hottest medium, with roughly one-quarter of mobile device owners stating that they are more likely to view ads if there is an interesting video, and 20% preferring interactive ads. In fact, 34.8% of women trust display ads (banner or video) on mobile devices, while only 29% trust SMS ads. It’s important to keep these statistics in mind when developing campaigns and selecting the right delivery method. Advertisers need to be most careful about how they’re interrupting media viewing experiences and take care to make sure the ads are effective and not disruptive.

3. Consumer Preferences for Ad Content

Preferred ad type is one thing, but can mobile device technology really tell marketers anything about the content you prefer? Absolutely. By determining the types of social, gaming, and utility apps consumers download and the content they view, marketers have a better understanding of users’ interest.

In addition, the actual location of the device can be detected in real-time so that the appropriate location-aware ad or content can be served. An overwhelming 80% of mobile users prefer ads that are locally relevant. In fact, three-quarters of those consumers have taken action in response to a location-specific ad, according to a recent JiWire study.

This can be especially helpful for sports marketers. For example, if you live in Boston and are a dedicated Red Sox fan, you’d be pretty mad if you started receiving ads for Yankees gear. Location-based mobile technology can prevent this. In addition, ads can provide a financial incentive in the form of a coupon or voucher for a business in close proximity to a user’s mobile device. This further enhances the convenience and therefore attractiveness of the offer to the user.

4. What Ad Formats Are Best

New mobile devices are hitting the market at a rapid pace, each with a unique set of capabilities and limitations. Delivering content to an iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Android requires careful planning upfront since consumers have come to expect content that appears and performs without latency or delay. For example, a video ad delivered to a high-definition screen on an Apple or Android device will not have the same impact if delivered to a BlackBerry device that may not support the same video quality. Advertisers can now detect consumers’ devices and deliver the most relevant content, ensuring it displays correctly, regardless of screen size.

There’s an old adage in the marketing business that “50 percent of my marketing dollars are wasted, but I don’t know which 50 percent.” Mobile technology helps address that lack of insight into ROI, enabling on-the-go insights so marketers are able to modify strategies in real-time as campaigns are still rolling out.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Ridofranz

This story originally published on Mashable here.