Operating in a media landscape dominated by brand engagement campaigns can be extremely frustrating for Direct Response (DR) specialists. Whilst it feels as if we have been waiting for the ‘Year of Mobile’ for the last decade, in 2014 mobile officially accounted for one third of all digital display spend (IAB UK PWC 2014 Digital Adspend study) and in March this year, 56% of all internet traffic came from mobile devices (comScore).
It feels as though we are finally at the point at which mobile should be an advertiser’s number one priority and whilst I can’t deny that mobile has a greater role to play in engagement campaigns, I would argue that brands are making a huge mistake by ignoring the amazing opportunities that exist for mobile performance campaigns. To move forward though, we must learn from our past mistakes; it would be naive to deny that by trying to apply basic DR tactics to the mobile environment, the media industry as a whole significantly delayed progress for this medium. However, an over reliance on aggressive banners does not explain the current discrepancy between mobile traffic and spend, which is actually the result of a huge variety of factors.
The inability to track cross device performance has been the number one justification for holding back mobile spends. When asked ‘what are your biggest pain points in mobile brand advertising?’ 56% of brands claimed it was the inability to calculate mobile ROI, 46% pointed to a lack of relevant success measures, 31% highlighted they felt unable to understand attribution and 23% said they simply couldn’t tell who their mobile advertising reached (Nielsen Client Survey, 2014). Thanks mainly to the advent of new technology companies like Drawbridge and Conversant, mobile tracking capabilities are getting much better, but there are definitely still huge strides to be made.
Another key issue is brands’ reluctance to look at mobile performance within the context of the wider customer journey. This can result in mobile inventory being removed from plans prematurely because it isn’t evaluated as successful on a last click metric. However, the tide is turning thanks to big brands like John Lewis. In the run up to Christmas, 56% of their digital sales were ‘click and collect’ proving that although mobile was a crucial channel for performance for the research phase, their customers wanted the instant gratification of physical commerce when it came to purchase.
The final roadblock has to be creative. There are a huge number of pitfalls which primarily exist due to the lack of available mobile formats, and despite the steady stream of advice from publishers the vast majority of mobile ads remain static. Furthermore 23% of impressions show back-up images as they are created in Flash rather than HTML. Whilst these mistakes are fairly simple to rectify, real problems occur when advertisers treat mobile differently to the rest of their media activity. This creates a disconnect for consumers who don’t make the differentiation between a brand’s app, site or high street store. They expect a consistent experience whether they are purchasing in person, on their desktop or on a mobile device.
This issue is compounded by the lack of understanding when it comes to mobile behaviour. Mobile users are far more impatient meaning 80% of users give up on viewing video formats because of buffering. Another avoidable issue occurs when brands insist on running creative which cannot be understood without sound. Similarly brands often fall victim to vanity metrics like dwell time, leading to a reliance on ads which are far, far too long. This makes even less sense when you take into account wider industry trends like the amazing success of six second Vines and the fact that the average person has a seven second attention span (less than a goldfish)!
Ultimately creating the right mobile ad formats that walk the tightrope between delivering brand messaging and not hindering the consumer experience is difficult, but it is absolutely necessary to deliver a brand response campaign which engages users and encourages them to make a purchase.
By Caitlin Lloyd, Account Director at Arena Media.
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