5 Important Mobile Targeting Parameters To Understand

by Amy Vale

Mobile is everywhere, everyday. It’s fast becoming the primary source of engagement for users with brands. comScore reports that 101.3 million U.S. mobile phone subscribers are using Smartphones, which is up from 97.9 million in the previous period. When you look at the increasing number of downloaded applications (48.6 percent of subscribers), browsers (48.5 percent), access to social networking sites and blogs (35.7 percent) and game-playing (31.8 percent), it’s clear that how brands and publishers target mobile users can result in greater user engagement and greater control over their campaigns. But knowing you want to engage users via mobile isn’t enough. Recognizing and understanding the unique capabilities of mobile is vital to a successful mobile campaign. We’d like to outline 5 “hot” tips for mobile targeting that should be considered in any mobile advertising campaign.

Day-Parting

Just as with other mediums (e.g. online, TV, radio), mobile advertising poses an opportunity to segment your advertisements by time of day. Depending on the type of promotion, offer, or service that a brand would like to put in front of its audience, day-parting can be an effective tool in driving clicks and conversions at specific times of the day. For instance, targeting young executives between the hours of 12:00 pm and 3:00 pm with mobile ads for lunch foods/products is a good example of day-parting. And as always, look at your analytics to see what times of the day your brand, product or service is generating the most traffic, and determine what ads and audience to target at those times.

Geo-Location

Just as time of day can determine your mobile campaign’s effectiveness, so can the location of where your users are, and where they’re going. Geo-targeting creates a “real-time” opportunity to deliver ads that are geographically relevant to users, depending on where they are at any given moment. As you know, we as consumers tend to be driven by “spur of the moment” impulses, especially when it comes to purchases. Using mobile coupons, businesses can further cement their customer loyalty and “hook” purchases, both online and offline. This form of targeted mobile advertising allows brands to only reach consumers in the area where businesses are located, thereby creating new revenue opportunities for any business looking to increase brand awareness and sales in any DMA, city or state.

Contextual Keywords

Context is king. According to eMarketer, contextual targeting is so smart and effective that it’s outperforming online display ads. So what’s the reason for these increased click-through rates? By placing a mobile ad within relevant content on a mobile website or application, the ad then becomes more engaging to users. That’s a win-win for both users and brands/publishers.

 

Device Type

In addition to location, time of day and keywords, it’s important to understand the varying types of mobile devices being used by consumers, whether it be iPhone, the myriad of Android powered devices or the range of tablets now on the market. The important learning here is that most mobile devices attract different types of demographics. Understanding the demographic of the users of a specific device or device type will allow you to include or exclude the users of that device seeing your ads. That’s a powerful tool to keep in your arsenal.

Device Feature

One of the biggest advantages of mobile as an advertising medium is the features available on Smartphones and tablets, such as accelerometers, cameras, longitude/latitude, GPS, payments, group messaging (BBM/iMessage) and screen capture. All of these features can result in greater engagement in a number of ways, including an increase in impressions, videos viewed, apps downloaded, social influence, among other key performance indicators.