A Beginner’s Guide to a Successful Mobile Ad Campaign

Do you consider your product or service quality to be above average? Does it show up as great sales numbers? If not, there is certainly room for improvements in using mobile advertising to build awareness for your products. 

The bright side is that with everyone on their phones 24-7, you can change your situation if you read this piece to the end.

The article walks you through the steps to plan a mobile ad campaign and drives results!

 

Phase 1 – Set a strong foundation for your mobile ad campaign by conducting a thorough research

It is extremely important to take some time to plan before diving into an actual campaign.

1. Set clear objectives

Different companies run advertising campaigns for different reasons. The most common types of goals include:

• Increase brand awareness
• Increase sales
• Promote an offer
• Drive web traffic to the landing page or site
• Encourage people to visit your store front

It is crucial to establish clear goal(s) of what you want to accomplish as it will be the basis on which the entire ad campaign decisions are made.

2. Select your target audience

Who do you want to reach? What are their preferences? What part of the internet are they likely to visit?

Understanding the people you are reaching helps you deliver your ad to them at the right place at the right time.

Consider the following when selecting your niche audience:

• You must know how your ad makes your audience feel at each stage of the presentation in order to help you convince them to act accordingly.
• 80% of consumers expect the ads to be customized based on their zip code, city, or vicinity.
• Out of every five consumers, 4 use search engines to research before buying goods and services.
• Out of 5 customers, three will use the local information on the ad, such as contact information.

Note that the behavior of desktop & laptop users is very different from people using tablets and phones.

There is a high probability of audience viewing your ad on a mobile phone when they are commuting or “on the go”. This explains why fitting a mobile ads campaign to a desktop strategy will be a big fail.

Similarly, tablet users mostly use them when relaxing at home after work (probably feeling very tired). Quality visuals are therefore necessary to capture the attention of these users. Mobile users, on the other hand,  will be at a particular place at a specific time. For example, they will be going to work in the morning, at the office during the day, and commuting back home in the evening.

A good way to understand your targeted mobile customer is by utilizing tools such as:

• Twitter Audience Insights: Know the demographics, lifestyle, occupation, political affiliation, and other interests of your consumer.
• Google Analytics: Helps in studying your prospects’ behavior.

Consumer barometer

• The smart viewer: Insights on the video activities of your target customer while using different gadgets.
• The multi-screen world: To measure the time spent on the internet using different devices
• The smart shopper: The consumer’s journey to buying a product and how they use the internet
• Facebook audience manager: Analyze the people who have already bought from you.

Creating a profile of your target audience is an excellent place to start. Answer the following questions for further clarity:

• Who is looking for the goods or services you are offering?
• What is the ideal size of your audience? (Don’t go for something wide like women living in Malaysia or too specific like men working as accountants in Singapore). Try to create a balance.
• What channel is the best way to reach your audience?

PS: Don’t rush, take your time to determine who you should target because every group receives an ad differently.

 

Phase 2: Define your campaign approach

Now that you have identified your target audience, the fun part starts. 

What Communication Strategy Will Your Mobile Ad Campaign Use?

There are various communication methods you can use to deliver your message to your audience.

Communication strategies you can use in your mobile ad

1. Animation/ Video

Communicate your message through a video to connect with your audience. This can help you create a genuine relationship with your audience.

2. Product Service/ Promotion

This is creating creative messages to convert your leads to customers. The compelling texts help in introducing your new services or offers. 

3. Public Service Commission

This method helps in educating your audience on your topic expertise. For example, Lifebuoy educates its audience on the dangers of germs.

This develops an emotional connection between your customers and your brand.

4. Guerilla Campaign

This campaign requires extra effort and finances; it involves encouraging your audience to participate in the ad.

This could mean introducing gamification tactics. Take an example of Emirates; they ask their clients to answer quizzes to win a free flight. 

Tips to Help You Choose Your Communication Strategy

• What is the primary goal of the campaign? – Performance or branding?
• Is the method you choose going to deliver the intended results?
• Will you be able to sustain the requirements in a campaign to deliver the results?
• Which type of communication gives the best results?

Decide how long the campaign will take

This is the next step after deciding the communication strategy, it is essential to decide how long your campaign will take.

Here are questions to give you a sense of direction;

• Is your campaign based on urging consumers to take any action, or will it involve a series of events?
• Will you need different content for your mobile ad campaign?

If you are planning to have a campaign that takes a long time, prepare all the daily and weekly activities that you intend to undertake.

This will ensure that your clients’ momentum in engaging is maintained.

For example, if you are launching a product, you may decide to start by emailing your customers about the new developments. You may then decide to advertise on media platforms such as TV, radio, and social media. Later, you may begin roadshows.

Another idea is to break down the campaign based on the agenda: It could be awareness, participation, or conversion.

You can then plan out the content based on the purpose of the campaign. Obviously, you may need different text and visuals for every session.

Then, lastly, schedule to send the content when well-spaced. 

What device will you use?

In traditional advertising, marketers never had to make this decision. Most  people only viewed the campaigns using the PC or desktop.

However, in 2020, customers have used all kinds of gadgets, including tablets and mobile phones. 

To grab all opportunities, make sure that your ads fit the needs of consumers using any of these devices.

In the US, people spend 80% of their time scrolling through the apps on their mobile phones. You will, therefore, be losing a big market if you ignored the mobile compatibility of your ad.

Make sure you research the people you are targeting to know which gadgets they use a lot.

 

Plan your time and money

Now that the initial plans are made, it is time to schedule your ads and decide on funds allocation.

Some of the questions that you will need to answer to get this done include:

When do you want your mobile ad campaign to go live?

• How much have you set aside for the campaign? 
• How much will use in creating the content?
• How many impressions are you expecting?

These variables will help you come with a sane plan on when to start your campaign and the total amount you will need to make your mobile ad campaign a success.

 

Key Performance Indicators 

You need to know what you will measure to determine the success of your campaign. This is very easy to achieve with mobile ad campaigns if you plan well.

Remember, you cannot determine your success by the clicks as with touch screens, many clicks may even be accidental.

Also, the first click does not measure the engagement of the customer with your ad after that.

You, therefore, need more than CTR – focus on business results or use an integrated solution that provides analytics for mobile marketing such as tune.com.

Secondary Action Rates (SAR) and Store Visitation Lift (SVL) are the new developments in the mobile ads sector.

SAR and SVL helps in understanding consumer behavior and their ad execution tactics. It also assists in showing their purchase intent.

Secondary measures that you can take to compel the user include:

• Add a call-button to your mobile ad, with your phone number that they can use for inquiries directly, without being redirected.
• A map showing driving directions to your store if you have one
• If you use a video, add a link that takes the user to your landing page.
• Targeting product listing – check what the user has been checking out.

SAR helps you have a successful mobile ad campaign by creating a deeper connection with the user leading to awareness and high conversions.

 

Phase 3: Content development and production 

This is probably the part that you will love most and one that requires your total attention too.

It’s time to decide how your ad will look like, how you will design it, the format you will use and other basics.

This will affect your budget and schedule, so be careful with all the decisions you make at this stage.

Some of the best practices at this stage include:

• High-Quality Images: If you want to get the attention of your customers, you have to have great visuals. With their attention, you stand a chance to convert them to customers.
• Great Content: The space that you get for your advert in mobile ads is smaller than that of a desktop and PCs. This is why your message has to be very clear, simple to understand, and very captivating. 
• A compelling call-to-action: This is the most critical part of the content in convincing users to take action. The words should be enticing, and the button should be obvious. Prospects will not search for the button to click it.
• Landing page optimization. If the purpose of the mobile ad is to drive traffic to the land page, ensure that you optimize the landing page to ensure that it meets the needs of the campaign. Track the activities of the landing page to know the secondary actions of the users.
• Cut-down the consumer’s touchpoints. It’s advisable to only have a maximum of three touchpoints, leading to payment or purchase.
• Engaging content. If your ad is engaging, the more likely you’ll have high conversions. For example, if you use gamification – as the level of engagement increases, the customer is more interested in going through with the subsequent action.
• Haptic effects. When a person clicks or swipes the ad, and they feel a tiny vibration or something close, they are more encouraged to keep going. These little effects elevate the users’ experience and lead to secondary action.
• Consumer Interaction/Participation. Encouraging your consumers to participate in the ad, like sharing in social media or attempting quizzes can help create more awareness for your brand.
• Customer testimonials. People view testimonials as unbiased reviews of a product. Having negative and positive reviews will boost the customers’ confidence in your product, which is the only way they can buy from you.
• Campaign relevancy. Employ hyper-local targeting (using location to know the right audience for your ad). Reach customers depending on their age, gender, what they consume, etc.
• Deals and Discounts. People are always actively looking for great offers. Surprisingly, others love deals and will purchase something just because it is being offered at a discount. 

 

Choose the Ad format

An ad format is determined by the goals of the mobile ad campaign. Therefore, the excellent format is the one that delivers expected results.

Some of the popular ad formats include:

• Standard Banners. In this format, everything is kept simple. It is clean and captivating enough for visitors to click the CTA. However, in standard banners, bright colors, and too much graphic design are avoided.
• Rich media banners. This one is very engaging due to its interactive characteristics. Rich media banners can be customized and therefore differ in size and format. The best part is that they can have many CTAs.
• Dynamic banners. The banners play a significant role in driving traffic by displaying the nearest store location and the distance of a store from where the consumer is. 
• Native ads. The best thing about this format is that it can help ads change from one form to another to fit the customers’ needs in different scenarios. The clients, therefore, treat this as a new ad, which may boost the level of engagement.

 

Designing the production approach 

We are finally finalizing the planning phase and approaching the execution point of the mobile ad campaign.

In the last stage of planning, you need to ask yourself what procedure you are going to use to execute your idea.

A few questions that can help in this process include:

• Will you build the entire mobile ad campaign in your firm?
• What will you outsource?
• If you choose to go with a rich media vendor, what characteristics would you want them to have?

Here are a few production choices in the context of HTML5 ads that you may consider:

• HTML5 Rich Media Vendors: If you are not very conversant with the process, this is the most advisable method for you. The rich media vendor does all the detailed work of setting up the mobile ad. You can evaluate the vendor by asking a few basic questions to determine whether he/she is a fit.
• HTML5 Ad Developers: If you have a designer and operator, you could hire an ad developer to work with the team. Don’t let them waste so much time trying to figure out the process by themselves.
• Self-Serve HTML5 Ad Builder: For medium and large organizations, this is the best choice. All they need is an ad creator and their designers to complete the platform.

If you decide to outsource the creative part of the process, you have to do thorough research on the best agency for hire.

This can be stressful and tiresome, especially if you have no idea what you are looking for. Here are questions that you can ask the vendors to determine who to work with:

• What is their level of experience with video and HTML5 formats?
• Do their formats follow the requirements of the industry? Will they cause any conflicts?
• Are the ads and tags device-agnostic and platform-agnostic
• What procedure do they follow to prepare and design the ad?
• Do they test ads to ensure they are compatible with the SSP, DSP, and ad exchange you are targeting?
• How do they manage the problems if they are there?
• Do they have any tracking capabilities?
• What integrated solutions do they offer? Is it reporting services or ad services? If not, what do they have on their list?
• Do they have any legal documents to support platforms that are not in support of rich media?
• What technical support do they offer?
• How long do they take to complete the task?
• How much do they charge? Do you expect any extra costs?

 

Phase 4: Implement and measure your campaign

At this stage, you have planned your mobile ad campaign, decided on the format, and now you are at the end of the process. It’s time to execute your plan and determine what your KPI will be.

Test your ad

Despite the great planning and right format choice and great content, you can never be so sure about the end product.

There could be a small error that could destroy your entire plan.

You may be very tempted to overlook this stage because it has been long with a lot of spending. 

However, you do not want to blow your entire investment; it’s not worth it.

Here are a few things to check out while running your ad campaigns:

• Ensure your rich media elements are rendered and presented correctly
• Confirm that your graphics and content are of great quality
• See that your events are being tracked accurately and capturing necessary data
• Try to see whether all links and features are operating perfectly
• Test the whole cycle to feel the customers’ experience
• Ensure it doesn’t take so long to load the video/picture 

Be through with this part because you don’t want your clients experiencing any hiccups in the process.

You can even ask your employees to run the test, too, to be sure.

 

Measure and optimize your campaign

You cannot afford to miss this part. Besides, it is the final part. Measure the results you get in your campaign. 

Were they the results you expected? Did you make any errors that cost you?

Doing this helps you gauge whether or not the campaign was worth it. If the outcomes were not pleasant, don’t lose faith in the process – It was just another lesson learned. You can trace what went wrong and avoid repeating the same mistake in the future.

 

Final Words

Organizing a mobile ad campaign may take a lot of your time and energy. However, keep your eye on the reward.

When done right, it can be a game-changer for your business. 

Set your objectives, plan out all the small details, choose the right team to evaluate the process, and finally launch your ad. Don’t stop at this point.  Measure your results and decide if the campaign gave you the results you expected.