It’s not a shocking pronouncement to say that people are on their smartphones more than ever and the number of smartphone users and their time spent is only growing. They’re accessing the web on mobile devices whether in line at the bank, shopping at the grocery store or sitting on their couches at home, playing a game on their phones while watching TV and browsing on their laptops (story of my life).
They are the mobile-first audience and they are legion. Knowing this, brands must make strategic choices to connect with them (and win them over) most effectively.
Here are a few tips.
1. Ad design should reflect the device the ad is being viewed on. Smartphones don’t give advertisers much room to work with, whether it’s a tiny 320×50 banner or even a full-screen interstitial. The K.I.S.S. approach is an advertiser’s friend in the mobile space. Clean design and cutting down ad content to its most essential messaging gives the user what they need without unnecessary clutter, making for a better user experience. Just keep it simple.
…speaking of user experience…
2. User experience matters. When engagement is a KPI, think first and foremost about how users naturally interact with their smartphones. Use their propensity to (almost automatically) keep swiping or scrolling to shape the interactive feel of your ad. Share your brand message in an attention-grabbing and digestible way, so that even if they scroll on past, they can’t help but pause on your brand message, if only for a moment.
3. Seek out strategic alignment. Aligning with sites that focus on certain subjects is already old hat for most advertisers. Context is king, after all. In mobile, they should take it a step further and seek out publishers who are thriving in the space and offer up a large and devoted mobile audience. Allrecipes.com, for example, has a mobile audience that is almost 50% mobile ONLY. And logically one can venture that much of that mobile audience is visiting the site when they’re on-the-go, even in the grocery store, figuring out what ingredients they need as they shop. This presents a fantastic opportunity for a food or kitchen-supplies brand to reach their audience virtually at the point of purchase.
Last but not least…
4. Don’t just abandon desktop advertising. Mobile-first audiences may be spending a larger portion of their time on their mobile devices, but more often than not they’re not mobile-only. Especially mid-day, when many adults are at work, their laptop remains the best device on which to reach them. This is why cohesive, cross-platform campaigns, those that share DNA but expertly tailor messages to the type of device the audience is seeing them on, are becoming a strategic must for advertisers.
Advertisers can no longer afford to be shy about stepping into mobile, but unfortunately just being there isn’t enough. A thoughtful, mobile audience-first approach is what will separate the brands that thrive in mobile from the brands that falter.
Laura Moore, manager of sales solutions, Olive Media
