Mobile Advertising - Prepping for 2016

By Adam Meshekow, Executive Vice President, SITO MobileMobile advertising has existed for about a decade, with the industry really taking shape over the past five years. There has been much discussion about mobile during its climb to finally overtake desktop, but one thing is for certain – mobile is here to stay and it is going to continue to be very influential in the lives of consumers.So when something “new” comes along in mobile, it’s important to pay attention and to be prepared to adopt the technology early on or risk being left behind. This brings us to the topic of mobile programmatic display advertising. Heavily influenced by the start of Google AdWords in 2002, this algorithmically-based form of digital advertising has been a staple for some time. But now it’s coming to mobile in a big way – 63% of total programmatic ad spending next year, according to eMarketer – and advertisers need to be ready to jump on board.We’ve all debated the challenges of properly executing programmatic advertising on mobile, most notably the lack of cookies on mobile devices. Yes, cookies are not as effective on mobile because of their limitations in functionality. But there are viable alternatives (Statistical IDs, HTML5 cookie tracking, etc.) that have become prevalent in today’s marketplace. Inventory quality and viewability are also often referenced when discussing mobile programmatic.Marketers will overcome these issues by using the similar network model. Programmatic now allows a seamless way to manage specific publishers with Private Marketplaces (PMPs) and PMP guarantees. This now allows specific demand-side platforms (DSPs) to use programmatic in mobile in a site by site transaction. This typically will drive higher ROI’s as marketers shift their budget to both mobile and programmatic, while still reaching target demographics through particular publishers.The smartest thing a marketer can do is to have a mobile partner to leverage that can actually transact programmatically using multiple data sets with the most innovative programmatic capabilities. The real value here is in the customer data – mobile allows for a much more granular data collection process than on desktop, allowing brands to sophistically target their consumers while staying nimble to ensure they don’t miss a conversion opportunity.It’s also fair to say that location-based data is the new cookie. Third party cookies are blocked on most mobile devices in an effort to not be too invasive when it comes to data, but location-based data is collected from consumers who have to opt-in to produce it. Programmatic buys are made quickly and in the moment, so advertisers rely on accurate data. Location-based data can provide a roadmap of what the consumer shops for, where they shop, when they shop, and the types of content they are consuming that help positively affect their path to purchase.Not all programmatic companies are created equal, and as more dollars flow into programmatic mobile, it’s crucial to have a mobile first approach as that is where the majority of consumer consumption is being done.[author]About the Author: Adam Meshekow is the executive vice president of product and national sales at SITO Mobile, where he is responsible for driving direct and channel sales 
of the company’s mobile advertising and messaging technology to consumer-facing businesses, advertisers, and brands. Prior to SITO Mobile, Meshekow was responsible for mobile marketing and brand management at Toys R Us. [/author]