In-App Advertising Guide
These days in-app advertising is more popular than ever. To paint a better picture of the way those hand-held devices influence everything around them we just have to take a quick look at a few facts and statistics.
Now, let’s start with YouTube:
The latest research by eMarketer shows an astonishing 75% of videos are being watched on mobile screens. Moreover – brace yourselves – mobile ads on YouTube are 84% more likely to get viewer attention according to Ipsos.
Now, if that didn’t blow your mind, here are a few more facts:
Connext Digital projects in-app advertising will reach a staggering $201 billion this year. Then Salesforce reports that almost 70% of brands and companies have integrated in-app advertisements into their marketing strategy.
The last one that left me speechless was a report by Social Media Today that claims that 88% of consumers. Who search for a local business on their mobile call or visit that business within a day. Impressive, right? Thus, without further ado, on to our guide!
What is in-app advertising?
The term “mobile in-app” implies exactly what the name says it does and refers to ads served specifically through apps in smartphones.
Mobile in-app is one of the fastest-growing digital advertising platforms if only for the reason that every third person worldwide lives with a mobile glued to their hand and in the US alone the number of smartphone users has reached 77% last year.
Statista reported a staggering 204 billion mobile app download in 2019 alone. So if you’re still not on board with in-app advertising, I would love on behalf of all of us welcome you back after (I assume) a coma.
How does it work? [ in-app advertising ]
To have an understanding of how in-app works we have to take a good look at all of the “moving parts”. No worries, there’s no need in dissecting this highly complicated tech, but let’s just take a peek at the structure and learn a bit about the in-app ecosystem where users, advertisers, and publishers find common grounds.
Let’s start at the beginning, as they say, app download takes place at the mobile distribution platforms our two main ones are, naturally, the Apple App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.
Read Also: Android App development software
Then we have the development environments where the magical people build all of the apps and use scary words like Unity 3D, Java, Swift, etc.
Analytics & Measurement Platforms
Next are the analytics & measurement platforms that provide us with all of the tools necessary to understand how audiences engage with apps, in-app ads, help us to track data, evaluate engagement and track just about anything and everything.
Then there are the very underutilized backend and LiveOps services like the Playfab or maybe Amazon Game Tech, which include all features not built directly into a mobile device’s operating system, they are mostly used in live gaming and are proven to scale to millions of players and provide support to the gaming process.
Marketing Automation Tools
Next, we have the marketing automation tools, for example, Tapjoy or Braze, which are designed to help marketers manage customer relationships at scale so when anyone interacts with an app, automated processes trigger specific messaging or functionality — such as ad impressions or in-app purchase offers.
Moving on to the crème-de-la-crème of the in-app advertising we arrive at the advertising networks, like the Admixer. Ad networks are champions for publishers with their SSPs as well as champions for advertisers with the DDPs.
For example, Admixer’s Demand-Side Platform is all set up for the demand side or advertisers to purchase audience at scale, they are integrated with top ad exchanges and SSPs and offer new supply sources regularly. Advertisers are guaranteed extremely precise targeting, brand protection, multiple (all of them) advertising channels, detailed reporting and much more.
Ad Mediation Solutions
Lastly, we have ad mediation solutions. Professional mediation solutions like the ironSource or MoPub help app developers to prioritize advertising demand from multiple ad networks and exchanges and earn the highest possible revenue per impression.
Top in-app advertising ad formats
There are altogether five or so top mobile in-app advertising formats that are supported by the top advertising networks. Let’s start with the most popular one:
Video
What we know for sure is that video rules the land, the same goes for the in-app ads: if you’re choosing ad type – choose this one.
Video ad format exhibits much higher effectiveness.
Video format divides into the in-stream and out-stream. Moreover, it offers a wide array of great options to produce highly creative and engaging content.
Read Also: How to create HD YouTube Videos
Overall, in-app video advertising provides CTRs that are much higher than native or banner ads. Video format accounts for around 50% of all in-app ad inventory, and it was reported that at the beginning of 2018 close to 60% of all worldwide in-app video inventory was fullscreen video.
Interstitial
Interstitial is the ad format that fully covers the interface of their host app. It is commonly shown between screens during app navigation.
These ads are valued for their on-point attention-grabbing properties that are very memorable. Thus interstitial makes for a powerful tool for those looking to get their message across.
These ads usually offer the option to skip ahead to the main content after 5 to 20 seconds of playtime.
Banner
Now, this one is a classic we are all familiar with. The static or animated banner usually appears in-app. Even though we don’t see them as exciting advertising options. In-app banner ads still play an important role in today’s marketing mix.
Furthermore, just like all of the other formats, they should be beautifully designed and creative to be relevant, which they usually are not.
Native
These sorts of ads are specifically designed to match the form and function of the app interface where they pop-up. Native ads can be an image or video, but whatever they are they have to mimic the app’s interface and full-on blend into the app.
There are also rich media, playable or in-game ads that are rather new to the scene. Though all continue rapidly growing and quickly gaining unprecedented popularity. Plus, soon enough it is all going to be about AR and VR in-app tech.
In-app targeting
It’s easy to achieve effective accurate targeting within mobile advertising. With today’s advanced targeting options advertisers can easily identify their audience. Moreover, collect in-app data, target specific segments, run cross-channel campaigns and benefit from the awesome location-based option.
Mobile ads offer precise audience segmentation as well as geofencing to reach a relevant audience.
Geofencing super-powers go way beyond those of geotargeting.
Geofencing provides the ability to advertise down to a mile-or-so radius around a specific location.
There’s targeting provided by ad networks. They offer extremely accurate targeting for in-ad campaigns with the widest range of data points being taken into account.
Like IP, demographics, behavior, GEO, device, frequency capping, time, date, and much more. Just pick a professional ad network.
Safety issues [ in-app advertising ]
This is where the opinions differ: some say the in-app advertising earned its risky reputation others call the talks of the in-app buys being susceptible to fraud and ever-rising brand safety issues complete misinformation.
Worth mentioning that all agree the safety concerns don’t take away from the overall in-app ad popularity.
Now, of course, brand safety is immensely important to marketers. As it should be, and no one wants to somehow end up advertising their fall jewelry collection on the extremist channel. Which, I might add, is more than a reasonable thing to want.
So let’s just make it a rule to use new tech that is designed to help us with fraud prevention and, maybe, read up on the new set of standards recently issued by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Media Rating Council.