The Future of Mobile Marketing

With increasingly busy lives, users spend most of their downtime on their mobile phone. They can do almost anything using this pocket companion, from ordering food & groceries, to checking bank accounts, paying rent and even trading on the stock market. As we saw in the trend of the transition from web traffic to mobile traffic, the trend is now evolving to app traffic from mobile web; mobile marketing is well and truly here to stay and here’s why.

It is becoming increasingly clear that mobile marketing isn’t going anywhere; in fact, it is overtaking all other types of marketing when it comes to impressions, reach and results.

What is driving mobile marketing?

If you have ever measured an advertising campaign, you know that most impressions come from users on mobile devices. These factors are driving marketers to rethink their mobile-first approach, and slowly shifting to mobile-only marketing strategy for specific products. This shift means that it is now easier than ever to get users to download an app immediately after seeing an advert. Since they are already on their device, it is a mobile marketing goal at the top of everyone’s list.

The downside of this, of course, is that the once exclusive mobile marketing space is becoming increasingly saturated, and the competition in the app world is at an all-time high (an only rising). Now more than ever, it is crucial to be at the forefront of innovation at all times while using creative mobile marketing techniques in conjunction with any new technology tool that arises.

The potent use of data

Targeting users on their phones allows businesses to use data they never had access to before – such as which places and brick-and-mortar locations a user has visited, and which apps they have downloaded in the past. Along with the rise of AI and proximity marketing, data is making highly targeted ads more potent than ever before.

We are now able to better understand and predict user behaviour and intent, given how frequent mobile interactions are, compared to time spent on desktop.

If you sell baked goods locally, for instance, you could target users who have recently searched for doughnut shops near them, just as they are craving one on-the-go. Getting in front of users only as their intent changes is an absolute game-changer, and mobile marketing is currently the best way to achieve this.

Another thing to consider is wearable technology. Not only can users now pay using their watches, but they are also tracking their heart rate, physical activity and even things like posture and water intake through wearables, and storing all of this data in their phones. The wealth of decision-making data that apps and ads can now use was unimaginable only a few years ago. We are not talking about spying on users, of course, as this data is all given away with consent. We are referring to harnessing – and most importantly, understanding – the information that each user is giving away to apps and websites.

What does the future of mobile marketing hold?

The speed at which algorithms are learning is becoming faster every day. The development of algorithms means that learning phases for digital ads will most likely become shorter over time, and the time it takes to accelerate ad spend, and conversions will decrease. Digital marketing is bound to become more profitable, albeit more competitive, over time; and wearables, AI technology and intent marketing will play increasingly significant roles in this evolution.

With new and exciting ways to gather data using mobile phones that users always carry in their pockets, the digital advertising game is changing rapidly. Unique opportunities to raise return on ad spend and reach particular and highly relevant target audiences are popping up every single day. It is up to us as marketers to stay ahead of the game when it comes to harnessing these to understand our customers better, and thus drive more conversions and build better businesses.

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