A Complete Guide to
Mobile Marketing for 2014
Table of Contents
Introduction
3
The TapSense Mobile Marketer Survey 2014 Results
4
4 Mobile Marketing Secrets by TapSense CEO Ash Kumar
8
Why it’s Critical to Track Conversions for Your Mobile App
11
4
Mobile
SEO
Best
Practices
15
The 5 Most Popular Social Media Native Ads
18
6 Tips to Maximize Mobile Video Advertising
22
Mobile
RTB:
4
Myths
Debunked 25
How to Choose the Right Mobile RTB Exchange
28
3 Things TapSense Can Do That Google’s Mobile
App Analytics Can’t
32
Introduction: Will 2014 Be the Year That
Mobile Moves Beyond the Banner Ad?
Banner ads are the ad format everyone loves to hate. Yet after almost 15 years online, banner ads not only still exist – they persist, adapting to new platforms and technologies. While spending on banners ads on the PC is anemic, growing only 1% in 2013 and is projected to actually decline next year, mobile networks and exchanges still report banner ad request numbers in the billions.
At the same time, spending on other formats such as native ads, video, rich media, mobile search and even full-screen ads has taken off even more in mobile this year. Will the shift to other formats in mobile advertising be the nail in the coffin of the banner ad? Or will banners find renewed life (as they did on the PC) from emerging technology such as re-marketing and re-engagement platforms? What’s clear is that we are on the threshold of a new era in mobile marketing, where marketers have more choices and more powerful technology than ever before.
In this second edition of the TapSense Complete Guide to Mobile Marketing 2014, we explore the plethora of options available in mobile advertising today, from video ads and the new native ad format option in social media networks to the ability to leverage data-driven ad placement through real-time bidding (RTB) platforms. We also discuss a number of other topics relevant to mobile marketers, such as the most lucrative OS to develop an app for, as well as which tracking metrics really make a difference to your marketing campaigns.
The mobile marketing ecosystem is such a rapidly changing space that navigating it can be a challenge. I hope that, as in our last edition, you find our insights and advice to be useful guidance.
Sincerely,
Gregory Kennedy
This fall, TapSense launched our first-ever Mobile Marketer Survey to gather information on how businesses are approaching their mobile marketing plan as we enter 2014. Over the course of October 2013, we surveyed 40 individual digital marketers from agencies and brands all around the US. Apart from better understanding our customers’ needs, we were aiming to gather data points that would confirm some of the big trends we’ve been observing in the market. Some of the results were unexpected. We were probably most surprised by the lack of awareness around simple actions that can make a big difference, from the use of paid mobile advertising to app store optimization. But no matter what strategy a digital marketer may be pursuing, all of our findings are both interesting and actionable. Here are some of the survey highlights:
- Businesses are moving to mobile faster than ever, with 70% of marketers currently promoting a mobile app or mobile website.
- Yet the majority of mobile marketers are not taking advantage of paid advertising, with 63% of respondents saying they are relying on free channels alone for their mobile app or site.
- App store optimization is being overlooked, with 59% of marketers pursuing ad-hoc methods of promoting their app instead.
- Mobile marketing budgets have a lot of room to grow, as 52% of marketers report a budget of $10K or less.
63% of respondents say
they are relying on free
channels alone for their
mobile app or site.
The TapSense Mobile Marketer Survey 2014 Results
Do you Buy Mobile Advertising as a Part of Your Mobile Marketing Strategy? Yes
37%
No63%
Let’s look at these and some of our other notable findings in more detail.
70% of Respondents Are Marketing a Mobile Site or App
With 70% of respondents saying they’re actively marketing a mobile site or app, mobile is finally being embraced on a large scale. Apps were more popular than mobile sites, even when only 25% of respondents had an app. Why are apps the clear choice for marketers? They have clearly defined marketing measurement goals, along with metrics for downloads and usage. And once downloaded, they take up real estate directly on a user’s phone, which makes for an unparalleled branding and engagement opportunity. Account creation through an app tends to be a more straightforward process than it is on the mobile web, for example.
iOS is the Main Focus for Mobile Marketers
Over 65% of marketers in our survey said they were marketing an iOS app, a significant delta over the 45% who were promoting an Android app. Another 42% said they were marketing an iPad app as well. Why is iOS the darling of digital marketers? Industry research shows that iOS devices are preferred by affluent consumers. Our survey confirms that marketers are focusing on those consumers since they have more buying power.
You only need to
support the iPhone
and iPad. Android is
a “nice to have.”
A Majority of Respondents are Neglecting Paid
Mobile Advertising
We were frankly taken aback to learn that only 36% of respondents are buying mobile advertising. Could it be that organic growth is providing significant-enough volumes for companies now expanding into mobile? Or that marketers have been able to leverage social media, email, PR and other free channels to meet their mobile growth needs this year? Even if such strategies are viable now, they won’t be for much longer. We expect these numbers to shift dramatically next year as PC web usage declines and the competition for the consumer’s attention on mobile becomes more fierce.
Nearly a Quarter of Respondents are Failing to Use Social
Media as a Marketing Channel
This was another surprising result. While 76% of respondents say they use social media as a mobile marketing channel, another 23% do not use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networks at all. With even heavily regulated industries like finance and healthcare starting to embrace social networking, we wonder why these companies are still content to be wallflowers at the big social media dance.
App Store Optimization is Being Overlooked
A majority (59%) of marketers are not doing any app store optimization at all. But for those who are, there was no clear or methodical
strategy. 31% of marketers use keyword optimization for app store search and another 28% are optimizing their app’s screenshots. What
we see in these numbers is a large untapped market for systematic app store optimization services and technologies.
Mobile Advertising Budgets Have Room to Grow
Mobile marketing budgets are still relatively small for most marketers, with just 27% reporting a budget over 50K. But with most industry analysts predicting a take-off in mobile marketing spending in 2014, we expect the number of respondents in the 50K+ tier to increase substantially.
Conclusion: Mobile Still Represents a Huge Opportunity
While mobile has captured substantial mindshare among marketers, the actual commitment in terms of both action and investment remains limited. Budgets are still small, and less than half of all marketers buy advertising. Ironically, many are not maximizing free mobile marketing channels either. Yet the current demand for mobile advertising remains relatively low. Easy to employ, inexpensive techniques like app store optimization can still add significant value. These results suggest that there is still a window of advantage for companies who move to master mobile marketing – if they do it now.
2014, we expect the
number of respondents
in the 50K+ tier to
increase substantially.
4 Mobile Marketing Secrets by TapSense CEO
Ash Kumar
Over the past two and half years since our inception, TapSense has collected billions of marketing data points both from our own research as well as from third-party sources. This has become the foundation of our competitive intelligence within the industry. Over the same period of time, we’ve worked with hundreds of marketers, helping them make sense of the fragmented and sometimes confusing world of mobile marketing. Now we want to bring both of these efforts together. Here are our four top insider tips that can give you an edge in the mobile marketplace:
Put most of your resources into supporting the iPhone and
iPad; Android is optional
While this is always the most controversial data point when I give
presentations, I haven’t found a single retailer or m-commerce player who can dispute our findings. At TapSense, we see 80% of all m-commerce transactions occurring on iOS. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise when
At TapSense, we see
80% of all m-commerce
transactions occurring on
iOS. This shouldn’t be a
huge surprise when you
look at income data
by platform.
you look at income data by platform. A Comscore report released in March found that 41% of iOS users earn over 100K annually, while that number on Android is only 24%. Since Android users don’t earn as much as iOS users, that results in lower purchase rates. I’ve even had retailers tell me off the record the difference in value between platforms can be as high as 10 to 1.
Give an app priority over a mobile website
Even with the phenomenal growth of mobile, many people still ask me if an app is worth the investment. The answer is a resounding YES. Consumers have an overwhelming preference for this platform. A compuware survey from March of 2013 found that 85% of consumers favored apps over mobile websites. We see similar results on our platform, with conversion rates on apps three times higher than on mobile websites.
Pay attention to these mobile KPIs: Cost Per Download
(CPD), Cost Per Visit (CPV), Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
and Lifetime Value (LTV)
In mobile, there are only a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that actually matter. No other metrics add the same amount of business value. Even the number of downloads, while directionally important, becomes irrelevant if only a fraction of those downloads are active users. If you are looking for benchmarks to compare to an industry average, we’ve seen the following averages over the past year on the TapSense platform:
- Cost Per Download (CPD) avg: $2.52 - Cost Per Visit (CPV) avg $0.13 - Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) avg $5.16 - Lifetime Value (LTV) avg $16.07.
Use cohort analysis with source attribution to discover the best-performing marketing channels and strategies.
85% of consumers
favor apps over mobile
websites.
More convenient (55%)
Faster (48%)
Easier to browse (40%)
Cohort analysis is the measurement of a specific group (i.e. cohort) that is followed over time. Not only is it a fantastic data visualization tool, but it also provides continuous insight into user behavior. For example, most TapSense customers use one week as the cohort unit, following users acquired from that week over two-, four- and six-week intervals. With this method of measurement, we see that users continue to buy even eight weeks out. On average, we see Lifetime Value at eight weeks anywhere from double to triple what it was during the first week.
Conclusion: Use market intelligence to your advantage
As we look ahead to 2014, we hope these insights gained from our experience in the mobile marketplace can become best practices for your mobile marketing strategy, providing a competitive advantage for marketing initiatives of any size.
Use cohort analysis to
accurately monitor and
understand user Life
Time Value.
Why it’s Critical to Track Conversions for Your
Mobile App
When it comes to managing resources and making a marketing strategy more effective, one piece of data matters more than almost anything else: knowing which channel is responsible for driving the downloads of your app. This is called conversion tracking.
What is Conversion Tracking?
When you log into your app store account, you can find out how many downloads there were in a given period of time, but it won’t show where they came from. Why not? All app stores are a black box. Cookies, JavaScript and other PC web technologies do not work with apps. In order to measure app downloads by channel, marketers need to install a conversion tracking technology platform. Once you see where your downloads are coming from (or not coming from), you can adapt your strategy to your business goals, channel by channel.
Once conversion tracking
is in place, you can go
beyond the download
numbers and see
deep into your
conversion funnel.
How Does it Work?
Conversion tracking starts with the user clicking on a link from a channel such as an email or mobile ad. The user is then taken to the app
store, where they download the app onto their device. Once the app is downloaded, the mobile app conversion tracking technology matches that user to the marketing source.
The basis of this technology is a small piece of code inserted into the app that is called the SDK (Software Development Kit). The SDK communicates with the server and sends data from the app, matching downloads to the links that users clicked from a marketing channel. (In the PC web world, the job of the SDK is done by a JavaScript tag.)
How Does It Provide More ROI ?
Once conversion tracking is in place, you can go beyond the download numbers and see deep into your conversion funnel. This allows you to optimize campaigns to get the greatest return on your marketing investment. For retailers, this would mean measuring registrations, purchase data, repeat purchases, and even total revenue per purchase. For travel marketers, it means measuring hotel bookings, airline reservations and car rentals. For other verticals, marketers should measure data that is most relevant to their business. With conversion tracking in place, you can move beyond measuring just cost per download and start fine-tuning your marketing to the goals that matter most to your business.
The basis of this
technology is a
small piece of code
inserted into the app
that is called the SDK
(Software Development
Kit).
This communicates
with the server and
sends data from
the app, matching
downloads to the links
that users clicked from
a marketing channel.
How Does It Make Marketing More Effective?
With a steady stream of real-time data coming from your app, it is possible to do even more sophisticated analysis and conduct impressive data visualizations. For example, cohort analysis, which monitors a group of users over time, provides a more accurate picture of how different initiatives are performing. This allows you to plan for seasonality, identify the best day of the week for campaigns and also optimize creative. In addition, this kind of analysis provides better insight into lifetime value, improves your marketing funnel, and allows you to adjust marketing campaigns directly to revenue generated.
Are There Any Technical Limitations?
Most conversion tracking platforms can only measure downloads that originate from an app, generally through in-app ads. The download matching is done by taking the ID of the device where the click was registered, and matching that to the ID of the device where the download was registered. But in order to measure a click that originated elsewhere – i.e., from an email or from an app that has limited ID
sharing due to privacy concerns - a form of digital fingerprinting must be available to do the matching. Digital fingerprinting technology matches the download-based algorithms that are proprietary to each vendor. These systems increase the marketer’s ability to do source attribution
across e-mail, paid, search, social and even the PC web. But accuracy with digital fingerprinting can vary greatly from vendor to vendor, because there is no agreed-upon technical standard to follow.
What’s the Right Solution for Me?
TapSense solves all the technical challenges of mobile app conversion tracking without requiring you to become a technologist yourself. TapSense provides mobile marketers with a complete marketing cloud solution. Having support for all channels gives you the flexibility to test new channels as they emerge. With conversion tracking in place, there is no more guesswork when planning, budgeting and optimizing your mobile app marketing.
The TapSense platform provides accurate and unbiased third party measurement for mobile marketing across both free and paid channels. Through a single dashboard, you can manage and optimize mobile campaigns across hundreds of publishers, social media and email. You can also perform cohort analysis, ROI analysis and get powerful data visualizations of your marketing campaigns. Over 100 customers have succeeded with TapSense, including Fab, Redfin, Trulia, Expedia, Viator, Amazon and eBay.
4 Mobile SEO Best Practices
We see a lot of mobile marketers today focusing on advertising formats such as banner ads, rich media, video, or a publisher’s native formats. Those channels do deserve your attention since they perform well in the mobile ecosystem. At the same time, it’s important not to lose sight of mobile SEO. Mobile search on a smartphone is surprisingly popular among users. And as consumers now are about to fully embrace mobile shopping, mobile SEO will become even more important. To stay ahead of the curve, check out these four best practices for mobile SEO:
Ensure Your Website is Responsive
While having a mobile-specific HTML site is helpful, Google does
prefer responsive designs over mobile HTML sites. What’s the difference? A responsively designed site will adjust the layout automatically to alter the text, images, content to fit the device that site is being displayed on,
Mobile search on a
smartphone is surprisingly
popular among users.
And as consumers now
are about to fully embrace
mobile shopping, mobile
SEO will become even
more important.
whether iPhone/iPad, Android devices, or even desktop computers. Also, a site with a responsive design is much easier to maintain since you are only managing one website rather than multiple websites for different devices. Below is a great example of a website with responsive design:
Have a Single URL for your Site, Whether It’s Mobile
or Desktop
Why is it smart to have the same URL for both your mobile and desktop site? First, it boosts your SEO ranking. With a single site, all the links back point to one URL, which greatly increases their value in Google overall. But having a single URL can also be faster, since it doesn’t require a redirect per device, which slows down the user experience. (And the slower things are on mobile, the worse the user experience. Load times matter, especially when connecting over a cellular network.) There’s one other reason to pair a single URL with a responsive design: it allows users to easily share your content, whether through social media or through their own blogs. And that helps your organic search rank too.
Take Advantage of Local Search
While not technically SEO, the local search feature of Google AdWords is very powerful. It provides users with results relevant to their physical location, allowing consumers to find a store location, call a store directly from the search result, or even do research online, which can either increase purchase intent on another device or influence their decision to buy directly in the store. If you want to use local search to your
Have a Single URL for
your Site, Whether It’s
Mobile or Desktop.
advantage, remember that it’s not only important to align your users’ search intent with the right content, but also to take into account the small screen size of mobile devices. Below is a great example:
Don’t Rely on Desktop Keyword Research for Mobile
Keyword Research
Since the mobile experience is so different from the desktop, the terms that users use to search on their smartphones can also be significantly different. To see some examples of mobile keyword data in Google Analytics, select “Operating System” as the second dimension in your Organic Keyword report and filter out the desktop operating systems. Doing this will enable you to see what keywords are driving users to your mobile site, which allows you to improve those further while also optimizing for new keywords. Even more tactically, you can see which keywords to bid for and decide how to handle bids based on organic rankings.
By keeping these four basic practices in mind, you will be well-prepared to ride the next wave in m-commerce and marketing.
The 5 Most Popular Social Media Native Ad Formats
In essence, native ads are ads in formats specific to a publisher’s own platform. Google’s text ads, which are embedded on the search results page, were one of the first examples. Because native ads customize both the user experience and the content, they provide more value to the user, and increase user engagement.
As a result, more and more different publishers and vendors are now selling native ad formats to marketers. This is especially true of social media platforms. To help you navigate this new landscape, we’ve put together the following guide to the top five types of social media native ads:
Facebook Mobile Ads
Because Mark Zuckerberg famously resisted the idea of showing standard banner ads to users, Facebook was an early pioneer of native ad formats. Recently, they took their sponsored newsfeed format to mobile, allowing advertisers to promote Facebook pages, blog content, or drive app
Because native ads
customize both the user
experience and the
content, they provide
more value to the user,
and increase user
engagement.
downloads. The targeting of these ads is based on social criteria such as age, gender, location and interests of the user. (Psychographic targeting has also been generated from Facebook “likes.”) Facebook mobile ads do not support video yet, but we expect this to change by year-end 2014.
Who this works best for: Since these ads drive users directly to content of the users’ choice or to the app store, this creates a prime opportunity for consumer-focused products in entertainment and retail, as well as other B2C verticals.
LinkedIn Sponsored Posts
LinkedIn sponsored posts look very similar to Facebook’s native ads. However, there are some important differences. On their mobile platform, LinkedIn only allows posts to an external URL to be promoted, such as a link to a blog post or an e-book. (It’s not possible to have a mobile app install format in LinkedIn sponsored posts.) Current targeting criteria are quite granular and include job title, job function, industry, and other business-focused options.
Who this works best for: Because of the focus on workplace connections, LinkedIn is better suited to B2B marketers who need to reach a specific business audience rather than consumers.
Twitter Ads
Twitter’s native ad formats also look superficially similar to LinkedIn and Facebook, but because Twitter doesn’t have as much personal information as these other social networks, they offer targeting based on other types of user data. For example, you can target users who follow you, or target content themes through hashtags and keywords in your timeline.
Who this works best for: As content-based targeting has broad appeal, these ads would be useful to both B2B and B2C marketers.
Instagram Ads
Since this is one of the latest native social media formats to emerge, we have not yet been able to see how brands will use Instagram native ads. Nor do we have much information on performance and targeting options. What we do know is that some – but not all - of the targeting features from Facebook will be available.
Who this works best for: Given the image-driven nature of the product, it has the potential to be a great brand play. It will also be a good advertising platform for retailers and consumer brands, as they will be able to show off their newest products and seasonal items.
Pinterest Promoted Pins
In mid-September, Pinterest announced they were launching a “promoted pins” service in an attempt to monetize their platfom. Pinterest has stated
that they want to be transparent in regards to the implementation and the feedback they receive, but as of this writing there is not much information about targeting options or features.
Who this works best for: Given Pinterest’s track record as a platform that can drive traffic to e-commerce players, retailers and consumer brands will also be well-served here. Here is what the promoted pins will look like:
6 Tips to Maximize Mobile Video Advertising
Mobile video is shaping up to be one of the decade’s biggest trends. Consumers are spending more time on their smartphones and less time watching TV, with time spent watching video on mobile almost equal to time spent watching video online. This trend has been assisted by the growing popularity of high-end devices, along with the proliferation of Wi-Fi at cafes, workplaces, hotel lobbies and other public spaces. And as mobile video content has proliferated, so has mobile video advertising. This year, mobile video ad spend has increased a whopping 112% and is projected to grow 78% in 2014, making mobile video the fastest- growing segment in the digital video space.
That’s for good reason. Mobile video is a highly engaging form of advertising. Data from DG MediaMind shows that average CTR for in-stream video ads was 1.11%, much higher than its mobile banner ad counterpart, which has a CTR of 0.88%. If you’re just starting to explore the implications of this important trend for your marketing strategy, here are six tips to help you get the most out of mobile video ads.
Mobile video ad
spend has increased a
whopping 112% and is
projected to grow 78%
in 2014, making mobile
video the fastest- growing
segment in the digital
video space.
Mix Full Screen Display and Video in the Same Buy to
Increase Engagement
Adding display creative into a campaign helps to drive user interest. While videos generally see low click-through rates on mobile, the combination of display and video can significantly drive up the CTR. Consumers who have already experienced a brand through a video are more likely to click on a full-screen ad for the same brand from that campaign.
Add Custom Buttons to Capture Feedback and Extend an
Interactive Experience
Use rich media tools to add custom buttons in video campaigns and extend performance. Calls to action such as “Tap to share on Facebook,” “Tap to download from iTunes” or “Tap to view website” can extend the interactive experience of the campaign and increase virality. This brand-response approach to mobile video advertising adds dimension to your campaign while also providing additional opportunities to scale campaign reach.
Keep in Mind the Screen Size of Mobile Devices
Because of the small size of mobile screens, video ads must be crisp, clear and easy on the eyes. If you do use text, make sure the text stands out from the video and can be easily read. Also keep in mind that television and video are two different media. Television spots can be repurposed for video sometimes, but not always. To be sure your video works for mobile, have it edited for small screens, and then view it on a mobile device to test.
Take Advantage of Mobile Video Format Options
Video-specific sites and apps like YouTube and Hulu offer their mobile video ads in PC web style, with pre- and mid-roll formats. On a tablet, the performance of pre- and mid-roll ads is very similar to what you would see on the PC. But scale is limited. Interstitials, or full-screen mobile ads, are not only the most popular mobile video format today, but also make the best option for entertainment products, movie and TV launches, where delivery at scale is ultimately more important than the granularity of audience targeting.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a great way to increase virality and extend reach. Platforms like Vine and Instagram have transformed photo and video sharing, making it nearly ubiquitous. Innovative brands and marketers have been able to leverage these new channels, like Airbnb who used Vine exclusively to create an extremely creative 30-second spot.
Follow Up your Video with Engaging Content
Once you have the user’s attention, it’s important to ensure the content you have after the click is engaging. Whether it’s a blog post, game, or discount coupon, you want to ensure the user will engage with the brand as much as possible. Having that compelling content in place is often the difference between catching the attention of a consumer and making them your next customer.
A branded Vine video
is four-times more
likely to be seen than a
regular branded video.
Instagram videos are
creating two-times
more engagement
than Instagram photos.
Mobile RTB: Four Myths Debunked
Just in the past few months, Twitter purchased the hosted ad serving solution MoPub for $350 million, automated ad buyer Rocket Fuel’s IPO made headlines, and AppNexus’ real-time ad exchange has also grown rapidly. But despite clear market acceptance and advances in RTB technology, there are still a number of myths and misconceptions about RTB in general and mobile RTB in particular. Let’s look at some of the main ones:
Myth 1: Premium Publishers Are Not on RTB Yet
Premium publishers may be underrepresented on RTB today, but we predict this will change dramatically by the end of 2014. There is data from Adomic that shows 20% of the top 3000 publishers’ inventory, on average, already going to RTB. They may not be selling their top banner ad space through RTB yet, but these top tier publishers are starting to put their other inventory on RTB ad networks. This trend will accelerate as publishers leverage blocking tools on exchanges that enable them
Despite clear market
acceptance and
advances in RTB
technology, there are still
a number of myths and
misconceptions about
RTB in general and
mobile RTB in particular.
to prevent certain brands, advertisers, and even referral URLs from advertising on their inventory.
RTB will also be embraced by publishers’ direct sales teams. Because it allows publishers to see which advertisers are bidding on their inventory, this is intelligence the sales team can use to increase direct sales to those advertisers. Publishers’ sales teams can see the CPM bids for the inventory too, enabling them to increase their CPMs on the direct sales side.
Myth 2: I Don’t Need RTB Because I Can Buy from a
Variety of Mobile Ad Networks
If you were to scour the Internet for mobile ad networks at this moment, you would find over 400 ad networks globally. There is no denying that all of these networks share some of the same inventory even now. But as time goes on, it’s going to even harder for them to differentiate. If you are the advertiser, how do you choose one ad network over the rest? And without differentiation, what happens next for the mobile ad networks themselves? Here at TapSense we believe we are going to see further consolidation of ad networks, across both mobile and desktop. How will this consolidation play out? We predict an arms race among the likes of Google, Amazon, and Yahoo. These major ad networks are growing and increasing their ad revenues, and smaller ad networks cannot keep up. Rather than waiting for diminishing revenue to drive them out of business, a better option for small networks is to be acquired by larger players.
Myth 3: Buying RTB is Too Hard, Expensive and
Complicated for Marketers
Back in the early days of RTB – meaning about a year ago - there were some real barriers to entry in terms of cost and complexity. You would have had to set up a trading desk, check that you were connected to the right ad networks, and then ensure you had the proper DSPs in place. But all that has changed in the RTB space today. Now, setting up RTB advertising is as simple as placing a phone call. There are more ad tech companies that offer inventory via RTB than ever. Whether you are trying to purchase inventory to drive clicks (through ad buys) or to drive conversions (through retargeting), there is an ad tech vendor to serve you. It is also considerably less expensive to get started. With ad buys as
low as $1000-$1500 per month, and retargeting campaigns starting at $500-$1000 a month, it is very easy even for smaller advertisers to start running RTB campaigns.
Myth 4: RTB Inventory is All Remnant Inventory,
So it Does Not Perform
Although not many premium publishers have their top inventory on RTB networks today, there is plenty of additional high-quality inventory, and it does perform. The data proves mobile RTB performs better than non-RTB campaigns. Adfonic, a mobile DSP, found that mobile non-RTB CTRs are 100% higher in the UK, 97% higher in the US, 80% in Australia, and 50%+ in France and Holland, compared to their non-RTB counterparts. Why do RTB campaigns perform so much better than non-RTB
campaigns? The targeting capabilities of RTB ensure users see ads that are specific to them in some way, such as a retargeted ad from a website the user visited in the past. And when users are shown ads that resonate with them, they are more likely to engage with that ad regardless of its location.
Conclusion: The Proof is in the Data
Most of the misconceptions around RTB are driven by preconceptions around “premium” inventory that do not really hold water. If you were to ask five people in ad tech to even define premium inventory, you would get five different answers. Here at TapSense, we see a wiser choice of action. Rather than focusing on whether your ad buys are premium or remnant, let the ad performance data drive decisions about where to invest your ad dollars.
How to set up a Mobile RTB Exchange
With many mobile ad networks, DSPs and publishers already reporting that a large portion of their demand is now using RTB (real-time
bidding), the mobile RTB space is expanding rapidly.
There are two basic types of mobile RTB ad exchange: a public marketplace and a private one. To date, the public model has been the most popular implementation – but not always the most effective. In essence, it’s one large and open marketplace, where mobile publishers put a portion of their inventory on the market and buyers bid across the inventory from all publishers. Results have been mixed. Some early adopters have experienced limited demand for inventory, which in turn has driven CPMs down. Premium publishers have also been reluctant to participate since it’s hard for them to stand out and command more for their inventory.
But some of these issues can be avoided with a private marketplace solution. This implementation offers the best of both worlds, allowing a
Some of the
biggest players
in this space, including
AOL and Twitter, have
already embraced it.
Other large publishers are
sure to follow.
publisher to maintain quality by selecting only the partners they want to deal with. This gives the publisher more control, such as the ability to set CPM floors and other measures to ensure they don’t see a drastic reduction in CPMs. But since there are different implementations of the private marketplace option that would suit some publishers’ needs better than others, we provide an overview of the three most popular
methods below:
Model 1: Segmented Marketplace
This is the most popular use case for a private marketplace. In this implementation, a publisher white labels an RTB platform, branding it to represent themselves in terms of look and feel, while the publisher sells their inventory separately from that RTB platform. This allows the publisher to represent their own inventory while utilizing the RTB technology. The publisher also controls most of the sell-side rules such as transparency, pricing, auditing of ad creative, and demand inclusion or exclusion. The publisher decides which buyers are in their marketplace, controls the CPM pricing, and ensures brand-safe creative is running at all times. Who this works best for: Large publishers with lots of inventory and existing sales relationships.
The white-label solution makes it easy to take advantage of the
efficiencies that RTB provides, such as the speed, efficiency, and access to targeting data, while also benefiting from platform improvements and new technology as they are updated across the entire platform.
Model 2: Tier Auction Private Marketplace
In this implementation, the publisher sells their inventory on an RTB exchange, albeit with a priority “tier” which allows certain advertisers access to the inventory ahead of others. In essence, it’s first right of refusal. The publisher decides which advertisers get first dibs: usually, high-quality brand advertisers. The benefit of this setup is the publisher can award impressions to a brand advertiser rather than letting those impressions go to low-quality bidders. It also gives advertisers some control over the inventory they want to purchase.
RTB technology is efficient at allocating traffic, in order to get the best price for a publisher. This helps publishers take advantage of different
The right private
RTB marketplace
implementation offers
the best of both
worlds, allowing a
publisher to maintain
quality by selecting
only the partners they
want to deal with.
price points and maximize yield for their inventory. But publishers still need to manage all this complexity by creating the pricing, transparency, and other rules based on the demand segment or “tier” of the buyer. Who this works best for: Medium to large publishers with limited sales resources. With this model, publishers are able to maximize their CPMs by giving preference to brand buyers first and generate additional revenues by offering the remaining inventory to remnant buyers.
Model 3: Exclusive Access Auctions
This is the simplest of all RTB exchanges. It allows buyers and sellers to negotiate predefined terms for pricing, availability of inventory, and transparency. Usually this means that offline terms are negotiated with RTB as the delivery method. Since it’s easy to set up and manage campaigns, publishers gain the speed and efficiency of RTB, but it has very little impact on pricing. All terms have been decided in advance, eliminating competition for inventory.
This type of exchange can complement direct sales channels by enabling marketers to leverage the efficiency of RTB. Media buyers can take advantage of global targeting, frequency capping, creative rotation, and the first-party data that is available in the marketplace.
Who this works best for: Large publishers with complex targeting and first party audience segments. The RTB platform excels at delivering complex buys in an automated fashion, at scale.
Marketplace Type Advantages Disadvantages
Model 1: Segmented
Controls the quality of advertisers in a marketplace.
Gains the operational efficiency of RTB. Sets all the sell-side rules for advertisers. Allows for additional demand sources to be tapped by making some inventory available on the public market.
Requires significant investment in time and technology to set up.
Depends on large inventory mix with existing sales relationships.
Limits competition to an approved set of white-listed buyers.
Model 2: Tiered
Does not compete with publishers’ direct sales channels.
Gives publishers complete control over advertisers and sell-side rules.
Provides the operational efficiency of RTB.
Makes it difficult to maximize CPM pricing. Requires sell-side rules for every tier in the auction.
Limits competitive pressure to drive up pricing.
Model 3: Exclusive
Does not compete with publishers’ direct sales channels.
Gives publishers complete control over advertisers and sell-side rules.
Provides the operational efficiency of RTB.
Makes it hard to scale and take advantage of aggregate small buyer demand.
Does not allow CPM pricing to follow real time market dynamics.
Requires price maximization to be decided by offline negotiation rather than technology.
3 Things TapSense Can Do That Google’s
Mobile App Analytics Can’t
It’s true that MAA offers event tracking, flow visualization, goals, and crash reports. However, there are also three key benefits you can’t get from Google MAA that you can get with TapSense:
Visibility and Depth with Cohort Analysis
Cohort analysis is a measurement technique that groups users into segments (i.e. cohorts) and follows them over time. Many retailers use this to follow the spending of groups of users acquired over a one-week period, observing their spending as time goes on. In this case the retailers are typically looking for a specific return, measured in dollars at intervals such as one week, three weeks, six weeks and three months.
The main advantage of cohort analysis over other techniques is the insight it provides into subtle creative changes in a campaign, or the effect of
With Google Analytics
the current standard for
PC website measurement,
it would be tempting to
think that Google Mobile
App Analytics (MAA) would
also be a one-stop-shop
for mobile app metrics.
seasonality. While standard analytics shows you all the revenue in one big bucket, cohort analysis shows you which campaign brought in repeat customers, and how to replicate those results.
Retailers are not the only businesses that can benefit from cohort analysis. If you have an app or a mobile SaaS business that requires users to consistently come back and use your product, you can use cohort analysis to see which marketing campaigns keep your most loyal users connected.
Flexibility to Add and Remove Features Easily
With a huge array of charts, graphs, buttons and navigation elements, the dashboard of Google Analytics seems to rival the complexity of an airline cockpit. Even performing simple tasks, such as identifying which keywords are driving traffic, requires installing additional software on your site. Yet there is no way to eliminate features from the dashboard that you don’t need or want to use.
By contrast, TapSense is designed to be user-friendly. There is no long and confusing left-hand navigation, full of extra buttons. Instead, all features are contained in separate apps, allowing you to access only the data you need. For example, our ROI analysis app is not mandatory to use. If you don’t need it or want it, you don’t have to keep it in your dashboard – just turn off the feature within TapSense. It’s that easy. The apps format makes for a much more streamlined and simplified user experience that can be tailored precisely to how you do your marketing.
TapSense is designed
to be user-friendly all
features are contained
in separate apps,
allowing you to access
only the data you need.
Out-of-the-Box Integration with Third Party Publishers
With apps, it used to be a challenge to try new things like testing new publishers, new creative, new calls to action and new forms of media. The main reason? Multiple SDK integrations. Setting up each traffic source’s SDK in your app took significant engineering time and resources. It also required getting the task slotted into the product development cycle and waiting on app store approval. The limitations of this process would become painfully clear once you waited for three or four SDKs. What if you wanted to test one new publisher a month? That would be 12 integrations a year!
With TapSense, you can bypass all of this complexity with just one SDK. Our SDK gives you the ability to easily work with 300 high-quality mobile publishers. No more integrating different SDKs for different traffic sources and logging into different dashboards to do your reporting. TapSense provides one centralized tool for all your mobile marketing needs.
About TapSense
TapSense is a leading mobile marketing cloud platform that provides a private RTB (Real Time Bidding) marketplace solution. Over 100
customers have succeeded with TapSense, including: Fab, Redfin, Trulia, Expedia, Viator, Amazon and eBay.
TapSense was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco, California. Investors include top Silicon Valley venture firms, Ron Conway’s SV Angel and Maynard Webb, a board member of Salesforce and Yahoo.
Contact Us
Email: info@tapsense.com Follow us: @tapsense
Glossary A
Advertisers: Marketers from brands and business who buy advertising. Can be broken down into two main types. The
first are called “Brand or Institutional” advertisers and the second “Direct Response” advertisers. Brand advertisers focus promoting a brand’s image or a particular initiative. Direct response advertisers focus on driving app downloads, generating sales and generating leads.
Advertising Option Icon: The “i” triangle button is placed on ad creatives so a consumers can learn how their data is
collected and used. Administered the AdChoices, an industry consortium dedicated to self regulation.
Ad Blockers: Software enabled through a person’s web browser or mobile device which can prevent ads from being
displayed.
Ad Exchanges: A marketplace that automates the ad buying process for both the advertiser (buyer) and the publishers
(seller). There are many different types of exchanges and they operate under various models.
Ad Integration: The technical process of defining and making available ad slots within a publisher’s site or app. Ad Network: An Ad Network is a company that connects advertisers to publishers. The network model aggregates many
different publishers into one generic ad buy, usually at steep discount. Buyers have very little control over where the ads are displayed. Some networks are totally blinded, they offer no insight into what sites and apps the ads appear on. While others are semi-blinded and provide the advertiser with a list of publisher that the ads will appear on.
Ad Ops (Online Advertising Operations): The team and process which aid in the sales and delivery of online advertising.
Specifically the process and systems that sell, input, serve, target and report on digital ad campaigns.
Ad Request: The request made to an ad server to display an advertisement. The request doesn’t always result in an ad
displayed for a variety of reasons, including mobile network latency.
Ad Servers: The technology that disseminates a digital ad and measure the performance of that ad. Ad Slot: Refers to a space in an app that has been reserved for advertisement.
Ad Unit: Any predefined advertising vehicle that can appear in an app or on a mobile website. For example, a rectangular
banner is considered to be a common type of ad unit.
Digital advertising is transforming rapidly. With new technology being developed and deployed faster than ever before, how does one keep up? In order to help marketers and media buyers stay current with all the terminology, acronyms and jargon, we developed this glossary of Mobile Advertising terms.
We hope that you enjoy this glossary and welcome your feedback. If you have ideas for additional terms that you feel should be include please contact marketing@tapsense.com.
Glossary
Glossary A-B
Ad Verification: Tools that advertisers use to determine if impressions are displayed, where they are displayed and if
they meet the advertiser’s privacy criteria. It’s popular to use an ad verification system to verify blinded buys and provide confidence that the proper audience has been reached.
Agencies: Advertising agencies are businesses that are dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising for their
clients. Many advertising agencies specialize in a specific area such as social media, online advertising, mobile advertising, and search engine marketing.
Agency Trading Desks (ATDs): A media buying platforms owned and operated by an agency.
Algorithm: This is a step by step procedure for calculations. Algorithms are used for calculations, data processing, and
automation. Algorithms are what powers the RTB and DSP space.
Analytics:
• Third Party: Generally a survey based approach popular in traditional media. Examples include companies
such as comScore and Nielsen.
• First Party: Software tools (Google Analytics, Omniture, Webtrends among them) operated through tags
on a site’s pages or in an app, which provide data on usage, sales conversion, clicks, impression and other digital metrics.
API (Application Programming Interface): A predetermined way for a software components to interact with each other.
API’s are commonly included in SDKs.
Audience Targeting: The practice of using data to imply an audience, either by demography, life stage or intent. One
example is targeting people who have searched for information on a cars or mobile phones.
Beacons: A 1x1 pixel tag typically used by an advertiser or a third party ad server to track a unique user’s activity over times. Behavioral Targeting: What is now generally referred to as “audience targeting.” It’s the process of looking at behavior
instead of context as a method for ad targeting .
Big Data: A term used to describe a data driven approach to business. The Big Data approach stresses the use of data and
quantitative analysis as the primary factor in business decision making.
Blocked Sites: Publishers who an advertisers or ad buying platform have deemed inappropriate to appear on that site.
Generally referring to a publisher that was available on a buying platform, but was blocked for violating the terms of service of the buyers.
Brand Impact Studies: Studies which use control/exposed methodology to determine whether an ad that was served had an
impact on metrics like ad recall, brand favorability and purchase intent.
Call to Action: A statement or instruction, that explains to a user how to respond to an opt-in for a particular promotion or
mobile initiative, which is typically followed by a notice.
Click-to-Call: A mobile specific ad interaction type where a user clicks an ad which launches a phone call. Popular with paid
search, direct response and small local businesses.
Click Through Rate: A way of measuring the success of a digital advertising campaign. CTR is obtained by dividing the
Glossary
Glossary C-D
Contextual Targeting: A contextual advertising system scans the text of a web for certain keywords and returns
advertisements to the webpage based on ad messages that match with those keyword. Example: ads on the side of your Gmail that pop up text ads based on your email content.
Natural Contextual Targeting: The traditional method of ad buying which looked at the contextual nature of the editorial
content and placed relevant ads into it. An example would be a car advertisement running in a car review magazine.
Conversion Tracking: Conversion tracking allows marketers to measure app installs driven from advertising and marketing.
The technology is used primarily in cookieless environments like in-app ads.
Cookies:
• First party cookies: Used by an individual publisher to identify a visitor in an anonymized way. • Third party cookies: Used by an adserver to identify and categorize a visitor into a targeting segment
or classification.
• Cookie Deletion: The process of deleting cookies from your web browser to avoid detection by
advertising technology.
• Cookieless Technology: Any substitute to cookie based identification. Used in mobile app advertising to
target and classify users generally through IFA (Identification for advertisers) from Apple.
CPC (Cost per Click): A digital advertising business model where an advertiser only pays for ads clicked upon, popularized
by Google when they introduced Adwords.
CPI (Cost per Install): The cost required for a marketer to generate an app install. Typically this is a fixed price charged by a
DSP to a marketer regardless of the CPM or CPC price.
CPM (Cost per Mil): The Cost per Mil (thousand impressions delivered) is a method of ad buying where a given publishers
charges on this basis of ad exposure. Poplar with brand advertising where click throughs are not relevant.
eCPM: A mathematical process of calculating a publisher CPM from a different methods such as CPC. Generally performed
by publishers who have buyers using both CPM and CPC. By calculating an eCPM they can better manage yield optimization. The eCPM calculation is: cost/(impressions delivered/1000).
Creative Optimization: The process of favoring the highest performing creative by adjusting the frequency of creative
exposure, typically on a direct response basis.
DAA (Digital Advertising Alliance): A trade organization that promotes industry self regulation including: AAAAs, AAF, ANA,
DMA with support from the CBBB. The alliance includes over 5,000 member companies.
Data Aggregators: Platforms that aggregate ad serving data, conversion data and other 3rd party data sources including
offline data.
Data Leakage: The practice of scraping or matching user attributes from targeting data in an unintended way. Generally, but
not always a violation of a platform’s or publisher’s terms of service.
Device Type: A class of devices with identical capabilities. All devices of the same device type can be treated
Glossary
Glossary D-M
DDM (Data Driven Marketing): An approach to marketing that stresses the use of quantitative analysis to determine the
targeting, timing, and content of marketing promotions.
Digital Fingerprinting: App tracking methodology that collects parameters about a specific mobile user such as the time
stamp or network visited. This is used to track a mobile user’s activity in a completely anonymized fashion.
Direct Sold: Inventory sold by a publisher directly through their sales team.
DMA (Designated Market Area): In the US a DMA represents counties, zip codes or sometimes split counties that contain a
specific population that can be targeted by advertising.
DMPs (Data Management Platforms): A platform used to collect unstructured audience data from analytical tools, CRM,
point of sale data, social, advertising or any other available sources.
DSP (Demand Side Platform): A platform that automates media buying across multiple sources. It generally provides the
buyer with unified targeting, data, optimization and reporting.
Dynamic Pricing: The practice of publishers dynamically changing the price of their inventory in step with market demand. Engagement Rates: Percent of total impressions that were clicked, liked, or commented on regardless of platform.
Exchange: Used to define a business model where vendors place themselves as a middleware solution for the direct purpose
of driving market liquidity between the demand side and the supply side.
Fill Rate: The percentage of ad requests that are filled with ads.
Frequency Capping: The practice of managing the number of times a user views a specific ad creative.
HTML5: The 5th revision of HTML code. Includes support for animation, video and other rich media functionality. Used
exclusively by Apple as a replacement to Flash for delivery of rich media content.
IDFA (Identifier For Advertisers): Tracking method used by advertisers for devices running Apple iOS 6 or higher. Allows for
user opt out at the device level. This supplanted the use of UDID (Unique Device Identifier) prior to iOS 6.
Impression: Measurement unit for digital advertising, where a single view of an ad is counted as one impression.
Interstitial Ads: A full screen ad slot that appears between the current user state and next within an mobile app or game. Inventory: The estimated total amount of ad space a publisher has available to sell to an advertiser.
Premium Inventory: Ad impression which is in high demand and gives the advertiser the highest possible ROI.
Remnant Inventory: Ad impression from low performing placements that publishers offer up to be resold as part of blinded
or semi-blinded package.
Latency: The length of time between, a user taking an action (such as clicking) and the response of the application to perform
the task. This is generally used to refer to the length of time between a page loading and the ads appearing on that page.
Glossary
Glossary M-R
LUMA Landscape: A map of the marketing technology space which shows different technologies and where they sit in the
ecosystem. It’s created by an investment banking firm called LUMA Partners.
Media Silos: A term used to describe the specialization of media buying and planning that happens in a large agency. Teams
are generally based on a specific media type such as TV, outdoor, digital or social and don’t have domain knowledge of expertise in an area outside to their own.
MMA (Mobile Marketing Association): The Mobile Marketing Association is the premier global non-profit trade association
established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies.
Native Advertising: An ad unit that looks like a piece of content from a specific publisher. It generally is labeled as
“sponsored content or post.” Publishers such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Buzzfeed already incorporate native ad formats into their published content.
OPEN RTB: A project started in November 2010 by the IAB to develop an API specification for companies interested in
an open protocol for the automated trading of digital media across a broader range of platforms, devices, and advertising solutions.
Pre-roll: The streaming of a mobile advertising clip prior to a mobile TV/video clip. The mobile ad is usually 10-15 seconds
in length.
Private Marketplaces And Exchanges: The ability of a publisher through an SSP to carve out a portion of their inventory and
sell it programmatically. Generally set up the following three ways:
• Tiered Auctions: The publisher sells their inventory on a RTB exchange, however they create a priority
“tier” to allow only certain advertisers access to the inventory ahead of other buyers.
• Segmented Auctions: The publisher white labels an RTB platform and sells their inventory separately from
that RTB platform.
• Exclusive Access: The publisher allows buyers and sellers to negotiate predefined terms for pricing, availability of inventory, transparency, etc. RTB becomes the delivery vehicle for these terms.
Programmatic Buying: The practice of automating the digital media buying process.
Programmatic Selling: The practice of using a DSP to automate the sale of media assets.
Programmatic Trading: The practice of fully automating both the buying and selling of online media with little or no
human intervention.
Publishers: Companies that produce the content on websites or apps where ads are placed.
Push Messaging: Any content sent by advertisers and marketers to your mobile device at a time other than when you
requested it. Push messaging can include audio, SMS, e-mail, multimedia messaging, cell broadcast etc.
Retargeting: A form of online advertising by which ads are targeted to consumers based on their previous internet activity.
There are various types of retargeting including:
• Site: Targeting users who visit a page of your website. • Email: Targeting users who open your emails.
Glossary
Glossary R-Z
• Search: Targeting users who search for specific search queries in search engines.
• CRM: Targeting offline users by onboarding offline data such as a mailing address to a data provider and
matching up IP addresses.
ROI (Return On Investment): A metric that describes how much money is gained or lost on marketing relative to the
amount invested.
RTB (Real Time Bidding): Method of selling and buying online display advertising in real time one ad impression at a time.
This happens instantaneously through a live auction, very similar to the automated stock trading on a stock market exchange.
Second Price Auction Model: When an ad sale through fails to hit the floor or minimum pricing set and the publisher decides
it’s worth putting it out again at a different price.
Semantic Targeting: A more advanced version of contextual targeting. A technology that actually reads the text of a page
and targets ad based on it’s ability to read the text, rather than just match individual keywords.
Sentiment Analysis: Used to determine if the “sentiment” of the page is positive or negative.
Social mvv based on data from social networks and an individuals “social graph” or network of friends.
Stack: Used to describe the different technology layers in place to facilitate the buying or selling of digital advertising.
Different vendors specialize on different parts of the “stack” and the pieces all operate together to form an ecosystem.
Supply Side Platforms (SSP): A platform that automates publisher media optimization process from multiple sources and
provides unified reporting.
Transparency: Generally refers to advertisers requesting a complete lists of sites and apps they can advertise on through
either a network or an exchange.
UDID (Unique Device Identifier): Hardware-based identifier unique to Apple’s iOS which was used by advertising
companies to gather user data to improve ad relevance. Replaced in 2012 with IFA (Identifier for Advertisers).
Unified Optimization: The process of unifying tools and reporting available through an SSP so that a
publisher can look at their inventory in a holistic manner and optimize their sales accordingly.
Unique User: Refers to the number of distinct individuals requesting ads during a given period.
View Through: The practice of tagging a user that didn’t click, but did view an ad. If a conversion action is take such as a
sale that is referred to as a View Through Conversion.
Viewable Ads: A classification of ads placements that are actually seen by a users rather than just loaded on a page or
into an app.
VCs: Venture capitalists are a specialized segment of the financial industry who focus on early-stage, high-potential, high risk,
growth companies.
Yield Optimization: The process a publisher goes through in order to optimize their demand partners and maximize ROI from
the inventory being sold. Generally publishers give priority access to the demand partner paying the highest CPM and tier the partners access by CPM value.
