The rise of social and mobile – Target people not pixels.
Firstly let’s start this off by saying unequivocally that the rise of social and mobile consumption is nothing new. Consumer time spent on mobile surpassed time spent on desktop in 2013 – That’s nearly five years ago… So, why are advertisers still spending so much on display adverts designed for an outdated desktop?
If you’re currently running ads through supply-side providers, demand-side providers, exchanges and networks like Ad Exchange and Adsense, you need to ask yourself where your adverts are appearing? What control do you have over where your advert is placed and who is seeing it? Better still, ask yourself why you’re targeting pixels when you should be targeting people.
The system is the problem.
It’s currently the system that is the problem here because it’s simply not possible to control what your ad lands next to. Yes, you can block a few stand out sites, like Breitbart but you can’t block everything. This lack of transparency from the ad exchanges means that now is the time that advertisers embrace the power of social and mobile.
The specifics of social and mobile.
Time spent on mobile devices like iPhones and iPads is dominated by applications, not mobile web and more than 80% of users in-app time is spent on just five apps, with Facebook leading the way by some considerable margin. Mobile has grown so fast that it’s now the leading digital platform, with total activity on smartphones and tablets accounting for two-thirds of digital media time spent, and smartphone apps alone now capturing roughly half of all digital media time.
Demand Transparency.
You can reach more real users with better quality and more relevant adverts by advertising in apps and prioritising mobile over outdated programmatic display. Facebook is now the world’s most used app and it’s targeting capabilities and strategic advert solutions tap into the social channel’s 2.1 billion monthly active users. You can place adverts that are relevant, actionable and importantly testable, with no guesswork. All backed with precision creative and specific targeting.
Other leading social platforms like Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Linkedin have adopted similar attitudes towards transparency in their advertising metrics, with Twitter being one of the first to adopt a 100% in-view approach.
Transparency is no longer out of your reach, there are high performing alternatives available and by focusing your digital budgets on social you’ll reach more real users in relevant demographics with better quality adverts.
