How can marketers rule mobile marketing in 2015? (Interview)

Programmatic has well and truly landed. In the age of increased automation, efficiency and transparency, marketers must understand and love programmatic’s growing prowess. While programmatic TV is anticipated to explode in 2015 – mobile continues its unremitting ascension to the top of the realm. In order to keep you – our loyal readership – forever one step ahead of the pack, we asked expert Todd Tran, Managing Director, Platform Business, Millennial Media, about the opportunities and threats to programmatic as it enters into 2015 a more mature beast.

 

What role does programmatic play in the future of mobile advertising?

Unlike the desktop display advertising world, mobile is still a relatively new string to the programmatic bow. However, there are advantages with mobile that the fixed-line world just can’t provide.

Mobile devices generate more data about consumer behaviours than any other device they interact with. By leveraging this data –  for example the location of a customer, the content that has driven them there and their preferences – brands can create extremely powerful profiles to build and execute real-time campaigns around. As programmatic grows in mobile, brands are able to reach their target audiences at those precise moments in real-time and at scale.

For developers, mobile programmatic is offering new opportunities through scale. The majority of time spent on mobile devices by consumers is now spent in app – with 52% of all time online spent in smartphone and tablet apps according to comScore. However, the majority of app developers do not have direct sales teams. What mobile programmatic is doing is enabling new ways for advertiser to access this audience rich inventory via programmatic buy and sell side platforms.

 

How has programmatic evolved since its inception, where’s it going?

At first, programmatic digital buying emerged to let publishers unload unwanted inventory, and to help buyers easily capture low-cost reach. The technology used to make the automation of buying and selling remnant inventory was highly successful. But engaging consumer audiences goes beyond remnant inventory.

As technology has evolved, particularly in mobile through the advent of smartphones, tablets and increasing consumer connectivity, we are now at a juncture where automation can support the more advanced needs of the buyers and sellers in premium advertising inventory.

Indeed, we’re seeing more and more media buyers delivering branding campaigns via programmatic buying as the quality of inventory now mirrors that of a direct buy. Furthermore, the ROI extrapolated from impression-by-impression buying practices afforded by programmatic platforms is only encouraging further spend and adoption.

 

Why are mobile native ads important? Successful examples…?

Native advertising is another hot topic, and one which means many different things to different people. Three ways native plays a role in mobile includes: Placement, Publisher and Product.

Native in Placement is all about creating ads that are displayed in a feed, matching the surrounding stories and allowing consumers to interact, read or watch without leaving to a separate page. This is most successfully used by brands that are looking to fit ads into a broad content theme – for example, using food apps with a live feed to display ads for cooking ingredients or apparatus for the home.

Native in Publisher takes this approach further by working with a publisher for long-form editorial. This content is often written by or in partnership with the publisher to match the surrounding stories, appearing as a standalone page like any editorial story. Unlike Native in Placement, its placement is guaranteed so that the advertiser knows exactly what context will surround it.

Finally we have Native in Product, which refers to the native technology capabilities of the device that an ad is being delivered on – be that smartphone, tablet or wearable – to create a native user experience. Tying together many different features – from voice to touch, accelerometers to location and everything in between – mobile offers many ways for consumers to interact with advertising content. For example, imagine using voice to get consumers to talk to an ad, or location to show how close they are to a product or service.

For brands, these types of native advertising in mobile are enabling new ways to engage consumers, thinking more like a publisher and putting content and experience at the heart of campaigns.

 

Top programmatic trends for 2015?

There are so many trends in programmatic I could delve into, but for the sake of simplicity I’m going to focus on two around one core topic: the growing importance of data.Data activation will become increasingly important in 2015, in particular how advertisers can best unlock the vast troves of 1st party data they have available to them and activate this within their programmatic strategy. At present, this often sits in CRM systems used to power customer retention, but is rarely deployed to increase the ROI of prospecting campaigns. In 2015, we will see advertisers using their data to power smarter programmatic buying practices.

Then we come to the unification of data. Publishers and advertisers alike are aggregating more data, from more sources, than ever before. It is one thing to have a treasure chest of data, but it is quite another to be able to model that into something meaningful you can deploy to power a media schedule. In order to realise the full value of that information, they require a central hub — known as Data Management Platforms (DMPs) – to seamlessly (and rapidly) collect, integrate, manage and activate those large volumes of data. Furthermore, cross device IDs are crucial to this unification, and that mobile is setting the standard for such IDs, not desktop which relies on cookies. 2015 will be the year the DMP becomes a must have for all marketers who want to deliver a seamless message to connected consumers, regardless of their screen.

 

What challenges face programmatic as marketers demand more detailed data analysis?

Programmatic trading is now generating hundreds of millions of dollars for media buyers and sellers alike, a number that is increasing by the day and is revolutionising the media industry like never before. However, as with all sectors that rely on technology to transact, there will always be those that want to defraud the system to make an ill gain. In the same way bank cards are cloned, website URL’s are faked and sold to buyers who think they are buying a legitimate environment, however they are not. This fraud can lead to a lack of trust by all in the ecosystem and can hinder growth. As a result, fraud is often listed as one of the major threats to the advancement of programmatic trading, and all companies in the ecosystem must take a proactive approach in the eradication of this unlawful activity.