No guts, no glory. That was the MAD//Fest theme this year, a conference that is quickly becoming one of London’s top events for marketers. The message really hit home for advertisers, brands, and agencies that are looking to be bold and stand out from the crowd. Against the backdrop of high living costs and inflation, now is an important time for brands to prove their resilience and continue to develop and grow.
Leading brands from across the UK shared their tips on how to stay ahead of the pack. A speaker from Burberry discussed the company’s commitment to innovation and testing new ideas, while Domino’s and Boots explained the value of being customer centric and using insights from data to understand consumer behavior and provide the products and services they need.
Continuing with the idea of a customer-focused attitude, KFC emphasized staying agile and generating incremental revenue. But agility requires efficiency, and that’s what I covered in my session for app marketers. Let’s take a deep dive into my session about optimizing on-device advertising to keep your app in the spotlight.
The art of getting your app noticed and keeping it center of attention
Three generations of users
We probably don’t need to look at data to understand that everyone uses their mobile devices differently. But when we do, we uncover insights about how each generation behaves in unique ways on their devices. This information can help us determine the best way to reach users from each demographic. Here’s a quick rundown:
Baby boomers (1946-1964) tend to be extra selective about the apps they download on their devices. They usually download apps that will make their daily lives easier instead of those they’d have to keep up with and maintain. Often, they will download all of the apps they need early on in the device lifecycle.
Millennials (1981- 1996) weren’t born into a world with smartphones, but many adopted them early on in life. They’re incredibly active on apps compared to baby boomers and download new apps across all categories throughout the lifecycle of their device.
Gen Z (1997- present) never lived in a world without smartphones. For Gen Z, staying connected to the rest of the world online is critical, and smartphones are their third arm. This group is the most likely to turn to apps to learn and share content.
Why is this relevant?
It’s clear that people heavily rely on their phones for a variety of reasons. That means they’re going to be spending more time than ever on their devices, creating a significant opportunity for advertisers on mobile. To reach valuable and relevant users, marketing campaigns need to be efficient, and on-device is set up to inherently drive efficient campaigns. Let’s dive into how it’s done.
Step 1: Personalize the experience
The first step to being efficient is personalization, which helps ensure your ads are reaching the right users. On-device campaigns let you personalize to a higher degree than other channels because personalization is built into the channel via contextual data, triggers and opt-in information. Contextual factors about the user include the model of their device, which OS they’re using, and the other kinds of apps that are on the device. Opt-in information is available when users enter their age, gender, and interests when they activate their phone. With these unique data points, we can segment the audience and personalize the experience for the user by recommending apps that are likely to appeal to them. Take a look at how contextual and opt-in triggers appear to users:
Contextual trigger: OS update, when users spend time looking at new features and could download apps that support the new OS
Opt-in trigger: User is prompted to share information about themselves when they activate their device, then receive personalized app recommendations
Step 2: Optimize for ROAS
The next step to improve efficiency is to prioritize ROAS. It’s important to look at ROAS because the metric takes a user’s long term value into account. Not all users are worth the same, and monitoring their value over time can give us more insight than the initial “cost per” to acquire a new user.
On-device channels are fully integrated with all MMPs, which allows us to test, evaluate, and optimize throughout the campaign. With the combination of data points, performance marketers can match the right bid to the right user to ensure that the campaign is ROAS positive and profitable.
Step 3: Locate incremental users
When buying users, we want to make sure that they’re incremental. On-device campaigns give you a plug and play solution to do that. You can measure incrementality on-device by looking at the uplift of installs and conversions after the user has activated a new device.
MAD//Fest’s message hit the nail on the head when they said branding needs to be braver and bolder than ever to stand out among the competition. On-device advertising is a great place to start putting that message into motion and engage valuable and relevant users.
