Mobile channel campaigns are becoming more and more popular and – most importantly – effective. What tools are worth using to gain a competitive advantage?
A mobile channel is a medium available at one’s fingertips. We often part with our phones only when we go to bed. Therefore, mobile is an excellent advertising medium that allows for reaching a user virtually anywhere and anytime. When running push advertising campaigns, as well as creating Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and display ads, it’s good to look at how users use their phones and select tools appropriate for a given target group.
Google Ads
Mobile users use a search engine every day to find answers to their questions and needs. Special attention should be paid to the often-emerging local context in mobile search. The proportion of words or phrases entered is definitely higher than on desktop. In addition, mobile search queries are usually shorter than those typed using a keyboard.
One example of mobile ads is click-to-call, or “Connection only”. In this case, a user will not be redirected to the landing page, but only dials a phone call to an advertiser. Ads in the click-to-call campaign consist of a header that gives a phone number and CTA e.g. “Call”. These types of campaigns will work well if potential customers are looking for a quick way to contact a company, minimising the steps that need to be made to talk to a consultant.
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads is a Facebook advertising system that allows us to create ads on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook Audience Network. The main objective of Facebook Ads is targeting – a target group can be determined using a number of variables, such as interests, demographic data, location, work or education.
One of the key tools to add to a website at the very beginning of work with the Facebook Ads system is Facebook Pixel. The analytics tool collects data from users who are not only redirected to the site from Facebook, but from all sources, including Google’s organic results. Data collected by Pixel helps build a new Lookalike Audience with similar interests or demographic data compared to users who interact with the website.
What benefits does Pixel Facebook provide? Based on the data, we can expand the base of potential customers and create even more effective ads. Facebook’s algorithm will display them to people who are very likely to make the desired conversion.
Mobile devices can be used for many functionalities. Facebook offers, among others, the format of “collections” enabling browsing products in a more accessible way. An ad consists of a main image or video and up to 4 photos.
Another type of mobile-friendly ad is Canvas, which is a feature of presenting promoted content in a full-screen mode. It allows for preparing all available advertising formats – image, video, slide show, carousel or collection. It interactively shows the promoted product, arousing even more interest among potential customers. When creating the Canvas, we can show great creativity, e.g. in terms of customised background and button colours, or add the most performing products from a feed file.
Also, ads in Messenger have recently gained great popularity – their goal is to make a user interact by means of going to a landing page or starting a conversation with a company. As for Instagram Stories, an ad interrupts the stories viewed.
Push notifications
Application pushes are commonly used when we want to notify application users of a new message. It is displayed in the notification bar on Android phones. The principle of operation is simple – a mobile device user downloads an application, and then a communication system sends notifications to the user base. Even when the application is not used by a given person at a given time, they receive a notification to their device and decide whether they want to interact.
The most important issue when running push advertising campaigns in mobile apps is to target the message. Identification of user behaviours and segmentation allow both for saving time and advertising costs. Push advertising campaigns are instantly delivered and read on a mobile device, effectively building relations with message recipients and increasing the engagement of app users.
Display
Applications also feature display ads off advertising space on mobile sites. Formats of mobile display ads in browsers are of course of different sizes than on phone screens. Banners must be responsive by being adjusted to the screen size of the device. Display advertising has been often said to be close to the end, but it still controls almost half of the advertising cake.
The dynamic development of the mobile area means another room for expansion for display advertising. In this case, it requires an unconventional approach, modification of initial concepts and creative thinking. Creating banners for mobile campaigns is an essential element of building communication with recipients. Unfortunately, marketers often perceive display advertising as a plain banner that can be prepared within a short time. However, it is not enough to comply with key visual – other indispensable aspects include knowledge of technical specifications of publishers, high quality advertising within the required format weight and of course information about user’s behaviour on the web.
