Mobile advertising is an indispensable part of all marketing efforts. Mobile ads provide a direct path to the target audience’s smartphones. Hence, any business, regardless of having a mobile app, feels obliged to have mobile ad campaigns.
Although mobile marketing and advertising are growing continuously, it is a relatively new field for marketing professionals. Considering that smartphones and apps have been with human beings for less than two decades, there is always something new to learn. Additionally, the increasing competition in the mobile advertising ecosystem requires the actors in this area to be well-informed all the time.
If you want to get into more detail about To learn more about what is mobile advertising, why mobile advertising is important for your business and to discover the main mobile advertising types, keep reading!
What is Mobile Advertising (Mobile Ads)
Mobile advertising refers to the practice of displaying advertisements on mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets. This type of advertising can take many forms, including display ads, video ads, native ads, in-app ads, and more. Mobile advertising can be targeted to specific audiences based on factors such as location, demographics, and behavior, and it is often used by businesses to promote their products or services to potential customers who are using mobile devices. With the increasing use of mobile devices for browsing and shopping, mobile advertising has become an essential part of many companies' marketing strategies.
Importance of Ads for Mobile Apps
Mobile ads are important for several reasons. Firstly, they enable businesses to reach customers on the go, allowing them to target people who are using mobile devices to browse the internet or use apps. This can help increase brand awareness and drive traffic to a business's website or physical location.
Secondly, mobile ads can be highly targeted, allowing businesses to reach specific audiences based on factors such as location, demographics, and behavior. This can help improve the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and increase the chances of converting potential customers into actual buyers.
Finally, with the increasing use of mobile devices for browsing and shopping, mobile ads have become an essential part of many businesses' marketing strategies. By leveraging the power of mobile advertising, businesses can reach customers where they are most likely to engage with ads and ultimately make purchases. Overall, mobile ads are a powerful tool for businesses looking to increase their visibility, reach new customers, and drive sales.
How In-App Engagement Improves Mobile Ads Performance
Displaying ads on apps is one of the most frequently-used mobile business models. However, even if you want to integrate ad networks into your app, it might not be enough to bring the revenue that you dreamed of. What is missing in this picture? The answer is simple: in-app engagement.
In its most basic form, app monetization happens as follows: You integrate an SDK for ad networks into your app. The network operates in line with the advertising inventories of the apps that have an integration with. The ads are displayed to the users while they are using the app. The publisher, meaning the app owner who monetizes its app in the first place, earns money for impressions, installs, or other events depending on the initial deal.
As a publisher app, if you want to maximize your mobile app ad revenue, it is a great idea to improve user engagement in your app. This will automatically improve the time users spend in your app, in-app interactions, and conversion. All will help to increase the visibility of ads on your app, which eventually boosts your ad revenue.
Types of Mobile Ads
Having already said that mobile ads are significant for the success of any mobile business, we can continue with the mobile app types. To use the advertising budget and investment costs at the most efficient level, this part is crucial.
1) Banner Ads
Banners are rectangular small images combined with texts and shown at the top or bottom of the screen. They are one of the most common types of mobile media because they are affordable, cost-effective, easy to launch, and universally supported.
Since mobile banner advertising is not intrusive, they do not appear by interrupting the user experience. Instead, it is more widespread to see this type of ad as an integral part of the user interface. Still, they occupy one section of the screen.
The disadvantage of this type of advertising on mobile devices is mistaken and unintended clicks. Also, users might develop a blindness to the messages in banner ads. So, it is crucial to create striking visuals and texts.
2) Interstitial Ads
The most distinctive feature of interstitials is immersiveness. They appear in a critical moment of the user’s navigation through the app and occupy the whole screen. After the ad display, the user is pushed to take action, either responding to the CTA or clicking the button to close the ad.
Although the full-screen display is a great advantage for grabbing the full attention, users also might find interstitial ads annoying. The biggest disadvantage of this ad type is causing an interruption in the user experience.
3) Video Ads
Video is on the rise as the most engaging content form on the internet. Well, advertising media is not free from this fact. Mobile video ads are the type of advertising that provides the best interaction rates.
There are a few tricks that you need to be careful of when it comes to mobile video ads. Since it is not a possibility to have any video playing in the background on mobile devices, ad videos grab the uninterrupted attention of users. Hence, quality content matters more than ever in this ad format. Also, keeping the video too long will cause users to get frustrated. The advised duration is between 15 and 30 seconds, not longer!
4) Playable Ads
Playable ads are one of the most commonly used ad types for in-game apps. It allows users to interact with a snippet of a mobile app. In other words, users can experience a small part of the whole advertised app while seeing the playable ad.
Publishing this type of mobile ad on game apps is very widespread because the users feel like they keep playing even while seeing the ad. To maximize the benefit of these ad sessions, you can add a CTA to the end and keep the ad under 60 seconds.
5) Rewarded Ads
If you want your users to complete a certain action, it is always useful to motivate them with a reward. For example, you can encourage app users to see a video until the end by offering them a reward in exchange.
With the full-screen format, rewarded ads are among the best mobile ads. Advertisers prefer to use this type of ad because they are engaging and interactive. However, there is always a risk of attracting unqualified traffic with incentivized ads. Hence, you need to be careful about targeting the right audience.
6) Native Ads
As the name suggests, mobile native ads do not have a look that directly feels like a mobile advertisement. In other words, this type of mobile ad is great for creating an organic appearance. Users experience native ads as if they belong to the app or page that they appear on. This feature provides a great advantage for maximizing clicks and delivering a seamless experience. Hence, native ads do not cause any harm to the publisher apps in terms of user engagement and retention.
Native ads can be in the form of static visuals, texts, or videos. However, there is just one issue that you need to keep in mind. Since these ads might be displayed in numerous contexts, you need to prepare the content in a flexible format so that it can be easily tailored to fit different app experiences.
7) Rich Media Ads
The best thing about rich media ads is their flexibility to enable the implementation of various creative mobile advertising ideas. In other words, they offer an enriched experience to the user. How? Their key feature is the possibility of many animated effects that enhance the interaction with ad viewers.
Since rich media is more like an umbrella term, it actually comes in many different ad formats. Scratch banners, interstitials, swipe ads, and cube ads can be counted among the types of rich media ads. Usually, the ad file contains a set of HTML, CSS, JS, and image files.
8) In-App Ads
In-app ads provide a dynamic user experience. It attracts users with animations and interactive effects. It increases engagement and provides publishers with a better controlled and managed ad.
There are different ways to display an app within an app. All the above-mentioned types of mobile app ads can be implemented as in-app mobile ads. Also, it is an innovative and user-friendly option to display ads on in-app stories.
9) Cross-Promotional Ads
This is more of a strategy than a specific ad format. Let’s say you have multiple apps and want to use the most popular one to promote others. Then, cross-promotional ads are for you! By combining this strategy with various ad formats, you can direct users from one app to the other.
Frankly speaking, if you are looking for the type of best mobile app ads, there is no such thing. Mobile ads’ effectiveness might profoundly change according to your key performance indicators (KPIs) and expectations from an ad campaign. To maximize efficiency, you can put some thought into mobile ad targeting and mobile advertising technologies in addition to the cost of mobile advertising. For sure, it is always a good idea to explore mobile advertising examples first.
