Mobile advertising has been developing rapidly within the past years, mobile video ads came into the limelight quite recently. Nevertheless, this sector of the global digital ad industry has already become one of the hottest and the most widely discussed trends, and experts predict it will expand and develop further in 2019.
There are obvious grounds for such optimistic forecasts regarding the future of mobile video ads. For the past two years, the U.S. marketing surveys have shown impressive results. In particular, approximately 54% of respondents expressed their positive or neutral attitude towards viewing video ads on their mobile devices, whereas around 47-49% of them were excited to watch mobile video ads, if the advertising content appealed to their tastes and interests.
As for the gaming and social segments of mobile video advertising, the overall completion rate exceeded 90% in 2013, and viewer engagement rates were just as high in 2014. Given the stats and the developments in the mobile industry (such as growing screen real-estate), it is clear that mobile video advertising will remain one of the hottest niches on the market next year.
However, many businesses still find it quite challenging to run engaging and effective video ad campaigns on mobile because the particularities of the medium require extensive forethought and effort in the continuous improvement of various ad aspects in order to succeed.
There are three major steps which advertisers should take in 2019 to improve their mobile video ads.
Increase video ad loading speed
One of the key issues concerning mobile video ads is their rather slow loading speed, which irritates users and has a negative impact on the ad completion rate.
Since there are numerous factors, which can potentially reduce video loading speed, like the specifics of viewers’ video streaming apps or the slow Internet connection, the core challenge for businesses is to find one complex solution that can eliminate or at least minimize all mentioned risks.
The easiest and most resource efficient way to cope with this challenge is to focus on the actual improvement and optimization of the ad’s format and length as well as its compatibility with various mobile devices and video players.
In particular, it is beneficial to run linear/interstitial skippable ads that are up to 45 seconds in length, or shorter (15 seconds or less) skippable interstitial ads, as these formats generally have higher CTRs
It is also necessary to make sure that the video ad is compliant with and is streaming smoothly on all popular video players for iOS and Android, including the latest app versions.
Creation of catchy and easily-shareable mobile video ads
Since the best-performing mobile video ads are usually short, it is vital to come up with a catchy ad concept that would appeal to the viewers’ interests and tastes. In addition to promoting a brand or a product, a viral mobile video ad should also include various emotional triggers and social motivating factors in their concept.
In fact, the more viewers’ emotions a video ad elicits, the better it sells. No wonder that famous brands tend to launch the most heartfelt and touching video ad campaigns closer to Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and other holidays.
However, one of the key tasks for businesses lies in making their catchy ads easily shareable across a wide array of channels such as social media, e-mail, messaging apps, and cloud services, if they wish to maximize their target customers’ engagement, improve brand reputation, and generate more demand, as a result.
Making the most of targeting options
The role of audience data and its deep analysis and segmentation are major staples in mobile video advertising. As in other digital ad segments, if a company has no precise image of who its target customers are and what mobile video ad content they are eager to browse, share, or respond to, there’s no point in launching an ad campaign in 2019.
However, mobile users’ preferences are changing rapidly. Some audience datasets may lose their relevance faster than businesses could expect, which often reduces their ad efficiency and ROI.
One of the ways to improve the overall relevancy of mobile video ads in 2019 is applying compound audience datasets to produce the best ad targeting settings. In particular, these compound datasets should include customers’ location, demographics, their devices, other general details, as well as their mobile video consumption patterns.
Taking such a complex approach allows advertisers to combine the use of mobile-specific targeting features with behavioural targeting options and maximize their campaign effectiveness easily, especially if they apply an ad server to customize ad targeting settings. Namely, advertisers may choose one of the famous players on the market, like Doubleclick, or OpenX, work with younger companies, like Epom Ad Server, for instance, or even develop a proprietary ad serving solution to meet their internal needs.
All things considered, none of the described aspects will help businesses succeed in mobile video advertising in 2019, if applied solely or separately. Neither will they show consistent improvement in the ad performance, unless integrated with other parts of the unified online marketing and advertising business strategy, and further modified, based on the tracked market changes.
