Dynamic Logic

Mobile Advertising – Strong Impact but Always Room for Improvement

The emergence of advertising on mobile devices is providing a unique way for brands to connect with consumers. As with any new marketing platform, there is much to learn, and the more we learn, the more the marketplace will evolve. Mobile advertising is no different. Dynamic Logic has been measuring advertising within the mobile platform for the past three years and the spectacular returns for advertisers have more advertising dollars shifting towards mobile. The future holds many exciting promises with Apple putting its stake in the ground with the iAd platform and pioneers like Foursquare providing unique, location-based mobile advertising solutions. 

Some have publicly questioned the value of mobile advertising to date — Steve Jobs caused a splash by saying it "sucks" — but the truth is: mobile works. According to Dynamic Logic's normative data, the average mobile campaign has a positive impact on all branding metrics, and for a sense of comparison, also outperforms the average online campaign. While keeping in mind these are different media and best used to complement one another, data does show the average increase in Purchase Intent for mobile ads is five times that of online. 

The success of mobile advertising can be attributed to a number of factors. For one, mobile is a new, uncluttered medium with higher user engagement and better targeting. Also, the simplicity (single-frame, single-messaging creatives) and uniformity (simple ad formats, automatic optimization to screen size) of the mobile display advertising landscape allows for higher user tolerance and therefore higher impact. 

While still in its infancy, the initial branding impact and potential of mobile advertising observed through the campaigns we've tested suggests it's a great time for marketers to bring dollars to the medium, especially while CPM's are low. 

For this analysis, ad performance is determined by the change in a given metric as a result of ad exposure or in other words, the difference between those people who see an ad and those who do not. As shown above, large variations between the best and worst performing campaigns (as based on ad memorability) confirm that many mobile ads still fall short of their potential. There is a 4x to 8x difference in brand metrics between the mobile campaigns that are successful at garnering viewers' attention compared to those that are not. Whether it's creative quality and/or ad targeting, this is a sign of how the medium is growing and understanding how these variables influence campaign performance will by key for advertisers moving forward. 

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