The demand for In-app advertising is rapidly increasing and it is currently the fastest growing form of mobile advertising.
The total spend on In-app advertising is set to increase from $72 billion in 2016 to $201 billion in 2021. With the spend almost tripling within 5 years, we are now entering into a new era of In-app advertising.
There are big names in the In-app Advertising Market like Facebook, Inc., Apple, Groupo Mobile, Phone Valley, Google, and Mobile Dream Factory among others.
Around 78% of gaming app users and 82% of new app users access them everyday. This is a huge opportunity for marketers to drive engagement on a consistent basis.
Needless to say, most of the businesses are looking to leverage on the power of different ad formats that are available in In-app advertising.
Different Mobile Ad Formats That Marketers Can Leverage
The various ad formats that the advertisers can use to promote their products and services are:
- Standard Banner Ads – Under this form, the advertisement is embedded in the app. Whenever someone opens the app, the advertisement gets displayed. The banner ad is usually linked to the advertiser’s website or another app.
- Interstitial Ads – These ads cover the entire screen of the app. They are displayed usually during game intervals or pauses so that it does not disturb the natural flow of the app.
- Hyper-local Targeted Ads – When the ad platform uses the user’s smartphone GPS data to track the location of the user and displays the most relevant ad then this form of ad is called as hyper-local targeted ads.
- Rich Media Ads – These ads are a combination of audio, video and other elements that encourages the viewer to take an action thereby leading to more conversions.
- Video Ads – Under this form of advertisement, advertiser displays a video ad at the start of the game, in the middle of the game or at the end(in case of gaming app) or during suitable pauses in case of other app.
- Native Ads – These ads matches the look and feel of the local app where the ads gets displayed. User thinks that the ad is part of the app and clicks on it. The natural user flow is not disturbed and only relevant ads are displayed to the user.
- Rewarded Video Ads: These ads rewards the user for watching the ad. Reward can be a prize or bonus in the game. Spotify is a good example of a brand that is doing rewarded video ads correctly. It rewards users with 30 minutes of free music for watching a video ad.
- Power of Intent Ads: Google has launched a new Discovery ad format that captures the power of intent to provide visually rich and mobile first experiences to the user.
In-App Advertisement Tricks For New Age Advertisers
Here are some tricks that the new age advertisers can use to generate the maximum engagement on their ads:
1- Deep Link Your App Within Ads On Other Apps
You can even promote your mobile app by advertising it on other popular apps. A great way to do this is by connecting a link within your app and persuading users to click on it so that they are automatically taken to your app. This is made possible by way of deep linking that uses a universal routing and attribution system to route the user directly to the app store if the app isn’t installed on the smartphone of the user.
2- Use In-App Messaging
These are a form of push messaging but are served within the app. Users receive it as soon as they open their app. One of the biggest advantage that this type of messaging offers is that it reaches the user when they are in a certain mood as opposed to general push notifications that can reach the user anytime irrespective of the mood.
3- Take Advantage of Programmatic Deals
Programmatic deals establishes a direct advertiser relationship with the publication partner without the need to exchange tags or handle multiple invoices. You can use audience targeting to understand who is seeing your ads and in what context.
4- Gamify Your Advertisements With Interactive Videos
Static ads broadcasted via Television is slowly becoming a thing of the past because Gen Z audiences watch less Television and spend more time viewing their mobile phones. Interactive videos are a great way to gamify your ads so that the viewer is actually able to interact with the ad and change it as per his/her liking. Interactive ads receive 3X the rate of normal video ads.
5- Steal The Show With Programmatic Audio Ads
2018 was undoubtedly the year of voice search. In-app advertising space is no longer an exception to this. With the surge in the demand for smart home assistants like Alexa and Google Home, chatbots powered by artificial intelligence will rule the world of mobile ads. Audio is an extremely powerful medium that brands need to capitalize on in order to defeat their competitors in the near future.
Final Thoughts
In-app advertising has shown the fastest growth in recent years. Mobile advertising is the only medium that has witnessed so many changing trends. Businesses need to remain aware of the new era of In-app advertising that is going to shape the future of mobile advertising in order to stay ahead in the game.