Mobile Advertising: Predicting Whatsapp in 2014

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Facebook announced this week, that they have acquired the popular messaging platform Whatsapp for 19 billion dollars.  This acquisition is the largest for Facebook to date. The app is widely used internationally, and has show significant growth in the U.S. recently.   The purchase is in reaction to Facebook losing popularity among young consumers. By acquiring Whatsaspp, they are hoping to attract the mobile-centric younger audience. There has been no announcement made about how the app will be monetized, and has left the digital world guessing about how advertising will be implemented.  Regardless, the shift towards mobile will bring big changes to the way businesses will approach digital marketing this year. Here are some trends to be on the look out for within the next few months.

SMS Will Gain Popularity

While SMS does not have the flashy imagery of Rich media, it captures the consumers attention more effectively than most other mobile advertising formats. SMS has an average click through rate of 14%, which more than doubles the CTR from e-mail and display ads. The conversion rates are also considerably higher.  Part of the higher success rate, is that this platform is opt-in only.  Marketers will start to use SMS as part of integrated marketing strategies, by linking to rich media, or micro-sites where the consumer can learn more about the marketing message being pushed.

Geo-Location  Opportunities

Location based apps like Foursquare and Yelp give businesses opportunities to target a local audience through mobile ads. The conversion rates have proven to be high among this type of advertising, even though the traffic is lower than the main social networking apps. Consumers are more likely to engage with location relevant advertising, and this can create cost efficient advertising buys for businesses.  Due to the geo-targeted nature of these ads, less page impressions are wasted, and click through rates are higher than other mediums. As GPS enabled apps become more popular, this form of advertising is sure to gain popularity.

New Mobile Ad Formats 

Video advertising will continue to rise this year. The new 5 second video format is predicted to be a breakout trend on mobile devices. Currently 30 second video ads are the industry standard, but advertisers are trying to condense messaging based on audiences’ shorter digital attention spans. With increased popularity of sites like vine and snapchat, viewers are becoming more receptive to video on mobile devices. Facebook’s streaming ads were a game changer last year, and there are bound to be more video ad opportunities in the near future.

With digital marketing trends and technology constantly changing, it can be hard to know where to start.   At EmoryDay, we are committed to providing marketing strategies that work for your brand and produce results. No matter what your budget, we can provided tailored solutions to help build your business. Contact us today for a free consultation.

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