Are advertisers as far ahead as consumers when it comes to mobile ads?

The rise of mobile has been spoken about at length and with search on mobile now overtaking desktop it’s more important than ever for companies to think about how they’re going about their mobile advertising. The ClickZ Intelligence Report about the state of mobile advertising in 2016 investigated how clients are viewing their own efforts when it comes to mobile advertising and what they hope to get out of it; this is a snap shot of what they found.

When agencies were asked how they’d rate their clients’ mobile advertising efforts, only 16% said advanced whilst 44% said beginner. This shows that companies have been slow to make sure their mobile advertising is up to scratch, and also indicates there’s an opportunity for people to get ahead of the game when it comes to mobile.

An important thing to consider when deciding upon a mobile strategy is exactly what you are hoping to get out of it. The graph below shows what clients’ main objectives are for different types of mobile ads.

The highest proportion of clicks come from paid search, and traditionally the objective of paid search is to drives leads and sales. The results would suggest that this is still the case for mobile, and the aim of social and display campaigns are more aimed at increasing brand awareness.

However, the final graph gives a better idea of what channels are perceived to actually be working best. When clients were asked to rate the effectiveness of their mobile advertising for different stages of the marketing funnel, the worst performing part was the bottom of the funnel – where conversions happen.

In general display advertising accounts for the top of the funnel and some of the middle; paid social advertising accounts for a bit of everything, but mainly falls into the middle part; and search for the bottom. These findings indicate that clients’ view display and paid social as the most effective channels, and as a consequence view mobile advertising as a more effective way of raising brand awareness and increasing web traffic than a means of increasing sales and lead generation.

I’m sure that gradually the results from paid search on mobile will improve. As consumers become more comfortable making transactions on their phones, clients will no doubt begin to view the effectiveness of mobile advertising on the bottom part of the marketing funnel as good, or excellent. In the meantime it’s important for clients to optimise their mobile advertising as there are often cheaper clicks and conversions to be had, especially whilst so many companies are lagging behind.

The take home message is get ahead of the game when it comes to mobile!

All graphs are from ‘ClickZ Intelligence Report: The State of Mobile Advertising 2016’