Tag: mobile advertising

Despite its declining hold on the global digital ad marketplace as a whole, smaller screen marketing is up.

Online commerce giant, Alibaba Group Holding Inc., may find its global mobile ad market share climbing higher this year. This, despite the fact that the company’s grip on the digital advertising space is starting to slide.

eMarketer’s data shows the Chinese ecommerce giant will have a smaller portion of global digital ad spend.

The research firm’s prediction is that the digital ad spend drop will be around 0.9 percent to 4.6 percent in 2016 compared to the figures from 2015. That said, the mobile ad market share will be climbing at the same time. That increase will be significant, as its share will rise to 10.9 percent. Last year, that figure had been 8.7 percent.

In the Chinese market, Alibaba will continue to be the leading player in both those markets. The massive company will hold onto 39.7 percent of the tremendous $27.9 billion Chinese market for mobile advertising. Furthermore, it will boost its share of digital ad spend to 28.9 percent. That is an increase of nearly 4 percent compared to 2015.

The strength in the mobile ad market share growth is due to the company’s customer retention strategy.

Andria Chen, an eMarketer analyst, explained that the company’s strategy to hold consumers within its entertainment and online ecosystem explain its mobile ad success. The company has been acquiring several different companies within those spaces.

For instance, Alibaba purchased the Youku Tudou video streaming platform in 2016. According to eMarketer, that particular purchase may “aid sales growth” for Alibaba during this quarter. It may also help the company to assemble more complete user profiles.

Furthermore, the ecommerce giant has also made investments in a number of other areas supporting growth. For example, it has raised capital for an affiliate platform for local services called Koubei. The funds came from international investors. Equally, it invested more in building out logistics operations within locations such as villages and towns that are not yet easily accessible. It’s easy to see that the company is seeking to amp up its share in more than just the mobile ad market.

BIA/Kelsey research has shown that this one area is taking a considerable share of marketing budgets.

Marketers are increasing their mobile ad spend in very specific areas. New research shows that both sponsored content and native advertising are becoming an increasingly important focus.

This is particularly true since mobile ad blocking has become such a popular practice among consumers.

The BIA/Kelsey chief analyst and vice president of content, Michael Boland, said that “Native social advertising is the big headline of this forecast.” He added that the FAN and news feed add success from Facebook has provided a new perspective on advertising. As a result, “we’ve dialed up native social’s share of the mobile ad revenue pie.”

Trends in mobile ad spend have also shown that Snapchat and Instagram are moving in similar directions. These include changes to boost the attractiveness and impact of native social formats for marketers.

The report also underscores the falling mobile ad spend when it comes to banner advertising methods.

Even before this report was published, it was clear that banner ads have already fallen out of favor on Facebook. The platform determined that they don’t have very much value when compared to native and video advertising methods.

Boland also explained that the growing use of ad blockers has only accelerated the mobile marketing industry’s trends. As a whole, mobile advertising is moving away from banners and toward material that is immune to blockers. This primarily includes content marketing.

Boland stated that the millennial generation is also being taken into account. For them mobile ad spend on native social ads is more important than any other adult generation. Therefore, marketers grabbed hold of this style and use it to take aim at this extremely important demographic.

This shift is clearly visible through Snapchat. That platform is exceptionally popular among the younger generations.  It recently made some marketer-friendly changes. Among those changes include the automated application programming interface (API) designed for its ad partners. With rapid growth in its user base and great engagement metrics, Snapchat uses native advertising over any other method. It is completely free of banner ads and while this may seem limiting, it has been vital for user trust.