Tag: smartphone marketing

The industry is now wondering if the social networking giant has finally mastered this channel.

Facebook has been the recipient of massive criticisms due to its lack of mobile marketing revenues, which had lead to its exceptionally disappointing initial public offering (IPO) stock nearly a year ago.

At that time, there were hundreds of millions of users accessing the service without ads on smartphones and tablets.

Investors were disappointed that mobile marketing had apparently been ignored by Facebook, when it could have been used to reach these millions upon millions of people, but it was not. What has since been discovered, is that the executives at the social networking giant were perfectly aware of this trend and they were already well on the way to building their strategy.

The Sponsored Stories mobile marketing social ads were only the tip of the iceberg.

That element had only just been introduced at the time of the IPO, but what the investors didn’t know at that time – and what has only recently been revealed – is that Facebook had a great deal more up its sleeves for its mobile marketing programs. It took several months, but it has now been proving itself capable of exposing ads to the smartphone and tablet using masses in compelling and effective ways. This was far beyond what most people at that time could have predicted.

The mobile marketing ads at Facebook were not an instant success, but they did gradually build traction until they were earning $305 million by the fourth quarter. This represented approximately 23 percent of the overall ad sales revenue for the company. It is also one of the main reasons that the social network stock price has nearly doubled the low to which it plummeted shortly after the IPO, hovering near the $30 mark.

One of the main reasons that the ads in the Facebook mobile marketing strategy are considered to be successful is that they aren’t the same as those that are used on the desktop site. On the standard website, the ads run along the right hand side of the page. Instead, the smartphone friendly ads are worked right into the news feed and have both a look and a feel that are comparable to the posts that are made by their friends and the other brands and pages that they have liked.

A recent InMobi study has shown that while the ideal hasn’t yet been reached, progress is being made.

Although mobile marketing has yet to truly find its place in the hearts of consumers, there has certainly been a great deal of progress toward a new tolerance level if the latest research is any indication.

This recent study has shown that there is now a comfort level with around sixty percent of consumers.

The research was performed by InMobi, which found that about 6 out of every 10 consumers would now call themselves as “comfortable” with the mobile marketing that they have been receiving on their smartphones and tablets as they are with the ads they see through other channels.

This comes at the same time that there has been a growing concern over the usability of mobile marketing.

The so-called “fat finger” problem has recently been raising concerns over the ability to trust mobile marketing statistics, as many ads that are clicked on these smaller screens could often tapped by accident. However, what InMobi discovered was that only 15 percent of the device users who accessed the web had unintentionally clicked on an ad.

Possibly even more striking is the fact that mobile marketing has played a role in the shopping decisions of 46 percent of the respondents to the survey. They stated that they had decided to make a purchase of a product or service over their device because of an ad they had seen.

The InMobi CEO, Naveen Tewari, explained that smartphones, tablets, and other portable communication devices are now a part of virtually every element of our daily lives. Tweari also went on to say that “The study reveals that mobile users are always-on, whether surfing the mobile web while spending time with family (48 percent), at a social event (45 percent), commuting (60 percent) and shopping (43 percent). This creates a huge opportunity for brands and marketers to engage with consumers throughout the day unlike traditional advertising like print and TV.”

The mobile marketing report indicated that the average user of the mobile web consumers 7 full hours of media every day. Twenty six percent of this time – a figure that is growing – is spent on the smartphone or tablet.