New mobile ad platform raises $7 million in funding.
mNectar, an app promotion startup, has created a new mobile advertising platform called Playable, which allows gamers to demo a game on their mobile device before they choose to download or purchase it, and the company has raised $7 million in Series A funding from New Enterprise Associate (NEA).
The new groundbreaking mobile ad platform provides consumers with a better shopping experience.
In an interview with GamesBeat, CEO and founder of mNectar, Wally Nguyen, said “We created this company to solve the problems of mobile advertising.” He added that “Our ads give you a chance to instantly sample games and apps. We can connect people with the right apps.”
According to Nguyen, their “playable ads” improve the shopping experience of potential mobile game buyers as they browse through new game options. “Today, everything else doesn’t tell you what you are getting,” Nguyen commented. It is the hope of mNectar to solve the app discovery problem that so many mobile app developers have due to the huge amount of mobile game competition that exists within app stores, which makes the chance of being discovered quite difficult.
The CEO of mNectar said that the firm is equipping mobile ads with cloud delivery and mobile app virtualization. This enables consumers to try out a playable demo of an app or a game prior to downloading it. This results in higher advertising revenue for application developers and produces an experience that is more enjoyable for mobile users.
The interactive ads are many times more effective than other mobile advertising.
Presently, the majority of mobile users depend on friend recommendations, app ranking lists and app reviews in order to determine which game to play. Standard ads, such as pop-ups, banners and videos, do not give the consumer any real indication of what the actual gameplay would be like.
The user retention rates of interactive advertisements are four times more effective compared to other types of ads like interstitials and they are two times better than mobile video ads. According to Nguyen, these results have received verification by independent ad measurement firms.
Playable gives users the chance to experience the real product for a brief time. This helps them to instantly decide whether or not the game or app is worth downloading or buying. The CEO explained that the unique mobile advertising platform leads to fewer retention issues because users know precisely what they will be getting when they download the app.
