In-App Marketing

In-App Marketing is an exciting new field of advertising. It is different than conventional desktop or real-life advertising. As a result, the methods and techniques are different than other forms of advertising. From these steps below, we will cover:

1) Targeting your mobile audience
2) Choosing a mobile ad company
3) Designing a mobile suitable ad

At the end of this Instructable, you will be more comfortable with the mobile ad industry, its terminology, and how you can advertise your product with its massive network of users.

Step 1: Targeting a Mobile Audience

Just like the image above, the point of an ad network is to
connect you, the advertiser, with your potential consumers. The method for linking the two is called targeted advertising.

"Who am I marketing this to?"

"Who will buy this?"

These are the first questions you must answer if you want to use targeted mobile advertising. Most companies like AdMob, RevMob, etc. will have different ways to pay for ad interaction, so targeting is important because it allows you to maximize the returns you get for those costs. A few of these payment methods include:

1) Cost-per-click: payment based on how many users click your ad

2) Cost-per-mille: payment based on every 1000 views of your ad

3) Cost-per-install: payment based on how many installs your ad gets

Depending on the ad company you choose to advertise with, you will have different options on how you target those viewing your ad. In addition, most advertising companies will function on a bidding system, similar to an auction house. The auction process is based on both your bid and the effectiveness of your ad. The better your ad, the higher it will consistently place in the auction, the more people it will attract.

With that in mind, here are some questions you might want to answer about your app, item, or service:

1) Who are my customers?

This question is important because it allows you to analyze what your audience may like thematically, as well as possible visual limitations on your ad. For example, is your ad likely for older people who may value large, easy-to-read text that makes logical sense? Or is it for younger audiences like teens who like bright, flashy graphics promising action over word-based ads?

2) Where are my customers likely to be?

This question allows you to select your first targeting criteria (besides age perhaps) for your ad audience; location. Location is useful if you know what types of area your customers typically live in, as location can be correlated with things like socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and culture. All of these things may affect who is more likely to buy into whatever you are advertising and can further raise the efficiency of your ad.

3) What other apps would my customers have installed?

This is another great question to ask because not only is it a target criteria, but it’s also a very specific way to target a particular audience. It is also very well documented in an app’s installation statistics, so it tends to be very accurate.

These questions are a good starting point for defining your audience, but there are many more criteria you can choose; sex, race, purchase history, and even things like beliefs and attitudes.

To summarize, targeting an audience allows you to make sure that your ad affects people as often and cheaply as possible. Some good identifying features to come up with for your audience to start with are age, sex, and location.

Step 2: Choosing a Mobile Ad Company

Now that you understand how to target your audience, it’s time to pick a suitable mobile ad network.

In this step, we answer two important questions you should ask yourself when choosing an ad network.

Should I advertise with a Blind or Premium network? Should I setup a Cost-Per-Click or Cost-Per-Mille campaign?

Blind vs. Premium Network

A premium network allows you to specific where the ad will be shown to the user. In contrast, the blind network, as its name would describe, does not allow the advertiser to pick and choose where the ad will be shown. From these two options, you will need to decide if you want to expend more money to target a specific website to host your ad on. If you do choose a Premium network, your audience group will be noticeably smaller than a blind network.

Cost-per-click (CPC) vs Cost-per-mille (CPM)

In the previous step, we learned about the differences between Cost-per-click and Cost-per-mille. The difference was either paying for a certain amount of views or clicks.

The cost of a CPC ad will evidently be more expensive than a CPM campaign because you’re paying for a view and a click. Your decision will be determining whether the increase in price is justified or not. Sometimes, an impression on the ad is enough for the user to go back to it later.

After thinking about these two questions, you should now be able to effectively choose an ad network best suited towards your needs. You should also now be more comfortable with abbreviations such as CPC and CPM. A list of popular mobile networks is provided in step 4.

Step 3: Designing a Mobile Ad

One advantage mobile ads have over desktop ads is that one can exploit the increased engagement from mobile users. To design an effective ad, the first thing to do is to choose the right type of ad. Below are three types of ads I recommend choosing from:

Banner:

This is a persistent graphic that is spread across the user’s screen. The general purpose of this is to promote a brand or attract user traffic to the advertiser’s product page. Hence, the critical aspect of employing the banner is to use graphics that can capture the user's attention. However, one challenge is the problem of intrusion. Users might get irritated if they perceive the ad to be interfering with what they are focused on.

Interstitial:

Interstitial ads are full-page ads that appear at intervals across the screen. The benefit of using interstitial ads is that advertisers are guaranteed the users’ undivided attention. Afterwards, the user has the option of skipping the ad. Although, like an elevator pitch, one must convince the user in the limited amount of to want to see more of the product.

Video:

These are display ads with video content. While watching a video gives one the advantage of informing users quickly, the adverse effect could be the cost to the users from watching these videos. Specifically, if watching a video ad is costing the user mobile data, that might cause them to respond negatively towards the product.

In the end, when designing an ad, one should think about those factors that would help convey the information to the user in the best way possible. A general rule of thumb is to think of where the users might be when they view the ad and try to empathize with them. Since mobile users are usually on-the-go, an effective ad should aim to capture users’ attention, as well as meet their needs at that point in time. More importantly, it should be intrusive, but not so much to interrupt the user’s life. Hence, understanding the importance and impact of these factors will help in developing a workable strategy to successfully design an effective mobile ad.

Step 4: Learn More

Thanks for reading this Instructable on In-App marketing. Provided below are additional resources and other Instructables related to advertising.

An instructive video on how to create and use an account on RevMob:

List of popular ad networks: https://www.ytechweb.com/best-mobile-advertising-...

Creating videos for social media: https://www.instructables.com/id/Generating-Video...

The next Instructable in this series: https://www.instructables.com/id/Youtube-As-a-Com...