A recent surge in the number of smartphones and tablets has made mobile advertising the primary form of digital advertising which is both cost-effective and conversion oriented.
Almost 9 in 10 smartphone users are not absolutely certain of the specific brand they want to buy when looking for information online. (Source: Google, 2019)
Average smartphone users use their phones for more than 4 hours a day. (Source: Quoracreative)
As consumers continue to shift their viewing behaviour, advertisers are following them. Advertising revenues from mobile devices continue to grow faster than the overall market, with mobile increasing its revenue share. (Source: IAB internet advertising revenue report)
These statistics and trends are crucial bits of information enough to highlight the predominance of mobile advertising. Here lies the rationale for brands delivering ads via a mobile ad platform referred to as a mobile ad network.
In this article, you’ll learn about the top 5 mobile ad platforms, enabling you to choose the right platform for your business. So let's get started.
Facebook has entered 2020 as one of the most successful mobile advertising companies in the world. Facebook app, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram are the top most downloaded apps of the decade all owned by Facebook. (Source: App Annie app tracker)
Facebook is well-known for its many targeting options and rich media formats. With Messenger ad campaign you can target people through interest, behaviour, location and more. You can build an audience and combine ads with retargeting strategy. With lead-oriented ads you can generate leads, as they allow people to subscribe in just a few clicks.
Instagram is a mobile-first platform created with the mobile audience in mind having a good number of targeting options and formats. Ads in case of both Facebook and Instagram are managed via Facebook’s ad platform.
Despite its strong global presence, Facebook is fighting governments and consumer data privacy regulators across the globe. In late October 2018, Facebook Ads Manager was down for 8 hours, giving headache to marketers. Also, occasional bugs and glitches do bother.
moLotus is an innovative and disruptive next-generation mobile video interaction platform. With its rich media content, moLotus renders on all kinds of handsets. The best part is that the platform doesn’t require any app download or data connection. It integrates videos, images, text and links into one message and delivers to consumers’ message inbox. moLotus is able to deliver millions of personalized and customized messages per day for clients across industries and geographies for a variety of marketing uses.
moLotus gives advertiser an opportunity to achieve extraordinary success by transforming and automating the customer relationship processes. The ad campaigns ensure high brand visibility & response rate. They improve customers loyalty and earn better ROI.
The platform has the potential to disrupt the $300 billion direct marketing market and emerging $1.3 trillion global digitization opportunity.
TubeMogul is a leading independent advertising software platform owned by Adobe. It enables you to plan, buy, measure and optimize global ad campaigns.
The platform offers cross-channel advertising and marketing by providing access to ad inventory across all formats and devices from a single platform. Devices not only include smartphones but also desktops, tablets and linear televisions too!
But, the only problem with this platform is that its reporting feature available to publishers and its ad placement options are quite limited.
Airpush is a major mobile ad network providing advanced targeting and optimization technology. It differentiates itself by allowing advertisers to access its advanced, first-party data layer. In 2016, Airpush released the mobi.info advertising platform.
The platform allows app publishers the ability to monetize data collected by their apps whether or not the app shows an ad. The platform allows consumers to see fewer ads while increasing their relevance. The platform is integrated into over 250,000 mobile apps, mobile web, and virtual reality properties, as well as one of the world’s largest consumer data marketplaces.
Despite having one of the cleanest interface, targeting, and real-time optimization, Airpush ads are plagued by slow ad approval times and lack of support.
InMobi is also an independent app-based mobile ad network with a global reach. It develops an advertisement serving algorithm that helps in optimizing the ranking of the ads served on mobile phones.
InMobi ad platform gives you the opportunity to drive engagement and revenue via personalised ad campaigns. The rich media contextual ads help you cross-sell and re-target users. The platform comes with Adtracker offering tracking for mobile apps, conversions and events.
InMobi is a place to check out if you are looking to run app installs but note that the majority of your traffic will come from tier two apps having low-quality traffic in most regions.
So, which one is the best mobile ad platform?
This question doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. The decision solely depends upon advertising budget, goals, industry, and other niche factors. Although it is quite intimidating to decide the best tool, close scrutiny of the above tools highlights the fact that most of the tools are app-based and heavily data consuming. The only exception is moLotus which bypasses the need for Internet connectivity. This gives it an edge and superiority. Added to this are capabilities like interactiveness, individualization, and automation which makes it a clear winner.