Mobile Advertising

by Traffic Roots | Feb 2, 2021 | Ad Tech, Homepage Branded Graphic Only

Advertising technology has evolved in the last few years, especially in programmatic. Mobile advertising is the buzzword of the day. 92% of all online activity is preformed from a mobile device. If you’re not running mobile specific ads, optimized for these devices with easy checkout and form fills, you have no idea what you’re missing. It is definitely one of the most effective means to reach out to your potential customers.

In our ever increasing online world, a brilliant advertising campaign needs to focus on its mobile phone using audience. Mobile advertising is an evolving new field that differs a lot from the traditional concepts of ad making.

Modern marketers use a vast range of sophisticated copy-creative and targeting options to create user-friendly mobile ads to boost a brand name and generate higher revenues.

Mobile Advertising and its Benefits

Mobile ads are the ad tech answer to a consumer world that is addicted to their smartphones. We’ll specifically go over banner advertisements and video advertising.

Considering the average screen size of mobiles, the advertisements are optimized to fit into a smaller display area.

Mobile advertising is a part of mobile marketing using traditional techniques and strategies to collect data. This may include consumer profiles, demographics, habits, preferences, GeoFencing for proximity based advertising, etc., instead of going out and reaching your markets on the physical level (especially during the pandemic cir. 2019-202?) Mobile advertising makes use of the popularity of smartphone devices.

The increase of mobile advertising has been revolutionary when it comes to marketing campaigns. Benefits include an increase customer engagement rates, cost-effectiveness, hyper-targeted and thus, personalized offers for better consumer relationships, and social media friendliness.

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2021 Mobile Advertising Trends

Seeing an online promotional advertisement pop up while you’re using an online app is a common occurrence. Consumers expect these and their responses to the advertisements are growing in numbers.

In the last year, advertising purchased through a DSP or programmatic advertising platforms increased from $84 billing in 2019 to $98 billion in 2020.

Mobile Advertising Basics – Things to Know

So what are the basics that you need to know before you step into the amazing, yet ever-changing world of mobile advertising?

Here’s a list of some basics that you need to learn:

The terminologies used:

Programmatic advertising is the new trend in the world of advertising. Everything is changing to digital. Following are some key terms being used:

Demand Side Platform (DSP): It is also known as “buy-side optimizer” or “buy-side platform”. DSP is a digital standard that works for centralized and aggregated media buying from multiple sources. This also includes real-time bidding capabilities of all sources.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB): This method is specifically used for buying and selling ad inventories that are present in real-time (live).

Ad exchange: These are the sales channels for purchasing and selling online media advertising inventories. This is the modern version of the traditional manual price negotiation techniques used for bidding.

Ad network: This refers to the organizations that outsource sales services for publishers. Their key tasks include sifting through the ad inventories from various sources and generate buying opportunities for advertisers.

Supply Side Platform (SSP): These are exchange places for publishers who want to sell their ad inventory to advertisers. They are also commonly referred to as “sell-side optimizer”, inventory aggregator” or “yield optimizer”.

Agency Trading Desk (ATD): As the name suggests, this refers to a department of the advertising agency that facilitates the ad inventory purchases by the clients.

The mobile platforms used:

Understanding the mobile platforms that can be used to target your ads is a crucial aspect. Following are the two types of mobile platforms being used:

Mobile Web: This refers to the pages that are arranged to fit the mobile screen sizes (both smartphones and tablets). Since more users prefer to access their mobile devices rather than desktops, it is easier to reach a higher number of target audience. Modern ad contents like video ads and other rich media versions help in offering enhanced ad experience.

In- App: In today’s world, a discussion on mobile advertising is impossible without mobile apps. App advertising is one of the most sought after strategies used by marketers to promote their products. All you need to do is to pick the right apps and put up the right creative within it.

Apps are easy to download and navigate and are highly preferred by present-day mobile users. In-App advertisements are those that are visible within these apps. These are specifically designed to target user behavior and preferences and to give them the best browsing experience.

Ad formats (as discussed in the subsequent sections) rely on the platform being chosen.

The currency terminology being used:

Mobile ad campaign payments can be made using several different ways. These include:

Pay Per Click(PPC)- Also known as Cost per Click (CPC) in some countries. In simple terms, payments are made based on the number of times the ad is clicked.
Cost per Impression (CPI)-Payments are made for every new ad view.
Cost per Action (CPA)- Payments are made for every completed action.
Cost per View (CPV)- Payments are made every time an advertisement pop up.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)- refers to the number of clicks on a particular link.
Cost per Mile (CPM)- Payments for every thousand ad views.
Conversion Rate (CR)- Percentage of users taking the desired action
Install Rate (IR)- Percentage of users installing an app.

Advantages of Mobile Advertising

What makes mobile advertising so effective?

Markets are constantly expanding. New business ventures and entrepreneurs are looking for options to leverage this amazing opportunity. Following are some of the key benefits of mobile advertising:

Accessible: Social media platforms and mobile apps have become the modern terminology for communication. People spend a considerable amount of time updating their apps. It is hence important to deliver your campaign directly to your consumers.And what better way to do so than to reach out to your consumers on their cell phones. The accessibility benefits of mobile advertising ensure that that your ad campaigns get delivered instantly and accessed easily by the users.

Geo-targeting: Since people keep their cell phones with them when they travel, marketers and advertisers can make use of the knowledge to deliver location-based, geo-targeted advertisements. Location-based mobile advertising is a great way to analyze consumer preferences and habits like shopping favorites, areas frequented, etc. For example, when a shopper visiting X locality gets an advertisement of a sale happening in a store there, the chances of visiting the store are likely to increase.
Understanding consumer habits: Mobile devices have a unique ID. Using the id’s, offline as well as online habits of the target consumers can easily be studied. This, in turn, helps in devising a sound marketing campaign.
Cost efficiency: Mobile advertising is one of the most cost-efficient ways to reach your target customers. In fact, the overall cost of designing a mobile advertising campaign is a small fraction of a TV or radio ad. Being budget-friendly means that marketers can afford to increase the frequency of sending messages or even target new customers repeatedly.
Personalized advertising: Mobile advertisements have the unique advantage of tailoring the mobile user’s preference in marketing campaigns. If your creative is of females in a yoga class, your audience should be females interested in yoga. It’s only logic.
Plethora of creative options: Since mobile advertising integrates well with social media channels, websites, and apps, it is possible to enhance the creativity levels of the advertisements. With a strong visual appeal and instant outreach, mobile ads ensure a stronger impression on the target audience.
Fraud resistance: Compared to desktop advertising, fraud detection is easy with mobile devices. It is easy to verify the “Click to calls” and usage.
Instant results: Cell phone users keep their devices with them wherever they go. The chances of seeing an ad on a mobile set are more as compared to desktop or other traditional advertising methods. Additionally, it is also easy to track user responses instantly.
Higher conversion rates: Smartphone-based ads, clicks, spend and conversions report the highest growth rate when compared to desktops or even tablets.
Interactive: People like to take part in advertisements that come along with contests, games, etc. The use of gamification and other features makes mobile advertising more interactive.

Mobile Advertising vs Mobile Marketing

While mobile advertising is synonymous to mobile marketing, they are different in terms of applications. Mobile marketing is an umbrella term that includes mobile advertising.

Mobile marketing makes use of multiple services and data information like location based services, buyer persona and their habits, user preferences, etc.

Therefore, certain mobile ads will appear only when a user enters a certain geo marked boundary.

Mobile ad placement on the other hand works through programmatic bidding where marketers/advertisers are involved in real time bidding to place an ad on a mobile device. This includes processes known as demand side platforms (DSP) which enables advertisers to measure their performance. Performance optimization is done using KPI (Key performance indicators) like CPC, CPM, etc.

Types of Mobile Advertising at Traffic Roots

Mobile ads can have different forms and platforms. While marketers use each of the below-mentioned mobile advertising solutions, the suitability to a sector and the baseline strategy decides the choice. Various social media platforms work differently when it comes to mobile advertising techniques and efforts.

What follows is to consider the different types of mobile advertising options available and consider them with respect to the goal of the advertisement.

Following is a list of the most commonly used mobile advertising formats.

1. Banner advertising

Banner ads are the oldest version of mobile ads. The origin of banner advertising can be traced back to web marketing. However, in a world that is more in love with interactive rich media ads, banner advertisements still manage to survive and be popular.

Banner ads are often seen embedded in a web host page or an app. In most instances, these are depicted by images (or graphics with text) that are designed to grab the attention of consumers. The idea is to pull the customers from the host page to the advertiser’s page and later convert it into a paying client.

The use of vibrant colors, quality graphics, and “Call to Action” tabs make banner ads very appealing and popular. The better the visual appeal, the higher is the customer reaction.

While banner ads are very cost-efficient and are still being widely used, the world is quickly moving to other modern options like gamification ads and video ads (described below).

That said, banner ads are very much alive and in demand.

2. Video advertising

A report from the Business Insider says that social video advertising spend doubled up in 2017 (expectedly) to over $4 billion.

Those FIGURES alone say a lot!

Video advertising is a very powerful communication tool to get a company it’s desired conversion figures.

Product videos are extremely helpful for customers when they are in a decision-making process. Videos can effectively deliver a complete visual experience, which helps the users to get a closer feel of the products in question

A big percentage of consumers watch videos on their mobile phones. In fact, watching video on a phone has more impact and gets more conversions as compared to watching video ads on TV!

Ad makers and marketers use various techniques to display video ads on a mobile device. Options like optimizing a YouTube ad, Shopping ads that get displayed underneath the main video, sponsored advertisements that come at the beginning of video content are used.

3. Contextual App Mobile Ads

It is simple logic: if you are advertising a casino, your best contextual app placement would be games like poker, slot machines or blackjack. Contextual ad placement using the Traffic Roots white lists bring instant eyes to customers who are highly motivated to learn about your brand.

Some important tips for creating mobile video advertisements that generate good ROI are:

Keep it SIMPLE
Use your CREATIVITY
Keep it short and CRISP
The audio and visuals are NOT TOO LOUD
Display a CALL TO ACTION

Key Steps for Developing a Mobile Advertising Campaign

An online mobile marketing campaign uses a certain set of key elements. Following is a list of factors that add up to create a successful mobile advertising campaign.

1. Establish Objectives

Like any other marketing campaign, it is important to define objectives for the mobile advertising campaign as a first step. Defining objectives or measurable goals helps you understand your results and take valuable lessons from them.

A mobile advertising campaign is created in the first place to raise awareness about the brand and increase sales numbers. It also helps drive the web traffic to the company’s landing page. A good number of companies create specific mobile advertisements to promote a special deal or a newly launched product.

Irrespective of the objective, getting clarity on the goals helps in defining the metrics that are required to achieve the targets.

Some examples of objectives for a mobile advertising campaign could be:

Raise brand awareness
Generate “x” number of registrations
Get “x” number of mobile opt-ins
Get web traffic to the landing site
Getting “x” number of people for video gameplay
Increase sales to “x” figure
Add a targeted number of new clients per month
Advertise a promotional offer

2. Choosing Your Target Audience

Adding more contacts or clients is one of the key reasons to start a mobile promotion event in the first place. But just adding up the audience is not enough. You want to target a specific group of audience to be on top of your advertising game, like in our contextual app ad placement. It all starts with identifying who you want to target.

Once the target audience is identified, it is important to study their preferences and other details like what they need, what they prefer, how they react, etc. We like to suggest reviewing your Google Ads behavior flow from A/B testing. For example, what is the bounce rate between the females aged 25-34 vs. 35-44 group? Where do they most often go on the website when clicking through? Soon, the data starts telling you more about your audience, from what information they need most before taking your call to action or making a purchase.

Studying a target group of potential consumers like our females above also helps to understand their mobile environments.

It is crucial to factor the viewing mindset of users.

They typically have smaller screen sizes than conventional desktops, and hence need better clarity with the texts, visuals, and graphics. Also, remember that mobile users usually have shorter attention spans. The advertisements should hence be sufficiently catchy to grab their attention.

Various data segments in Google Analytics can be used to gather target audience profiles.

3. Identifying the Type of Mobile ad You Need

Determining the type of ad campaign that is best suited for your product or services needs careful considerations. Ad campaigns could be created to simply generate higher sales or with the sole purpose of creating brand awareness.

As mentioned in the earlier sections of the article, various types of mobile advertising formats are used by marketers. A campaign could be more suited to video ads or could work well with photo advertisements or banner ads.

If you’re looking at generating a higher number of clicks, a regular banner advertisement can be used. When the target is to get high sales figures, creating video ads with a CTA link to the product works well. Ensure that the CTA link directs consumers to the landing page that talks about your product.

While it is true that some mobile advertising formats utilize lesser resources than others, it is important to consider the purpose and the target audience when choosing a type. Video ads, for example, are costly to create but deliver higher lead generation and stronger brand awareness.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with organic looking video ads. Here at Traffic Roots, we found consumers highly engaged with product review ads over 200% more than professionally shot videos in a CBD beauty advertising campaign. If you think on the logic of the consumer, it makes sense. Beauty products are so often reviewed on popular channels like Instagram and YouTube that consumers have become accustomed to seeing peers speaking of a product. It was a perfect fit for our client and brought tremendous success to the brand.

4. Decide the ad Campaign Length

Figuring out the type of mobile ad campaign that you want to run and the numbers that you’re looking to generate is the first step. Once you’ve done that, it boils down to planning the actual campaign.

Start with planning out the length of your ad campaign. This again depends on factors like:

Types of actions that the users will need to take (single click, multiple steps, etc)
User group preferences as observed from previously generated data.
Budget availability

If a single click directs your user straight to the landing page for purchase, your mobile ad length will obviously be short. On the other hand, a campaign that targets both brand awareness and sales generation will need to run through multiple steps and will hence be lengthy.

The length of the mobile ad campaign is also a factor that contributes to the overall cost, resources and time.

5. Consider the Targeted Devices

Ad content varies based on the devices that are targeted. Different types of contents are used for different devices.

Smartphones usually have small screen sizes and need more focused content with minimal interruptions. Tablets and iPads, on the other hand, require high-quality creatives.

Understanding the device preference of your target customers is hence important. We actually keep coming back to the realization that understanding your user groups is extremely crucial.

Even within a device, the time spent by a user on apps or mobile web needs to be considered. Preferences differ based on region and country.

6. Ad Designing

It finally comes down to designing the mobile advertisement, complete with graphics and content.

General guidelines to keep in mind while creating a mobile ad are available all over the internet. However, it is important to remember that mobile advertisements are created with the primary objective of getting the viewer’s attention.

Focus on using high-quality graphics, especially when the ads are being created for iPad and tablets. Remember that viewers using a slightly larger screen expect better quality visuals than those who view the ads on their cell phones.

It pays to spend time and resources on high-quality graphics when considering certain ad types like banner ads and interstitial ads. When it comes to mobile advertisements, content works like nothing else. Design alone may not do the job.

Make sure that your content copy is compelling enough to persuade consumers to buy your products. Ad content needs to be crisp and clear about the product/service along with an attention-grabbing call to action tabs.

If you can keep your content engaging and interactive, even better.

Ensure that the number of touchpoints is kept minimal. A user may not like the idea of devoting too much time and attention to complete the CTA after seeing the ad. Keeping them away from their mobile work for too long can create negative reviews.

Finally, as mentioned earlier in the article, keep your focus limited to a targeted set of audience. Let your users get a sense that the mobile advertisement understands their needs and is created for them. User data like demographics, location, behavior pattern, shopping choices, social media preferences can help creating user-targeted ads.

7. Data management, reporting, and analysis

Gathering user information is easy. However, it is crucial to respect the privacy of your users and consider the safety of their data. Managing the data that is collected during mobile promotions is important.

The database collected during mobile campaigns is huge. It is much more than what you can capture through online desktop promotions. Consider the following points for effective data management:

What is the type of user data available with you?
Owner information (it is advisable that you take ownership of the data from your technology provider)
How will the mobile audience be segmented?
How are the tracking links set up?

Reporting and analysis are again an important aspect of a mobile advertising campaign. it includes scrutinizing the following:

User funnels and the goals that you want your consumers to follow
User behavioral patterns
User’s engagement time
User visit frequency
Campaign’s overall contribution to the overall objective

8. A/B Ad Testing

So your ad is prepared and you’re ready to launch?

Now is the time to test the conversion rates. Measurements and metrics can be collected for a small period, like a month to see how the mobile ad is performing. An assessment at this stage will tell you how the advertisement is performing in terms of conversions and sales.

Other testing variables include user flow, responses, load testing, data captured, etc.

Mobile campaigns are usually tracked using two key attribution methodologies:

Unique Identified matching
Device Fingerprinting

Once you have some preliminary measurements, you can take time to improve your mobile ad.

Key Mobile Ad Strategies That Work

A successful mobile advertising strategy varies from one business to the other. However, considering the general trends, the following are some key mobile ad strategies that have shown great results for various brands.

1. Use Modern Versions of Mobile Ads

Mobile banner ads are the conventionally used ones by various global brands. While they still hold their popularity, it is time to think beyond banners. Your brand isn’t dull and lifeless, and neither should your creatives be.

Consumers have shorter attention spans and limited availability of time to view the ad content being thrown in their devices. Think video and don’t sweat the small stuff.

While display advertisements like banner ads can be highly effective when directed to the right consumer groups at the right time, it is definitely time to include modern versions like video ads in your mobile ads spend.

2. Think Local

The share of local ad spend is projected to jump in the year 2021. Ever wondered the reason behind the rapid growth?

Mobile ads are one of the best channels for businesses that are localized. With the possibilities of geotargeting, mobile ads are now being delivered to local consumers.

In some ways, it helps the user feel interested and connected to the advertisement. When a brand decides to create local mobile advertisements (both, platform-agnostic and device-specific), the results are often highly effective.

3. Audience Targeting

It is important to target your mobile ads to improve overall effectiveness.

As an ad creator or a mobile ad marketer, it is important to remember that modern-day consumers have a low tolerance for ads that do not serve value. Make use of the capabilities of current mobile devices (like GPS) to create more targeting options.

Targeting options like consumer demographics, time targeting, behavior targeting etc are very effective when you’re focused on improving your response rates. Ensure that you use as many of these targeting options available.

Modern options like micro-location targeting and micro time targeting are also being used by mobile advertisers to generate better and rapid results.

4. Reduce Your ad Loading Time

Even while fetching awesome conversions, mobile ads often end up being overlooked by user groups. In fact, certain studies report that a big percentage of mobile users prefer to block their mobile ads due to interruptions caused by the long loading time.

We’ve all faced it. Slow-loading ads that take forever to come through.

Not just are these ads blocked by user groups, they often end up creating a negative brand experience.

Ensure that you build lightweight ads to keep them user-friendly. If possible, do not include heavy images or hosted video content. Ad serving processes like “polite load” help by loading a lighter file while the main content gets uploaded.

Finally, try not to use incompatible technologies for ad serving. For example, don’t run an Android App download offer to iPhones.

Like we said, it’s just logic, so, keep it simple. Now, do it and do it well. We’re always here to help.

Video Ads

by Traffic Roots | Jan 19, 2021 | Ad Tech, Blog, Homepage Branded Graphic Only

Video is king! Content was King until we saw metrics start singing and dancing when that content was animated. But how can you make it king of your advertising and marketing strategy? Let’s look at what’s working and get to the “why,” of its place in your media buying mix.

What is Video Advertising?

Marketing professionals in programmatic video advertising define display ads as video content, such as those that start playing when a person puts a mouse cursor over them and native video ads promoted on digital ad networks.

The Current State of Video Advertising

Video advertising is one of the most popular ways to reach online audiences. Programmatic advertising experts believe video advertising will dominate the next decade, which suggests that now is an ideal time for marketing professionals to investigate how it could improve their reach and overall effectiveness with campaigns.

Although marketing with videos is gaining popularity, that doesn’t make it a guaranteed win for marketers. The results of an Irish study indicated 60% of respondents felt there was too much advertising associated with on-demand video platforms. (That would be you, YouTube) Also, 35% said they got frustrated with those ads because they prevented them from watching their desired content.

That narrative splits with programmatic video advertising. Instead of ads running “pre-roll” (before desired content) or “mid-roll” (which interrupts the desired content) video banner ads sit patiently next to that content. You brand is not making a bad impression by being rude. Your customer consumes the content they intended to and eagerly pops into your message at their convenience.

Their convenience is key: they are ready to give you time, attention, and ideally, a conversion.

That being said, marketers must be exceptionally careful to create video ads the audience perceives as genuinely valuable and relevant. The placement of a video ad also matters, since the goal is to make any advertising content minimally disruptive. This directly contrasts with the intrusive and annoying nature of pre-roll video, and brings much better completion rates. When building your custom, targeted audiences, really take the time to consider who you are trying to connect with and test, test, test those creatives to each audience.

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Digital Video Advertising Trends

The digital video world is not static. Experienced marketers know they must stay on top of new developments to understand what audiences want and need. Learn about four relevant trends to watch.

1. Video Ads Are Not as Short

YouTube was one of the first platforms to offer six-second ads. Since late 2015, however, the most popular video ad length is 30 seconds. This data suggests that when it comes to video, people are willing to pay attention for a bit longer.

Here at Traffic Roots, our video player is dynamic to live on nearly all of our publishers ad units (160,000 publishers and counting) and can be any length that makes sense for your message.

2. Mobile Users Tune in Longer

Research indicates smartphone users are more likely to watch long-form video ads than those lasting only six seconds. Once they’ve watched for six seconds, 72% of users continue to engage. Plus, they’re committed to the video more than those on a desktop.

Even among mobile users, however, attention drops sharply after 22 seconds. This finding suggests marketers creating video ads for mobile should be mindful of length based on the type of traffic they want to attract.

3. Video Ad Spend Is Increasing

A report published in April 2019 confirms digital video ad budgets are up 25% year over year. The growth is more substantial in specific industries. In media and entertainment, for example, video-based ad spending increased by 75% since 2018.

Advertisers need to remain aware of these shifts, especially if their companies show signs of pending budget cuts. Forgetting about video ads could cause them to fall behind competitors.

4. Animation Is Getting More Popular

The goal of any video advertising campaign is to keep the viewer interested. Companies can achieve magic by using animation in their ads. Additions like cartoons blended with real-life footage and motion-tracked graphics can make the content lively, relevant and fun.

You’d be surprised to know that “real-life footage” does not just mean candid actors pushing your brand. We ran a highly polished product video ad over the holidays against a few clips from their real client reviews. Just normal people, talking about their beauty products… and guess what? The reviews were getting over 300% the engagement!

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The professional content ran at around .4% CTR, while their organic, user generated review content video ad has continued to run well above 1.50% CTR!

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Think on that one for a moment: user generated content bringing three times the return on ad spend! If that’s not a win, I don’t know what is. Even our lead strategist was excited to be so surprised by these results. The reality is that consumers have become so accustomed to Instagram and YouTube videos that homogenized, professional videos look too much like a commercial. So, don’t be afraid to be approachable and organic. Make a few, test them out, just turn them off it they don’t move the needle.

Display vs. Video Advertising

A display ad is a paid advertisement that appears in the digital space, whether on a website, social media network or app. The earliest ones were the rectangular-shaped banner ads shown at the top of a site’s main content. Display ads aim to boost brand awareness and purchase intent. Expected click-through rates average 0.05% across banner formats. We see that jump incredibly when video ads are formatted to standard IAB banner sizes, for example, a 320×50 mobile or 970×250 billboard.

The excitement of video ads has woken display ads and compelled marketers to look for creative alternatives. That shift led to the use of video ads, which are great at driving awareness, engagement and conversions. In fact, 72% of people prefer video over text when learning about a product or service. And according to Forbes, the average internet user spends 88% more time on a web page that has video, compared to one without. In one study, using video on a landing page increased conversions by 86%.

Advantages of Video Ads

Marketers can benefit from numerous perks associated with video advertising. Video content catches users’ attention, and when people tune in, brand awareness goes up. YouTube recently announced opportunities for marketers to display their video ads with “edgy” creator content. There are plenty of other ways that marketers can make compelling video ads that capture the viewers’ interest – the only limit is imagination.

Pro Tip: make your video ad sharable from your landing page to their favorite social sites! Bonus points if you set your macros to appropriate tracking and attribution reporting. (One of the many perks of using our amazing media buying team as a fully managed service.)

You can optimize video for mobile devices. As a starting point, that means your marketing team should ensure the video plays smoothly on mobile devices and looks great on small screens. Take the video’s orientation into account, too. For example, many people naturally use their smartphones while holding them vertically. However, that could change if a person wants to watch a video that lasts at least several minutes. Try to imagine what people will be doing when they initially encounter your video advertising methods, then adjust your creation strategy to fit.

Why You Should Include Video Advertising in Your Marketing Mix

Making video part of your strategy allows you to engage with audiences that ignore text and banner ads. As mentioned above, marketers are increasing the money they spend on video ads. If you overlook this trend, you’ll face a competitive disadvantage.

Getting someone to click on a static display ad means impressing them enough with a single appealing image or headline. Video advertising includes more elements users may find relevant or engaging. You could use a catchy song, a funny opening line or a relatable situation to get viewers hooked and urge them to watch the entire ad.

How Much Should You Invest in Video Advertising

The amount you invest in video advertising will vary based on your goals and financial resources. If you’re jumping into video ads for the first time, start gradually and scale up. Consider hiring some expert help to guide your early efforts, too. Although that’s not a requirement by any means, those professionals will have their finger on the pulse of video advertising trends. Moreover, they’ll be well-positioned to offer suggestions for crafting video content that matches your brand and helps achieve those all-important KPIs you choose.

Video Advertising Effectiveness

Video advertising works for several reasons. For one, studies conclude that roughly three-quarters of consumers prefer video content over text ads. They stick in viewers’ minds, making brand recall more likely. Videos tell stories and help a brand develop its voice. Plus, native advertisements can blend seamlessly with their surroundings.

Effective video marketing can generate millions of views and shares in a relatively short time, meaning you may not need to wait very long to see substantial payoffs. Check out the Christmas 2019 video by British retailer John Lewis that got over 9 million views after just over 2 weeks.Then, in an example of how videos can show how products fit a person’s lifestyle and needs, American retailer Target scored big with a Spanish-language commercial for Cloud Island, its line of baby products. The content lasts only 15 seconds but features adorable images of parents and infants. Only nine days after arriving on YouTube, the video had more than 579,000 views.

It’s difficult to predict what precisely causes a video ad to make a splash with the audience. That’s where it pays to work with a Video Marketing Strategist. No one nerds out harder than a creative data analyst. They are hard to come by and run about $300 an hour… more if they are skilled in highly regulated industries. You’ll be pleased to know that when you opt for managed solutions with Traffic Roots, your entire media buying team is lead by the most powerful digital marketing strategist for highly regulated industries in North America.

Are you ready to jump in and start reaping the rewards of video advertising? Send us a note, let’s do this!

5 Seconds to a Click and Conversion

by Traffic Roots | Dec 15, 2020 | Ad Tech, Blog

Clickbait: What is that?

I can’t believe you just clicked on that. What were you thinking??

Yes, that’s where this blog is going, it is time to be honest and really dig in.

The truth of the matter is that no matter who you are that first line did something for you. It caused an emotion for you. That emotion could be that you are confused as to what we are talking about. It could be you are literally trying to think what you clicked on. Maybe, you feel foolish initially because you may have clicked something you shouldn’t have or you are afraid you clicked on something harmful.

Allow me to introduce you to the topic of this blog; hook lines. This can be known as clickbait or copy. We realize that clickbait has a negative connotation, especially in a world of ‘fake news’ that we live in. The reason that it is an issue is because some people try to mislead people to something that does not pertain to the content that catches your eye.

However, it is not a bad thing to have content that baits people to click. Fish go for the bait because it is appealing but they die if they do that. Luckily, your consumers can go for the bait and get a high quality product. This is why it is important to provide value for your clients.

If your ads are really misleading and your products do not align with the intention then you will have a lot of angry customers if any at all.

Clickbait gets a negative connotation but it shouldn’t be seen that way because it can provide you brand great value. Ultimately, you are achieving your goal and you are getting attention to your brand which is what every single marketer struggles with everyday.

Human emotions are a wonderful thing and we need appeal to humans that are the ones seeing the ads even though it is a digital game. Headlines spark out natural human curiosity. We want to know more because that line caught our interest.

Curiosity isn’t the only emotion that is activated but we can also feel anger, lust, envy, fear, and many other emotions that will get people to take action.

You’re really doing your customers a favor by providing them clickbait. Does that sound selfish? Maybe it is a bit selfish but e-commerce is a world with so many choices and can be incredibly overwhelming. Choosing the right product when you have so many options can be difficult so providing an engaging message to users helps them find your products and see how valuable they are. You can utilize storytelling to build interest and engagement with users and keep it light to interest them in receiving more information, thus building a lead magnet.

The goal doesn’t always have to be a sale!

Building a strong following and leads can be very valuable and potentially generate a higher lifetime value for a client.

Some of you may not understand what clickbait is so let’s provide some examples because it’s actually nothing new. The fact that it is online and you can click on the ads is what makes it specific and relevant but the concept is nothing new. It’s really about creating a captivating message that grabs your attention.

He did what??

Clearly, this shows a farfetched story that sparks your interest because of the absurdity of it. I am sure you would be inclined to read this paper just to satisfy your curiosity. It is a clear example that “clickbait” is nothing new and marketers have been doing it since marketing began. We are seeing highly targeted campaigns reaching users that are actively ready to buy across our network. Campaigns offering deals and discounts in their holiday advertising have performed 5x better than simple branding campaigns. Driving more sales will allow you to justify the discounted rates for the holiday season. Depending on your product you can generate amazing lifetime value from converting them with a first time discount. Everyone is looking for deals right now. The trick is to make your deal so appealing that they can’t resist.

We realize that you may be on the lookout for misleading clickbait but we have to see past those that are utilizing clickbait for evil purposes and wrongdoing. At the end of the day they are ruining it for the good marketers because clickbait is not all bad.

If you have an amazing product or provide a great service then you must find the best ways to get the word out to more people. Customers will never be disappointed in clicking your ads because it led them to something of great value.

So keep testing clickbait and getting the word out about how amazing your brand is and it will be appreciated by your ideal customers.

Lookalike Audiences to Increase Sales and ROAS

by Traffic Roots | Nov 16, 2020 | Ad Tech, Blog, Strategy

Finding your audience is the most important goal for marketers and it is always an ongoing journey. Marketers are consistently prospecting for new users and continuing to build from retargeting campaigns to re-engage existing users. In order to continue building that list of existing users, the prospecting has to continue as well. New users must be found in order for your retargeting audience to stay strong and scale.

We do understand that prospecting can be difficult and it takes patience. More importantly, it takes data to find new users/consumers effectively. This is where things get interesting and we provide you the tools to attack this more effectively.

Lookalike Audiences!

What is a lookalike audience, you ask?

Maybe some of you have seen Lookalike audiences on mainstream platforms like Facebook but on Traffic Roots we build audiences a little differently. Also we don’t push away CBD and cannabis advertisers like they do, we welcome you with open arms!

Now let’s talk about Lookalike Audiences. In a nutshell Lookalikes are just what they sound like. It is an audience built from your existing audiences to provide you a way better way to reach cold audiences that serve like warm audiences but much bigger. Our system takes your existing audience and begins to break down the attributes of the audience in order to build an audience that can compliment it with new users. Although the audience is a cold audience it isn’t freezing cold, we would say lukewarm. This is because when our system matches attributes of a warm audience in order to create it which gives you an audience that will definitely perform better than a traditional cold audience. While you may have a good idea of what your ideal user is, Traffic Roots provides you the tools to find your ideal client with more ease and scale. Lookalike audiences help you grow your reach significantly by finding new users interested in your brand.

Let’s play matchmaker!

Traffic Roots’ system is a sophisticated system that allows you to build out your ideal audience attributes to create audience segments that can benefit your marketing strategy. More importantly, this informed audience building helps optimize your media spend, increase ROI, and decrease your cost per acquisition.

Using Lookalike Audiences

Within the Traffic Roots platform you can utilize lookalike audiences in any campaign. Our system allows you to use multiple audiences on a single campaign as well as pair with other audiences built in our data platform. These audiences can range from geo-fenced audiences to demographic or interest based audiences.

However, we must manage your expectation and let you know that if you run multiple audiences that are coming from different segments and parameters, performance can be difficult to decipher. Inexperienced marketers may see and increase in performance due to the effectiveness of the targeting but a true marketer needs to pinpoint what is working and why. Which can be difficult to do if you stack many audiences along with multiple creatives that all have different points of view.

As marketers we must keep track of our data and be very meticulous about our goals and strategies. Different custom audiences will match different goals, so It is important to recognize those goals and utilize your audiences accordingly.

Successful Audiences

We all want to have successful marketing campaigns and when we begin to hone in on what works we definitely double down. Once you find what works then the fun begins and the sales start coming in in droves. This means you have an audience that has continuously driven sales for you and building from that audience will definitely generate results. If your warm audience has generated hundreds of sales already then it is probably a great candidate for a lookalike audience.

Don’t get comfortable and keep testing and adding layers to improve performance. Take into account an audience that has proven success for your strategy consistently. This audience can continue to provide results for you as well as provide you data for valuable lookalike audiences.

Connect with our team to learn how to streamline audience building and generate effective lookalikes for your brand

Generate Results With Video Advertising and Content

by Traffic Roots | Oct 29, 2020 | Ad Tech, Blog

Fact: Video Ads Create Results

Marketing professionals consistently trust in video content and its potential to increase engagement and build brand loyalty.

Over 85% of marketers utilize video as an effective marketing tool and now you can utilize it on our platform as well. Video is a favored marketing tool for a variety of reasons but one main reason is the potential to explain and sell products in a format that users find easier to digest. Tutorial videos are amongst the most popular by users, due to their ease of use and ability to provide a lot of useful information effectively.

Video Advertising for CBD and Cannabis Brands

We realize avenues are limited for Vice brands like Cannabis and CBD. Which is why we continue to innovate and provide you the best tech possible to stay safe and continue to scale up your marketing strategy with complete transparency on our self-serve platform.

VIDEO MARKETING FACTS:

Studies show that 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support (hubspot,2018)
88% of marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their marketing efforts
95% of marketers say they’ve landed a new customer thanks to a video ad
The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video (Forbes)
75% of all plays are on mobile devices

A few things to remember when creating video content:

Users retain 95% of a message when they consume a video in comparison to reading it in text (blog).
Videos under TWO MINUTES seem to get more engagement. However, if you have videos on your page that have useful information, users will always appreciate valuable content.
96% of consumers look to videos to learn about a particular product or service.

Effective marketing continues to thrive through video, especially on mobile devices. Mobile video consumption continues to grow exponentially every year at a rate of almost 99%.

Explore CBD and Cannabis Video Advertising With Traffic Roots

Create Amazing Results With Competitor Data

by Traffic Roots | Jun 11, 2020 | Ad Tech, Blog

GeoFence Advertising

Target Your Direct Competitors Using GeoConquesting

Establishing your marketing strategy and target audience can be difficult when you are starting at square one. It is hard to know who is going to be most interested in your products. Not only that but then establishing an effective way to target those users.

GeoFence advertising: you don’t have to start at square one.
GeoFencing to build an established audience based on who shops your competition.
GeoConquesting: advertise to your competitors customers.

GeoFence Data for Advertising

The answer is geo-fencing. You may know it as geo-framing as well or geo-targeting. In this case, geo-fencing allows you to create an audience from a given location (or two or 20,000) instead targeting users that are actively in a location. While, you can run ads to those users when they are in a state, zip code, etc., you can also serve them ads, regardless of where they are right now, so long as they have walked into one of your GeoFrame locations on the dates you selected as important for your campaign.

Traffic Roots’ GeoFence technology will allow you to find users who have been in the chosen geo-fenced location. Create a custom targeted audience in our data management platform and target them through our demand side platform (DSP) built for brands like yours.

You can choose to allow that audience count to build by adding new customers daily, weekly, monthly or whatever means the most for your conversions. If you have targeted everyone at a convention, then of course, you would keep the audience to just those dates that you selected. You may also find it useful to only have an audience from people at the location within the last 30 days, or a couple of months. This is your data management platform (DMP) and you have complete control.

GeoFence Case Use

Let’s put together an example to make it simpler:

You’re opening up a burger place in town and you want people who like burgers to come to your place. You could just put a sign up that says “Best Burgers Sold Here” but that wouldn’t really be a hyper targeted ad. Target against your competitor’s audience instead. You could build an audience of every single McDonalds in town. Why stop there, geo-fence every Burger King and Carl’s Jr while you are at it.

GeoFence advertising is your solution. Here’s your magic wand; let’s do this, Advertising Wizard!

Now you have a solid audience of people that you know for sure visit burger places on a regular basis. Looks like you are not at square one anymore, you have got a leg up on the competition. More importantly, you can continue to build this audience with new visitors as time passes.

GeoFence Demographic and Insights Reports

What information can I see about those people in my audience group?

In a nutshell, Karen? Everything… click into an example of an audience report and let us know how you’ll be using them. We’d be happy to tell you what forms of wizardry we are up. We’ll get you going in the right direction.

Find People Who Visit and Continue to Target Them!

The features on the Traffic Roots’ Demand Side Platform allows you to do this with ease, allowing you to be hyper targeted with your ads and create stellar performance. Geo-fencing is a feature that does not have to work alone, you can implement retargeting, device targeting, and platform targeting as well. This gives you the ability to really hone in on your target audience and ramp up business. It will also make you the envy of your competitors who are falling behind now because you have found a tool that will increase your revenue 10x.

The sooner you can establish this strategy the better. It is crucial to begin building audiences and continue to understand the demographics of your ideal audience in order to create scale and growth.