Ads.txt has already proven to be enormously beneficial and popular in the browser world, and it’s now finally available to mobile apps. To explain how it works in in-app environments and why it’s so advantageous, check out our latest Whiteboard Wednesday video featuring Sergio Serra from InMobi's product management team.

Transcript

Hi, and welcome to a new version of Whiteboard Wednesday. Today we’re going to talk about a new innovation for the advertising ecosystem, more specifically for the in-app world, this extension of ads.txt.

Before digging in a little bit more into what ads.txt for in-app looks like, let’s try to assess what ads.txt was trying to solve in the ecosystem itself. So ads.txt is basically a file that gets uploaded into the website of the publisher, which is the property that publisher is trying to monetize against. And the file is supposed to basically look exactly like a ledger in which the publisher can list down the authorized sellers for that specific inventory.

How Ads.txt Works for Mobile Web, Browser Bid Requests

So let’s look a little bit more into how the template and the schema will look like. So basically you have a domain, a publisher ID per the advertising platform and relationship type and certification authority. Now in the case of InMobi, being an SSP for that particular property, it would be inmobi.com comma 1234 or whatever publisher ID that we give to the publisher and then the relationship type, might be either direct or reseller, and then the certification authority, which happens to be a TAG ID.

Ads.txt’s Role in Verifying Ad Inventory, Authorized Digital Sellers

I think one important thing to note is that once the IAB released ads.txt in 2017, publishers of course started to integrate and build to the spec massively. And the great thing is that towards 2018 we could observe a decrease in fraud of 10 percent and plus for the cases of domain spoofing. So ads.txt was trying particularly to solve for domain spoofing.

And let’s try to understand what domain spoofing is. So in this specific case you have a site, which is xyz.com, that is sending its request to an SSP, so this is a very legitimate use case, and the SPP will be as such sending the request to the DSP, which in turn might decide to bid against that specific property. But, let’s assume now a fraudster is trying to set up a fake site, which is abc.com, but in the request to the SSP is sending still the same site, which is xyz.com.

Now the DSP will not know that actually the ad that is trying to serve will be served in another property. And consequently this is a lose-lose situation because if you think about it, the publisher - the real publisher, which in this case is xyz.com - is not monetizing against the budget that the DSP was meant to allocate against this property. And on the other hand, the DSP on the demand side is wasting his budget because he’s sending an ad which is probably not in a brand-safe environment, and at the same time will not lead to any good performance.

How Ads.txt Works for Mobile Apps, App Inventory

So this is a massive innovation. This was a massive innovation for the whole ecosystem. But the problem with in-app was that for a web property like in this case, you are just supposed to append ads.txt to the domain or subdomain. But in the case of app, an app by definition doesn’t live online. It’s basically in the device, so you can’t just append ads.txt into its name but you rather need to find a way to retrieve a URL first.

So there was a need for standardization, and that’s where InMobi along with the IAB community sat and decided to face this problem by issuing a spec that was released on beta in 2018, in November 2018. And this is basically a guidance that applies to both the publisher and the app store.

So the need from a publisher in this case is just to go on its app store page in which the apps that he wants to monetize on are hosted. And over there it’s supposed to update the seller URL or developer URL field, and from that this will be basically the online resource from which eventually the ads.txt file, which for in-app again is app-ads.txt, will be found.

The second step that the publisher needs to do is to go practically to that site that again he owns and upload the app-ads.txt file accordingly. Now from here onwards, the same guidance as the desktop or web ads.txt will apply. So it’s exactly the same guidance, with some nuances on the subdomain that active, for instance not being supported anymore. But I would really invite everybody to just go on the IAB repository and take a look more granularly at both ads.txt and app-ads.txt guidance.

Now on the other hand, for the stores, there is another thing. So obviously IAB, it’s important to note, cannot really enforce standards. So IAB tries to give guidance and then it’s up to the stores to of course pick up and build to support this. So what the IAB community tried to release was a document in which they will describe, IAB will describe how to basically retrieve the same URL for finding the app-ads.txt.

So this happens through three new meta tags that the app store is supposed to support within the head tag of the HTML page of the bundles. And these three new meta tags are appstore:developer_URL, appstore:bundle_ID and appstore:store_ID.

Now the flow will be as follows: Once this is deployed by the app store, the DSP is supposed to visit the page of the store ( plus app store ID) where the bundle is, and from here it will check for the bundle is looking for. So if the lookup is correct, then it will just retrieve the developer URL. And from here it will just cache the app-ads.txt file and at the run time, whenever it gets the request, whenever the DSP gets the request, it will just verify that for that specific vendor, there is a name tree for InMobi or for any other SSP.

So this is as simple as this, but obviously even if these are smaller in terms of implementation, this might change the whole stack of an app store. So obviously not everybody would be building to this. But this is not a friction because actually if the store hasn’t built to support this, the implementer should just try to look at any other way to, a methodology, to retrieve that seller URL field, which could be through an API that they might expose or by just parsing the HTML page of the bundle.

Now I think this big innovation - of course InMobi’s a huge supporter of this, so we really recommend if you’re a publisher to go and take the steps that we just described, and should you have any questions reach out to InMobi - and please go and check out the IAB repositories for ads.txt and app-ads.txt.

Note: To view the latest specs on ads.txt and app-ads.txt from the IAB Tech Lab, go to iabtechlab.com/ads-txt.

Interested in Learning More on App-Ads.txt?

Be sure to check out these resources:

• InMobi Support Guidance on Ads.Txt For Apps
• Blog: IAB Extends Ads.txt to Apps

How do you begin the selection process? A few of the key criteria to consider include:

• Type of inventory access (banner, native or video; in-app or mobile web; gaming or non-gaming).
• Self-serve capability (access to campaign setup/management dashboard).
• Level of transparency (traffic source, traffic type and pricing).
• Bidding options (CPM, CPC, CPI, CPA, etc.).
• Reporting capabilities (dashboard, API).
• Data Management Platform (DMP) integrations (none, built-in, third-party vendor support).
• Support for anti-fraud vendors (none, built-in, external vendor support)
• Pricing model/Take rate (spend-based or performance-based)
• Targeting capabilities (app, OS, handset, etc.)

After going through all of this, even the most discerning marketer will be left with a handful of DSPs to choose from based on the above criteria and requirements.

This, at this point, brings us to the crucial question of how to evaluate the shortlisted DSPs on performance. Essentially, you are evaluating the efficiency of the bidder - is it placing the optimum bid on the right users with the right message (creative) at the right time?

Since most DSPs have the same traffic sources (for example, if they connect to the same ad exchanges and other sources of supply), the campaigns will target the same audience with the same set of creatives. This is likely to result in the cannibalization of your ad spends, as you end up bidding against yourself for the same user with the same creative. This results in higher CPM costs. But worse, you incorrectly evaluate the DSPs and end up choosing the less-than-ideal choice.

The best way to test or evaluate DSPs is to ensure non-overlapping audiences so you can avoid cannibalization.

Here are three ways to set up the right evaluation process and avoid potential pitfalls.

1. Assign Different Segments to Each DSP

This is the most effective way to evaluate the performance of a DSP’s bidder. If the DSP does remarketing, set up remarketing campaigns in the following way:

1. Divide the user list (say, 30-day dormant users - i.e, the installed-but-not-purchased-in-the-last-30-days segment) randomly among DSPs.* This ensures a non-overlapping audience.
2. Run each campaign for a minimum duration of 45 days. This is required as it takes at least two to three cycles to optimize towards key performance indicators (with each cycle taking anywhere between seven and 10 days).
3. Consider only the last seven days’ performance (say, cost per transaction and scale) for comparison.

* This requires the app to have a large user base and monthly active user (MAU) count. For example, if you are working with three DSPs, the 30-day dormant user count needs to be fairly large. Otherwise, it becomes a needle-in-a-haystack problem for DSPs and the test results might not be statistically significant.

2. Geographic A/B test

If the above option is not feasible (either due to the DSPs not providing remarketing or if they use different bidders for remarketing and user acquisition), then we recommend doing a geographic A/B test.

1. In this case, each DSP is given a different region, usually at the city level. This is because the accuracy of location data derived from ad requests is typically not reliable enough for further granularity.
2. The cities should be split among DSPs in such a way so as to minimize/account for behavioral variations. For example, allocate New York and LA to DSP 1 and Philadelphia and San Francisco to DSP 2. Essentially, splitting one city from each coast.
3. Post thirty days, reverse the targeting provided to each DSP.

3. Time-based A/B test

If you have limited cities to target or if you are unable to split the cities without introducing high variance, then a time-based A/B test is the only other option. It’s worth noting that this is the most time-consuming and least reliable test of all. Here, each DSP runs alone during different time periods so as to ensure no or limited overlap.

In order for this to work, you need to ensure that there are no major product updates over the duration of the evaluation.

The campaigns can be set up as follows:

1. Run exclusively with one DSP for at least 30 days.
2. Then stop and switch to the next.

This test is generally not recommended unless it’s for a mature app doing a head-to-head comparison between two DSPs, with no major product updates being pushed during that period.

Note: All the above tests assume that the advertiser adopts a Last Click/Last View attribution model.

Besides the bidder, other aspects of a DSP can also be evaluated during this the tests. Most critically, the quality of their audience data and level of support and service offered.

Look for concierge-like support and vendors who are more focused on customer service rather than their profitability. Unexpected or intransparent fees, outages, deliverability issues, slow response times and unacceptable answers are all red flags.

About the Author

Praveen Rajaretnam has over a decade of experience in mobile marketing and growth marketing. He started his career as an engineer at a cyber-security firm, working on automation and performance testing. Praveen also started a social-commerce firm, running marketing and growth strategies there. He spends considerable time researching anti-fraud methodologies, attribution mechanisms and real-time bidding mechanisms.

More Posts by Praveen:

• A Buyer’s Guide to Choosing an Anti-Fraud Solution
• Why AI Will Forever Change The Way You Think About Ad Fraud
• The Hidden Cost of Install Ad Fraud on Your Business

Definitely not.

What is stopping the broker is the lack of transparency. As a consumer, we need transparency to make the right purchase decisions.

The overarching purpose of transparency is to build trust. It is for this reason we don’t order medicines from an unknown drug store or provide our credit card details to a fintech upstart. There’s the overwhelming fear of consuming counterfeit medicines or risking our life savings to potential fraudsters.

It should be no different in digital advertising, especially in programmatic buying. In fact, media buying not only requires trust and transparency, it depends on it.

The need for greater transparency and trust in the digital advertising market has become more pronounced over the last couple of years with issues such as ad fraud, brand safety, rise of ad blockers and underhand practices plaguing the industry.

What Does Transparency Entail?

Simply put, transparency means total visibility into the entire buying funnel (as made available to the demand-side platform, or DSP) required to make efficient purchase decisions for the buyer.

At the very minimum, this entails transparency into the following:

1. Media source (traffic source and traffic type)
2. Media (app bundle ID and app name)
3. Pricing (bid price and clearing price)
4. Impression path (creative, placement type and slot size)
5. Campaign setup (dashboard access to check campaign setup and performance and/or APIs for campaign creation)
6. Reporting capability via dashboard and/or API

Note:

1. The above items are expected to be provided over and above the default measures and dimensions such as clicks, installs, cost (advertiser spend), date, day, hour, country, os and device type.
2. Measures such as click-through rate, conversion ratio, etc. are derived metrics and hence have not been included.

Why is this the absolute minimum requirement?

“You can't improve what you can't measure”

Transparency is the first step towards spend optimization.

While any one data point could be considered irrelevant or immaterial, when all the pieces are examined together, the full picture could be used to better optimize ad delivery.

The bottom line is that it’s the buyer who should decide whether she doesn't want to use certain data, and not the DSP - whose primary function is that of a platform provider. The DSP is expected to make available at the very least the above mentioned measures and dimensions via their reporting dashboard and APIs.

Working with DSPs offering partial or no transparency means you cannot be sure what data is accessible or how the data is being used.

The ability to log into the DSP to examine the performance of your campaigns along with media and fee transparency is important. This helps address ad fraud, brand safety and compliance-related issues such as data privacy and data security.

Trust Goes Beyond Just Transparency

Other important aspects of trust include data privacy and data security, measurement product partnerships and audits, fraud and brand safety.

Given the depth of these topics, we will be covering each of these in separate posts.

Ecosystem Push for Transparency

It is imperative for all programmatic players to increase transparency in their products and operations in a demonstrable fashion to earn and maintain the trust of advertisers.

It is on ecosystem players to manifest this through tangible, practical steps implemented to raise the levels of transparency, trust and accountability.

Interested in seeing what a transparent and trustworthy solution looks like? Drop us a note at contact@inmobi.com to learn more.

About the Author

Praveen Rajaretnam has over a decade of experience in mobile marketing and growth marketing. He started his career as an engineer at a cyber-security firm, working on automation and performance testing. Praveen also started a social-commerce firm, running marketing and growth strategies there. He spends considerable time researching anti-fraud methodologies, attribution mechanisms and real-time bidding mechanisms.

More Posts by Praveen:

• A Buyer’s Guide to Choosing an Anti-Fraud Solution
• Why AI Will Forever Change The Way You Think About Ad Fraud
• The Hidden Cost of Install Ad Fraud on Your Business

This model of bidding has arisen as more publishers and supply side platforms (SSPs) are moving to first price auctions - or considering this bidding strategy - as DSPs are not always keen on the highest bidder paying exactly what they bid.

In this latest Whiteboard Wednesday video, Ryan Gauss, InMobi’s Platform Product Manager, explains how bid shading works and how it impacts what the buyers bid, win rates and bid history. The video also highlights how both first price and second price bids affect a DSP’s chance of winning and final payout rate.

Transcript

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Ryan Gauss, and I’m the Platform Product Manager here at InMobi. Today we’re going to be discussing Bid Shading, why it came about, why it’s needed and what the advantages and disadvantages of it are.

So before we get into Bid Shading, let’s talk a little bit about First Price and Second Price Auctions. And, as we discussed in our previous Whiteboard Wednesdays on First Price and Second Price Auctions, in a First Price Auction what typically happens is the DSP or the buyer or the bidder - they’re all kind of used synonymously - in a First Price Auction the DSP will end up bidding a little bit lower but end up paying higher. That’s because they end up paying what they bid.

So because of this, DSPs weren’t very happy that they ended up having to pay this higher price with First Price Auctions, even though there were benefits of it such as removing a lot of the lack of transparency and allowing them to be able to compete more effectively across multiple auctions.

So what we see with, when we get into Bid Shading, is it came about because A) first off, DSPs had to create a new bidding algorithm to be able to compete in a First Price Auction, and some DSPs have been slow to do that. They’re still trying to use a Second Price bidding algorithm in a First Price Auction. So that’s really to their disadvantage. They end up paying higher than they would have to.

And even for the DSPs that have been able to update their algorithm to a First Price bidding algorithm, they’re not real happy that they still have to pay this higher price.

So because of that, this compromise kind of came about, where bid shading was introduced. And basically what Bid Shading is, it allows a DSP to bid in a First Price Auction and if they win, the final price they pay is actually discounted a certain amount.

Now how much it’s discounted really depends on the auction platform. Two of the most common practices that are used to discount Bid Shading are A) splitting the difference between a First Price and a Second Price Auction or B) looking at the historical win price for that inventory or that user and using that to calculate a discount.

So let’s run through an example right here to show how bid price or Bid Shading could be introduced to a typical auction. So let’s say we have our auction right here, and we have two DSPs that are competing in it. DSP 1 bids with a price of $10 and DSP 2 bids with a price of $8. So in this auction right here, if this was a First Price Auction, DSP 1 would win and they would pay $10. If this was a Second Price Auction, DSP 1 would also win but they would pay one cent higher than the second highest bid, which is $8, so they would pay $8.01. So those are the standard auctions that we typically see.

But now let’s take a look at this and apply Bid Shading and how it could impact the final price. So let’s say we’re going off our First Price Auction again and we’re going to use Bid Shading, and our first example of Bid Shading we’re going to split the difference between the First Price and Second Price Auction. So what would happen here is the First Price would close at $10, the Second Price would close at $8.01, so typically what would happen if Bid Shading was applied is that DSP 1 would win and split the difference, so $9. That’s one of the more common ways that Bid Shading is applied.

The second one is to look at historical data. And when I say look at historical data, basically what’s going to happen is the auction platform is going to look at the price that the winning bidder had paid for that particular inventory, if it’s a site or an app, or maybe for that user, and they’re going to apply that price, some type of discount, to the final price. So let’s say in our second Bid Shading example here that the auction platform looks at this inventory and says historically they’ve been winning at a price of, say $9.20. So what they would do then is DSP 1 would win, and they would charge them a price of $9.20.

So as we look at Bid Shading from a DSP’s perspective, it is a good thing in the sense that they end up paying a lower price, which is good. The disadvantage though is that it’s less transparent. And what I mean by less transparent is that the DSP has no insight into how the discount is being calculated or what data is being used to come about with that percentage. So even though that DSP is getting a discount, they don’t know if that discount is as great as it could be. So there’s really no transparency in there.

Now from a publisher’s perspective, Bid Shading has some pluses and minuses. So first off, the negative for a publisher is that they are going to get a little bit lower price, lower revenue, than what they would earn if it was a straight First Price Auction. So if it was straight First Price, they would receive $10, but if Bid Shading is applied they’re going to get $9 or $9.20. So it’s a little bit less, so that’s a bit of a disadvantage, but it’s still greater than what they would get in a Second Price Auction at $8.01.

The advantage to the publisher is because you are providing some type of a discount, and the DSPs know that, it’s more likely that you will have more DSPs that will now compete in the auction. And those would be DSPs that would either have a First Price bidding algorithm or ones that don’t because they know they’re not going to have to pay that full price that they have bid.

So this is the Bid Shading, how it works, the advantages and disadvantages of it. We see it as really just kind of a Band-Aid or temporary solution. The reason why is because it kind of takes a step backwards in regards to First Price Auction. It introduces a lack of transparency back into the auction mechanics, whereas First Price is trying to make it fully transparent.

And the other reason that we see it as being a temporary solution is that eventually all these DSPs, if they want to continue to compete in this industry, they’re going to build their own First Price algorithm. And once all DSPs are bidding with a First Price algorithm, the prices will start to level out and the DSPs will become more used to paying those price points.

So that’s it for this Whiteboard Wednesday. Thank you very much, and we look forward to seeing you again next time.

Key Topics for Supply Side Platforms

Interested in learning more about the mechanics of programmatic auctions, in-app ad servers and other related ad tech topics? Be sure to check out these videos:

• First Price Auctions Explained
• Common Problems with Second Price Auctions
• What is a Second Price Auction and How Does It Work?
• How are Prices Set in an Auction? Determining CPMs in an In-App Ad Auction
• The Basics of Mobile Ad Mediation
• Waterfall vs. Unified Auction Metrics: How To See The Whole Picture
• How Unified Auctions and Header Bidding are Better than Waterfalls

To learn more about what InMobi is doing to improve and guarantee trust and transparency throughout the mobile in-app advertising and marketing ecosystem, download our white paper on 5 Ways InMobi Ensures Trust and Transparency today.

DOWNLOAD GUIDE

Here are some of the biggest issues plaguing this form of advertising today:

• Fraud. According to mobile measurement company Adjust, mobile ad fraud close to doubled beginning the beginning of 2017 and the first few months of 2018. For some organizations, four out of every five dollars spent on mobile advertising is consumed by fraud. As money increasingly flows into mobile and in-app advertising, fraudsters are unfortunately following right along.
• Lack of Transparency. From the perspective of end users (a.k.a. regular folks like you and me), 2018 abounded with stories that highlighted the sometimes frightening ways brands use - and misuse - personal data. And from the perspective of brands and app publishers, it can be increasingly difficult to keep tabs on the entire value chain, with so many players in between point A and point B now. These factors have made transparency one of the biggest trends in mobile marketing today, and have helped give rise to new transparency-focused initiatives such as app-ads.txt.
• Brand Safety. Close to 75 percent of all marketers in the U.S. have dealt with at least one brand safety concern in the past, and this figure is likely to climb even higher in the future. As the purchase and placement of ads becomes more automated, brands may find themselves in hot water if their ads inadvertently appear next to objectionable or inappropriate content - even within legitimate, reputable apps with large audiences like news apps. Brands, agencies and other advertising partners are keen to resolve brand safety concerns once and for all. While there has been a lot of progress in this arena, issues around brand safety still unfortunately persist today.
• Walled Gardens. According to eMarketer, in 2018, close to 58 percent of all digital ad spending in the U.S. went towards two channels: Facebook and Google. For mobile marketers, one of the biggest issues presented by the duopoly is the lack of data portability and oversight. The publishers present campaign data to advertisers, who have to take them at their word since they’re no way to independently verify the results of efforts run within walled garden environments.
• Lack of Trusted Metrics. Different mobile marketers measure success differently, which makes it difficult to determine who - and whose metrics - to trust. This is especially prevalent in mobile video advertising, as many brands still use outdated metrics that don’t capture the full picture of how their campaigns are performing. This is why mobile marketers are keen to embrace multi-touch and cross-device attribution.

“The biggest issue in mobile marketing today is trust. As more and more companies enter the fray, with varying levels of technology and frankly, legitimacy, it becomes increasingly difficult for buyers to ascertain what is real and what isn’t,” says Mike Brooks, Senior Vice President of Revenue at WeatherBug. “That said, as more and more advanced types of fraud are being uncovered and taught to even the most basic buyers, the advertisers in the mobile space are going to optimize their spends toward partners they can trust to not perpetrate these schemes. I think this is finally the year where advertisers start talking with their money, and moving it to people they trust and business models they understand.”

So what can brands, app publishers and their mobile advertising partners do to improve trust in in-app advertising? What should they look for in a trustworthy mobile advertising partner? Check out this video to learn more:

Full Video Transcript

It’s a transformative period in digital advertising and marketing. New opportunities have emerged, but so have new challenges:

• Ad fraud
• Walled gardens
• Lack of supply chain transparency
• Lack of trusted metrics

What can be done to restore trust?

Number one, transparency. When publishers know precisely what ads and ad experiences are running in their apps, and when advertisers know exactly where their placements are shown and who is seeing them, everyone wins. A commitment to transparency significantly reduces brand safety concerns too.

Number two, quality. Only work with the highest quality advertisers and publishers. Period. Clamp down on fraud through many innovative tactics and strategies, including through artificial intelligence.

Number three, measurement. Ensure all partners fully use industry-leading stats and insights. All metrics should be verified and reviewed by independent third parties, too.

By prioritizing transparency, quality and measurement, you can be sure your in-app advertising efforts are trustworthy and effective.

Learn More About Mobile Advertising and Trust

Interested in learning more about this topic? Head to inmobi.com/trust to learn more about what it takes to improve matters and guarantee success for everyone.

What do you think the mobile advertising industry needs to do to improve trust? Let us know on social media! We’d love to hear from you on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About the Author

Matthew Kaplan has over a decade of digital marketing experience, working to support the content goals of the world’s biggest B2B and B2C brands. He is a passionate app user and evangelist, working to support diverse marketing campaigns across devices.

Additional posts by Matthew:

• 2019 Trends: Greater Accountability and Digital Advertising Transparency
• The 3 Key Tenets of Honest Advertising
• Can Ad Fraud Be Destroyed Once and For All?
• What CMOs Should Look For in a Trustworthy Programmatic Partner
• The Digital Advertising Industry Makes Gains in Resolving Brand Safety Concerns
• How to Solve Common Problems with Programmatic Advertising
• Guaranteeing Viewability, Reducing Fraud with DoubleVerify and InMobi
• TAG You’re It: InMobi Officially Certified Against Fraud

In-app ad rates can vary depending on a variety of factors including ad types, where the ad is run, what ad revenue-sharing agreements are in place, who is supposed to see the ad, whether the goals are of the ad campaign is to generate revenue or just increase brand recall, etc.

GET STARTED

To help you make sense of all this, here is our guide to better understanding in-app ad rates.

Understanding Different Pricing Models in Mobile App Advertising

Brands and their advertising partners have a few different pricing models to choose from within the realm of in-app advertising. Let’s break down the most common ones out there today.

• CPM, which stands for Cost Per Mille, is one of the original and still most common way of paying for mobile ads. Essentially, this denotes the cost for 1,000 impressions of a particular ad. This is the basic way for paying for reach and initial awareness, in part because it’s easy to understand and works with just about any ad format imaginable. For instance, most Facebook ads - including mobile video ads - are paid for through CPM pricing. Curious why Mille is used here? It’s the Latin word for Thousand.
• In a cost per click (CPC) campaign, an advertiser only pays each time an ad creative is clicked on. The idea here is that the brand is only paying when someone actively interacted with the ad by clicking on it. This is how the ads that appear on search engine results pages, alongside ads in retargeting campaigns, are paid for typically.
• CPA often stands for cost per action or cost per acquisition. This takes CPC one step further; not only does someone need to click on an ad, but they also need to take a designated action, like filling out a form or downloading an app, before an advertiser is charged. This pricing model is typically used by advertisers and marketers with ad campaign goals further down the proverbial funnel. Similarly, some campaigns - particularly for companies with an app-centric business model - work on a CPI (cost per install) basis.

There’s also a nebulous fourth category: CPX. This essentially stands for cost per anything, or cost per X goal/metric. While CPM, CPC and CPA are by far the most commonly used pricing models, there are other emerging options that don’t fall neatly into either of the three aforementioned categories.

How Ad Formats Impact Ad Costs

In the world of mobile app advertising, not all ad formats are the same. The size and complexity of the ad format will impact how much an advertiser should expect to pay for the opportunity to run its creatives.

For example, consider the difference between banner ads and video ads. Formats that are more simplistic in nature, like many banner ads and display ads, are both easy to create and to insert into just about any app.

But, they’re also less eye-catching and thus easier to ignore. The average click-through rate of all banner ads is around 0.06 percent, but even that might be too high since around three in five banner ad clicks are thought to be accidental. That’s likely why, according to 2018 numbers cited by Business of Apps, the average CPM for all banner ads within mobile advertising environments is just $1.

Contrast banner ads with video ads. While in-app video ads can take a wide variety of formats, including fullscreen video ads and videos with interactive end cards, all permutations of mobile video advertising share the same core characteristics: they’re memorable, engaging, eye-catching and highly effective. As a result, the average CPM for mobile video ads is 300 percent greater than the average CPM of a banner ad.

Impact of Target Audiences and Types of App Users on Rates for In-App Ads

But, in-app advertising rates are about much more than just formats. Other factors can also have an outsized influence on how much advertisers can/should pay.

• Operating System: In today’s mobile ecosystem, advertisers today really have two main mobile operating systems to think about, iOS and Android. Apple devices like the iPhone and the iPad use the iOS operating system while Samsung, the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, and many others use Android. Historically, iOS users were richer than Android users, making them a more lucrative target audience for advertisers. Brands can expect to pay 30 percent more to reach iOS users over Android typically, but specific prices vary by mobile ad network and exchange; on one major platform, advertisers paid 500 percent more to run ads to iOS users versus Android users, Business of Apps reported.
• Device Type: Brands may be willing to pay more (or less) to reach the users the specific types of devices. For starters, advertisers may prioritize smartphones over tablets, and be willing to pay extra to ensure their ads don’t appear in tablet environments. And even more specifically, brands will sometimes pay different advertising rates depending on the specific smartphone make and model someone is using. Some companies may find it tempting to run ads just for people using brand new mobile devices, as they be more willing to download new apps for it; alternatively, Samsung has previously had campaigns that targeted people using older devices so help compel them to upgrade.
• Geography: Where someone is located can impact how much an advertiser may be willing to pay to reach them. Country, region, city and neighborhood can all impact advertising rates. For example, some brands may see people in wealthy zip codes to be more valuable. And, according to statistics cited by Business of Apps, the average CPC for a mobile ad in Sweden is $0.51, while it’s significantly lower in Bulgaria at $0.03 per click. All of this is accomplished with non-personally identifiable location data too.
• Physical Location: On a more granular level, where someone is physically located at the moment when an ad is served can impact how much a brand might want to pay to ensure their ads reach them. For example, it’s easy to see a situation in which a sports apparel manufacturer might be okay spending more to run ads to people located within a stadium on game day. Similarly, brands that target business travelers might be willing to spend pay more than normal to ensure their ads show up when people are inside airports during the work week. Again, this is accomplished with non-personally identifiable location data.
• Time of Day: People are more likely to take certain actions off apps during particular times of the day, and so brands may be willing to alter their preferred payment rates accordingly. For instance, people are more likely to buy something online at 8pm than they are at, say, 6am. So, some advertisers may want to spend more to ensure their e-commerce ads appear during or right before peak shopping hours.
• Time of Year: Some times of the year are more competitive than other times, which can affect in-app advertising rates. The holiday shopping season in November and December is a prime example of this in action. According to the statistics cited by Business of Apps, between April 2015 and June 2016, average CPC for ad campaigns aiming to drive app installs peaked at around $0.45 per click in the final quarter of 2015 on one platform; in comparison, the lowest CPC was $0.27 per click in the second quarter of 2016.

Average CPM Rates in 2018

In addition to all of the average in-app ad rates previously discussed, here are more average CPMs to know, courtesy of Business of Apps.

• The average CPM across all Android devices is $2, and it’s $5 for all iOS hardware.
• The average CPM for a mobile interstitial ad in 2018 was $3.50.
• The average CPM for a native ad on mobile in 2018 was $10, making it one of the most expensive ad formats available.
• In 2016, the average CPC worldwide was $0.27.

How Will Mobile Advertisers Pay for In-App Ad Campaigns in 2019?

What in-app ad rates will brands pay throughout 2019? Only time will tell. But, one thing for certain is that advertisers and their partners will be savvier about how they track and measure their mobile app ad campaigns. As mobile devices and apps increase in popularity, brands and agencies will pay closer attention to not only how they’re paying for mobile ads but also how those ads are performing from a holistic and business lens.

Interesting in learning more about mobile in-app advertising? Be sure to check out these blog posts for more insights, knowledge and know-how.

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Increasingly, in-app digital advertising is going programmatic. In our latest report, Mobile Programmatic Advertising Trends 2018, data points from the InMobi Exchange showed that budgets dedicated to programmatic media buying jumped over 300 percent between the first six months of 2017 and the first half of 2018.

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Here are four data-driven case studies highlighting how app publishers, brands and demand-side platforms (DSPs) have benefitted from in-app programmatic buying.

1) How Appreciate Optimizes Programmatic Campaigns to Help Clients Maximize Ad Spend

As a leading DSP, Appreciate has consistently leveraged the programmatic prowess of the InMobi Exchange to help its clients get the most value possible out of in-app advertising and marketing. By working closely with the InMobi team since 2017, Appreciate has been able to double its presence in the U.S. market and grow a whopping 500 percent between the second and third quarters of 2018.

How did they do this? There were a few key factors to the success of this programmatic partnership:

• Data: Thanks to all of the information that’s coming in from all of the programmatic transactions, Appreciate and InMobi can more effectively identify new growth opportunities and potential areas of improvement.
• Scale: Reaching an ever wider audience was key here, but this is where programmatic really excels. Quality is an important consideration in scale as well, as it’s crucial to target the right audience segment, device and location within a programmatic ad buy.
• Creatives: Appreciate clients want to run everything from display advertising to premium, interactive video ads. This range of possibility is a reality within a quality programmatic platform like the InMobi Exchange.

“We’ve been very happy with the InMobi Exchange,” says Anbar Chap, Appreciate’s Chief Business Officer. “They have consistently provided us with the geographic and ad format diversity that we need. They also enable us to meet the strict requirements and KPIs of our clients. We look forward to seeing continued ROI from them.”

2) WeatherBug Gets Top Dollar from Display Ads through Auction-Based Programmatic Technologies

Programmatic ad buying is a two-way street. Ideally, it should work well for both advertisers (and their partners like DSPs) and for the publishers where the ad will ultimately reside.

WeatherBug is one of the world’s leading weather apps and websites, and they offer up ad space to programmatic buyers. Through InMobi’s leading mediation and in-app header bidding solution, WeatherBug was able to make its app much lighter and boost ad revenues by 15 percent.

So how does this work? By combining all ad sources into a single SDK and then having all of them compete in real-time auctions, WeatherBug always get the maximum dollar amount for its available inventory and can guarantee that ads load quickly. Essentially, these kinds of open and truly competitive ad auctions ensure that publishers like WeatherBug fully benefit from programmatic media buying too.

“We have had great success in driving eCPMs higher utilizing their unified auction, as we find this to be a more efficient and profitable way to do business,” Ed Arrandale, WeatherBug’s Director of Programmatic and Monetization, says of InMobi.

Need help keeping track of all of the terms and acronyms? Be sure to check out our guide on The Crazy Advertising Technology Landscape.

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3) Programmatic Buying Helps Content Syndication DSP Increase Effectiveness of Marketing Campaigns

Thanks to in-app programmatic ad buying, a leading DSP focusing on content syndication and content discovery was able to boost revenue a whopping 200 percent. Because of programmatic media buying, they were able to easily expand from browser-only reach to in-app audiences as well, which was key for the leading publications and authors they worked with.

Programmatic enabled them to expand their reach in the U.S. and more effectively target global audiences in geographies such as Europe and South America. And best of all, all of this growth and expansion happened exclusively through premium ap- while still keeping a lid on per-impression costs.

4) How a Major Fortune 500 Company Solved One of its Biggest Programmatic Challenge

While programmatic technologies and buying bring a lot of benefits to the table, including scale and efficiency through automation, it can introduce some challenges to the mix. But, nevertheless, those challenges can be effectively resolved.

For example, consider the case of one major Fortune 500 company. Increasingly, they were concerned about brand safety, with programmatically-purchased ads inadvertently appearing next to objectionable or questionable content. For large, image-conscious brands in particular, this is an especially pressing concern.

But, by working with the right programmatic media partners, these kinds of issues can be put to bed. The brand and their advertising agency, UM, used an innovative brand safety solution from IAS to guarantee that ads run through the InMobi Exchange were only appearing in brand-safe environments. This way, they had total peace of mind that they were getting the most from their in-app programmatic campaigns.

“Brand safety is a priority for all UM clients and something that we actively work on monitoring. We were happy to see InMobi integrated with buy side (DSPs) and measurement technologies (IAS), which further extends our ability to measure and verify media within the mobile app environments,” said Alex Andreyev, VP, Partner at UM, part of IPG Mediabrands.

Can you think of more examples of programmatic advertising done right? Let us know on social media! Share your thoughts with us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Suggested Reading:

• What CMOs Should Look For in a Trustworthy Programmatic Partner
• How Does In-App Advertising Work?
• How are Prices Set in an Auction? Determining CPMs in an In-App Ad Auction [VIDEO]
• Top 8 Mobile App Advertising Benefits
• How to Advertise on Apps: A Guide for Agencies

In this latest Whiteboard Wednesdays video, Ryan Gauss, InMobi’s Platform Product Manager, highlights the unique attributes of this type of auction in which the highest bidder wins. In the video, he also covers how this compares to other price models in which initial bid prices aren’t always what advertisers pay out, and why switching to real-time initial bid auctions is not always so easy.

Transcript:

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Ryan Gauss, and I’m the Platform Product Manager here at InMobi. And today we’re going to be discussing First Price Auctions, why they’re becoming more common and what the advantages and disadvantages of them are.

So first off, why are First Price Auctions becoming more common? And the reason is, is that there is more transparency with them, and also it allows the DSP or the buyer or even bidder, depending on which term you want to use, to be able to compete more competitively in multiple auctions.

So first off, let’s take a step back and just describe what a First Price Auction is as compared to a Second Price Auction. So in a First Price Auction, the highest bidder who wins the auction will pay what they bid. So if they bid $10 and they win, they will pay $10.

In a Second Price Auction, the highest bidder who wins the auction will pay one cent higher than the second highest bidder. So if the highest bidder pays $10 and the second highest bid $8, the first bidder will end up winning and will pay one cent more, which is $8.01.

So before we get into the real disadvantages and advantages of a First Price Auction, we want to start off by saying that it’s really important that every auction that is sent out by the auction platform should specifically say if it is a First Price or a Second Price Auction. If the auction type is not listed, then there really is no transparency to begin with in the auction.

So let’s take a look at the advantages. So we know that in a First Price Auction, that the highest bidder ends up paying what they bid. So because of that, there is greater transparency. There’s no way for the auction final price to be manipulated because, as with a Second Price Auction the final price is dependent on someone else’s bid. That doesn’t happen with a First Price, and so there’s less chance of manipulation there.

The other benefit or advantage is there are no fees when it comes to a First Price Auction. And what I mean by no fees is, because the winning bidder is paying what they bid, there’s no way to tack on any undisclosed fees. That’s something that sometimes can happen in a Second Price Auction.

The third advantage that we want to point out here for a DSP is that if a DSP must win multiple auctions in order to serve an ad for an ad opportunity, then they’re at a real disadvantage if any of those previous auctions before the final one is not a First Price Auction. So we’re going to go through an example right now, but we wanted to make sure that we pointed out that multiple auctions is another one of those advantages.

So let’s go through an example right here. In one common scenario - one of the common scenarios - in the industry right now, where you would see multiple auctions, is with header bidding. So typically with header bidding, you will see an initial header bidding auction, and then the winner of that auction - their price - will be passed into a second auction that they must also win in order to serve the ad.

So for example right here, we’re going to start off and say we have an initial header bidding auction. We have two DSPs, DSP 1 and DSP 2, who are going to bid, and this is a Second Price Auction. So let’s say DSP one bids $10, and DSP bids $5. So now, in a typical Second Price Auction, DSP one is going to win and they’re going to pay one cent higher than the Second Price Auction so they’re going to pay - DSP one is the winner here - they’re going to pay $5.01.

So you can probably already see the disadvantage here. DSP one was willing to bid $10, but now this price of $5.01 is what is going to be passed into the second auction. So now that we have our second auction in the ad server, DSP one will be competing at a price of $5.01, whereas a new DSP - let’s say DSP 3 - is going to bid $7. So in our auction here, the second one - we’re going to say it’s a First Price Auction. So now, DSP 3 is going to win the auction. They’re going to be the DSP that going to serve the ad. But they won the auction at a price of $7.

So the outcome of this is that we now have a DSP who didn’t bid the highest who ends up winning, and the publisher ends up getting less revenue that they would if this initial $10 bid had been passed in. So you can see if this original header bidding auction had been First Price, and the price of $10 would have won, then that would have been passed into the second auction, the price of $10, which would have resulted in the actual highest bidder across both auctions winning and the publisher ending up with more revenue.

So switching to a First Price Auction is becoming more common because of scenarios like this. But it’s not that simple for a DSP to all of a sudden just start bidding within a First Price Auction. Typically in a First Price Auction what you will see is the DSPs bid a little bit lower than they would in a Second Price Auction. The reason being is in a First Price, the DSP is going to pay what they bid, whereas in a Second Price, they’re not going to, the chances of them paying that amount is very unlikely. They’re going to pay a lot less.

So because of that, DSPs need to have a different bidding algorithm in a First Price Auction as opposed to a Second Price Auction. And because of that, they have to reformulate their algorithm and a lot of these DSPs have not been able to do that yet. They’re still kind of behind the times a little bit. So if they want to compete in a First Price Auction, they end up having to use a Second Price algorithm, bidding algorithm, and they end up paying a lot more than what they should be.

So because of this, the practice of Bid Shading has come about. And what Bid Shading is in a nutshell is that it allows a DSP to bid in a First Price Auction, and if they win not necessarily have to pay that full amount. It will be discounted a certain percentage. What that discount is really depends on the auction platform and how they calculate that. Two of the more common calculations that are used to apply that discount are A) splitting the difference between the First Price Auction and Second Price Auction price or B) looking at the historical price that was paid for that inventory - that site or that app or that user - and then doing that.

So you can see that Bid Shading is a positive for a DSP because it does allow them to pay a little bit less price than a typical First Price Auction, but there is a disadvantage to Bid Shading, and that disadvantage is that there is now less transparency. And one of the things that First Price Auctions were trying to do all along is they were trying to add more transparency to the auction. So even though Bid Shading does benefit a DSP, it kind of takes a step backwards because now there’s less transparency back into it again.

So from a publisher’s standpoint, how do they view this? What are the advantages? What are they seeing as the positives to that? So from a publisher’s standpoint, they will end up getting more revenue because a First Price Auction will end up paying more than a Second Price Auction typically.

And also, the other advantage from a publisher’s standpoint is that in a First Price Auction, because a bidder is going to pay what they bid, it’s a truer indication of how they value, how they want to price that inventory. So from a publisher’s standpoint, they’re going to get a more true valuation of what their inventory is worth.

And so as we look at these advantages right here, we want to just point out that the first three are advantages for the DSP; the last two are advantages for the publisher.

Now before we close this one, we want to take a look at the disadvantages. We already mentioned that there can be less transparency produced through Bid Shading. The other two disadvantages are that a buyer now has to create a new algorithm for First Price bidding. And then overall, because it’s a First Price Auction, the DSP ends up paying a higher price. So that’s something that they are’nt necessarily happy about, even though there are some other advantages with regards to transparency in competing across multiple auctions that are something that comes with it.

So looking at First Price Auction’s disadvantages and advantages, there are more advantages. So it really does benefit a publisher and a DSP in the long run. What we would recommend to publishers out there is if they do plan to run a combination of First Price and Second Price Auctions, they do a couple of things. First off, make sure that they are always indicating clearly in the bid request whether it’s a First Price or Second Price Auction, so the DSP knows what algorithm they should use for bidding.

And the second thing is, if they are going to work with DSPs, that those DSPs have both a First Price and a Second Price algorithm for bidding, or that they offer some type of Bid Shading discount. If they do that, that will increase the amount of trust and decrease the amount of confusion that comes about with a combination of First Price and Second Price Auctions.

So that’s it for this edition of Whiteboard Wednesdays. We look forward to seeing you in our next one. Thank you.

More Videos

Interested in learning more about auction dynamics and different bid auction price models? Want to know how a soft floor differs from a hard price floor? Then be sure to check out these other Whiteboard Wednesday videos streaming in real time.

• What is a Second Price Auction and How Does It Work?
• Common Problems with Second Price Auctions
• The Basics of Mobile Ad Mediation
• How CPMs Enter Mobile Ad Auctions
• Why Unified Auctions and Header Bidding are Better than Waterfalls
• Waterfall vs. Unified Auction Metrics: How To See The Whole Picture

That’s why the in-app advertising market is red hot right now. Mobile ad spending and ad revenues will likely reach record highs in 2019, predicts eMarketer.

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What’s so special about in-app mobile advertising? Why are the best of the best running in-app ad campaigns with greater frequency?

Here’s why:

1) Your Target Audience Uses Mobile Apps a Lot

In 2019, the average smartphone owner in the U.S. will spend over two hours every day using apps - 134 minutes to be precise in 2019, according to eMarketer. And by 2020, that’s expected to jump up even higher.

In comparison, the typical smartphone user will spend just 13 minutes using a mobile web browser in 2019, and a paltry 12 minutes in 2020.

With mobile devices likely overtaking television sets as the most popular screen in the house this year, this shows just how ascendant apps have become.

And what kinds of apps are people using? There are a few top apps used the world over, but people are utilizing a lot more apps every day than you might think. In the U.S., the typical smartphone owner leverages more than 10 apps a day and around 30 in an average month.

This may all be the tip of the proverbial iceberg too. As the number of cord-cutters and cord-nevers rises and as apps become more critical to media, expect app usage to rise even further. In short, if you’re not advertising through apps and in-app advertising platforms, then you’re probably not reaching your target audience at all.

2) In-App Advertising is More Effective than Desktop or Mobile Web

Not only are apps more commonly used than browsers, including mobile web, but they also are increasingly advantageous. In comparison to mobile web advertising, in-app advertising provides a number of key, uniquely valuable benefits:

• The ability to target and locate end users more accurately with mobile device IDs instead of cookies.
• Ads provide a total share of voice, as ad blockers don’t exist in apps and apps only show one ad at a time typically.
• It’s easier to leverage high-impact ad creatives like playable ads and videos with end cards.
• Within app environments, it’s possible to target audiences with a high degree of precision thanks to deterministic data signals like lat/long.

3) Lots of Ad Formats at Your Disposal Beyond Display Ads and Banner Ads

Traditional ad formats like display ads and banners definitely have their place. After all, they’re easy to insert and are not disruptive. But, within in-app environments, there are a lot more possibilities.

Consider these examples:

This ad for the movie “Black Panther” is a great example of what’s possible within mobile app environments, especially in regard to video. It takes up the entire screen, so there’s no way it can be ignored. It’s interactive, allowing someone to scroll through the major characters and learn about them. And, it has a clear call to action; by clicking the blue button at the bottom, someone can easily peruse movie showtimes and make a purchase - all in an app-native environment.

Interested in learning more about mobile video advertising? Be sure to download our report on The Present and Future of Mobile Video Advertising today!

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This ad campaign for Samsung uses information from the phone itself to determine which specific creatives to show. Through precise targeting and customized ads, Samsung was able to increase new device sales. This level of targeting and personalization is incredibly difficult to achieve outside of in-app environments.

One of the top benefits of in-app advertising is that it can be both totally immersive and interactive. This ad campaign, also for Samsung, provides yet another example of the kind of high-impact creative that can only be found from mobile advertising.

These are far from the only creative options too. Native ads, experiential playable ads, interactive rich media ads, dynamic carousel ads, high impact interstitials and a whole lot more are in a mobile marketer’s creative arsenal when they go down the in-app route.

4) Mobile Ad Networks Provide Real-Time Insights

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” - Ferris Bueller

While this quote is, of course, from the 1986 cinema classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, it’s just as apt for marketing and advertising today. If you don’t know what’s going on in real time, then you lack crucial insights that can make or break a campaign.

Too often, marketers rely on historical data when running and optimizing ad campaigns. But just because something worked well yesterday doesn’t mean it will work just as well today.

Good mobile ad networks and in-app advertising partners collect and pass along data in real time. That way, marketers know exactly what’s happening in the moment, allowing them to make smarter decisions now so that they can see continued success.

5) In-App Campaigns are the Best Ways to Attract and Retain Mobile Users at Scale

Increasingly, many businesses are shifting to becoming app businesses. For instance, many banks allow customers to check on funds, deposit checks and send money all through a mobile app. Quick service restaurants are getting in on the app game too, enabling hungry consumers to order food through the click of a button on an app. Even the automobile industry is getting in on the app action.

But how do these companies, especially those with little to no previous app marketing experience, prevent attrition and bring back lost users? By far the best way to achieve these goals is through an in-app campaign. By using all that in-app advertising has to offer, app-first businesses can be sure they are effectively targeting, retargeting and communicating with their core app users. This kind of route helped social network and gaming app IMVU increase revenue by 279 percent.

6) Has Your App Developed an Audience Yet? Mobile Advertising is Critical for UA

But what happens when your app doesn’t have any users to begin with? What can apps do to acquire users beyond paying to appear in the search results within the app stores?

Yet again, mobile in-app advertising is here to the rescue. These kinds of campaigns can be a great tool for user acquisition (UA). In fact, InMobi UA campaigns are responsible for around 450,000 app installs every day across a wide variety of industry verticals.

No matter their goals, savvy marketers the world over are turning to in-app advertising. In 2019, mobile app campaigns are further emerging as the best way to reach, acquire and retain prospects and customers.

About The Author:

Matthew Kaplan has over a decade of digital marketing experience, working to support the content goals of the world’s biggest B2B and B2C brands. He is a passionate app user and evangelist, working to support diverse marketing campaigns across devices.

Additional posts by Matthew:

• Top 8 Mobile App Advertising Benefits
• How Does In-App Advertising Work?
• How to Make the Most Effective Mobile Ads for In-App Campaigns
• How to Advertise on Apps: A Guide for Agencies
• The 3 Key Tenets of Honest Advertising

To find out, we gaze into the crystal ball to reveal how data-focused marketing execution will evolve in 2019. Here are our top five predicted trends for the new year.

Interested in learning more about the biggest trends in ad tech and martech in 2019? Be sure to download our 2019 trends report today to see what we think will be huge in the new year.

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1) Greater Emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

In this day and age, it’s hardly surprising to say that artificial intelligence (AI) is a key trend. After all, it seems as though everyone is talking about AI and machine learning (ML).

But beyond the buzzwords, what does this actually mean for marketers? How can marketers and advertisers actually benefit from AI and ML? Likely, expect the following applications to come further to the fore in 2019:

• Predictive analytics - Through the analysis of previous behavior and action, ML algorithms can help predict the future. This is hugely beneficial for marketers, and these kinds of applications will become even more popular in 2019. Predictive analytics can give marketers accurate insights into how their campaigns and efforts are likely to perform, helping them for effectively allocate their time and limited budgets.
• Prescriptive analytics - This takes predictive analytics one step further. Instead of just predicting likely future actions and behavior, prescriptive analytics offers concrete guidance on what steps marketers should take to see specifically desired actions going forward. For example, prescriptive analytics algorithms can help marketers and advertisers analyze their planned ad creatives to see both how they would like perform in the real world and offer guidance on what changes should be made to the creatives so that they perform even better.
• Lookalike modeling - As lead generation and demand gen become ever more critical to marketers, it behooves them to spend their time only going after prospects that are actually likely to convert into a sale. This is the same reason why account-based marketing is taking off right now. Lookalike modeling can help marketers achieve these kinds of goals. These algorithms look at the common characteristics of existing customers and then provide input on who isn’t a client but would likely be one since they share many characteristics with existing consumers.
• Fraud prevention - As ad fraud grows in reach and sophistication, marketers continue to struggle against it; it continues to eat up budgets and cause frustration. But, this is a problem rife for disruption thanks to AI. ML algorithms can help to detect anomalies before problems ever arise. Essentially, these algorithms can predict where issues could arise before they ever become a real-life problem.

“We see the limitless potential for machine learning in digital advertising. Current advancements are blurring the lines between human and machine as evident in applications like sentiment analysis – machines are increasingly able to identify and categorize the opinions expressed in a piece of text, in order to determine whether the writer’s attitude towards a particular topic or product is positive, negative, or neutral. Nuance here is always evolving as language expands and includes things like sarcasm and emoticons to express meaning. Rapid advances in deep learning are allowing computers to process images and video in a more human-like way. These advancements will enable a more robust generation of brand safety and fraud solutions that will help to protect digital advertising investments.”
Harmon Lyons, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development at IAS.

2) Greater Focus on Data Quality, Not Just Amount of Data

Remember when “big data” was the biggest buzzword in data driven marketing? It used to be that volume, velocity and variety were the key variables in big data, whether related to user data, customer data or any other type of data.

But what about veracity? What’s the point of having a lot of data if it’s not accurate or verifiable?

Getting a lot of data to analyze is the easy part. The hard part is determining how much of it is good and, therefore, actually useful.

This shift from quantity to quality is already underway, but this transition will take on new urgency in 2019. In the new year, expect organizations to focus far less on the amount of data they have and more on its inherent and intrinsic value to the marketing department specifically and the organization as a whole.

3) Greater Focus on Consumer Engagement and User Experiences, Not Just Conversion Rate

In data driven marketing, historically customer insights was equated with hard metrics like conversion rate, ad views, clicks, etc. But, by focusing on just these kinds of single actions, marketers are missing the bigger picture.

What does the entire customer experience look like? After all, it’s rare that seeing one ad will lead to a sale. How do other inputs over time impact a prospect’s likelihood of becoming a paying customer? And, what goes into keeping that paying customer around for a long time and not churning?

In 2019, savvy marketers will use data to more effectively quantify all components of the user experience.

4) Development of Holistic, 360-Degree Customer Profiles

For many brands, knowledge on the customer is coming from distinct endpoints like mobile device IDs. But humans are more than just a number. In the new year, marketers will be smarter about how they look at and aggregate customer data, in order to develop more holistic, all-encompassing profiles of who precisely each prospect/customer is and what really makes them tick.

“From a data perspective, probably the most important change we can see is the collective effort towards greater data integration. We have all this data with us – transactions, channel engagement, support inquiries, etc. - but, ultimately, it’s information about the same consumer. What we want to be able to do is get a 360-degree customer view – who they are, what they like, how they engage with us, etc. – all at one place, and then use this data to communicate with them in a more personalized and relevant way. Stitching together data becomes important not only across functions, but across channels as well – both offline and online.”
Rana Saha, Senior Director of Growth Marketing at Grab

5) Digital Marketing is Increasingly App and Programmatic Driven

The media landscape of 2019 is more fragmented than ever before. For marketers, their target audiences may see ads on billboards, on TV, in apps, in magazines and in newspapers, just to name a few examples.

However, in 2019, apps will be the main channel marketers use to reach their target markets. As mobile devices and their apps become more popular than ever before, marketers will need to reach their core audiences where they are.

This push to apps extends now to television sets too. As over-the-top and connected TV rise in popularity, marketers will further focus on these channels in 2019 and beyond. And, just like with mobile devices, these TV sets and video platforms are all powered by apps.

In-app advertising and marketing provides a veritable treasure trove of data, in large part because of how central programmatic media buying is to this environment. According to our latest Mobile Programmatic Advertising Trends report, 56 percent of all mobile in-app ad spending conducted through the InMobi Exchange was spent programmatically.

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What do you think will be the biggest data drive advertising trends of 2019? Let us know on social media! Send us your comments and feedback on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Note: This is the sixth and final post in our series on top trends for 2019. Previous entries covered transparency, OTT, in-app header bidding, data and machine learning.

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Moving Beyond Last-Click Conversions with Mobile Ads

In most digital ad strategies historically, the only marketing touchpoint that mattered was the final click. Campaigns were deemed successful only if they came from one particular ad or promotion.

This model emerged at the beginning of digital marketing and advertising, back before Google Analytics appeared on the scene. This used to be the easiest way to measure a campaign’s success, which is why it became so popular.

But, a number of issues with this attribution model have emerged and come to the fore. For starters, it fails to take the entire customer journey into account. It’s not likely that someone sees an ad from a brand they’ve never heard of before but then decides to click on their ad and then make a purchase.

More likely, someone needs to see an ad multiple times and also read about the company from multiple sources before they make a purchasing decision. Last-click attribution fails to take all this account and provide equal credit to all key touchpoints; multi-touch attribution modeling does factor in all of these touchpoints, however.

“Last click attribution as the sole measuring stick for digital performance advertising should go away within the next few years,” says Anne Frisbie, Senior Vice President of Global Programmatic and North America at InMobi. “Our belief is that this a very important trend that we hope plays out as quickly as possible. Last-click attribution was great when search marketing first launched at the turn of the century, i.e. compared to no measurement at all. But now, nearly 20 years later, it is clear that last-click attribution is not sophisticated enough and that it misattributes value back to media partners since many organic activities that marketers shouldn’t have to pay for are captured, i.e. they aren’t truly incremental.”

Last-click attribution models are also ripe with fraud. Because fraudsters know that a single action (the final click) is deemed immensely valuable, they will go to great lengths to generate false clicks or lay claim to others’ actions. By placing the final action in a wider context, multi-touch attribution helps to reduce fraud and provide advertisers with a safer and more accurate way to determine the effectiveness of their campaign-wide efforts.

“The ability to measure quality, combined with a deep understanding of which engagement metrics drive performance, will result in tangible outcomes for brands, transforming how advertisers define value in their media spend,” says Matt McLaughlin, Chief Operating Officer of DoubleVerify.

Embracing Cross-Device Conversions

Not only do most standard attribution models today only account for the final action, they also often only account for one device, be it a mobile device, laptop or something else. This is often problematic as well, as many people are using multiple devices throughout their research and decisioning process. These outdated models don’t tell marketers how single devices were assisted; they are unable to track conversions on other devices.

Here’s one example of how multiple devices can serve to assist conversions behind the scenes. Let’s say someone sees an ad for an interesting product on their smartphone on their way into work. During the day, this person uses their laptop to do more research on the item and the company behind it. In the evening, they watch videos about it on their tablet, and then right before bed they purchase it on their spouse’s mobile device. Without cross-device attribution, it would just look like someone with direct knowledge of that brand made a one-time purchase.

It’s also easy to envision similar scenarios in which online and offline marketing efforts work in tandem with each other to further company-wide advertising and marketing goals. Offline ads on bus stops or mall kiosk walls with QR codes are one example, although seeing an ad during a live television broadcast can also compel someone to learn more about that product or service on their mobile device. Combining sales data from loyalty programs with both online and offline advertising efforts is another example of this dynamic at play.

“It is very clear that clients are beginning to put in place cross-device attribution solutions that enable them to have a much better view across different devices (not just browser based digital placements) on the impact of their media. And, many of these clients are also executing offline sales attribution studies through their partners. We fully believe in cross-device attribution and full-funnel attribution efforts. Overall, the value of high impact in-app mobile advertising opportunities (such as video and other interactive experiences) are more accurately reflected when measured across the full funnel and via cross-device attribution, in-store visits and in-store sales not just last-click attribution or online web sales - so we think this is a very healthy change for the ecosystem,” says Anne.

Still, a lot of tech work is happening beyond the walled gardens to come up with universal Identifiers to measure and attribute conversions across devices. Walled gardens are using their own deterministic way to measure cross-device attribution for their campaigns, making it unfair for the rest of the ad tech players to use this technology.

InMobi is at the forefront of innovation in this space. Our goal is to solve for identity issues in ad tech, which can help solve the cross-device measurement problem beyond the walled gardens.

Cross-Device Attribution and Multi-Touch Attribution Marketing in User Acquisition

In 2019, performance advertising also will move towards multi-touch and cross-device attribution. User acquisition will be smarter and savvier in the new year too.

App install campaigns are, for the most part, all measured just on the last click currently. Cross-device attribution might not work for app installs, however, multi-touch models need to be picked up by marketers. InMobi is working to come up with models which help measure true incrementality and does not give credit to just the last click.

User acquisition campaigns not based on app installs - campaigns at the middle and bottom of the proverbial funnel - are embracing cross-device attribution methodology as we speak. For marketers whose customer touchpoints are across devices (telcos and auto companies are good examples here), measuring the same device conversions does not make sense.

Embracing the Future of Measurement and Attribution

While there have been some promising developments in this arena already, thanks in part to efforts from Nielsen via Visual IQ and from Google in the development of the mobile assist ratio, both cross-device attribution and multi-touch attribution are still very much in nascent stages at the moment.

But, come 2019, expect that all to change. In the new year, we confidently predict that advertisers and marketers will be much savvier about how they are tracking the effectiveness of their campaigns and determining how all efforts shape the larger picture.

Do you think multi-touch and cross-device attribution will take off in 2019? How about any of our other predicted trends? Let us know on Twitter or LinkedIn!

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#1

L'Oréal Paris India: Beauty for all - Retail Consumer Experience in your palm!

6 awards: MMA Smarties India - Most engaging mobile creative, MMA Smarties APAC - Best use of AR/VR, Maddies - Excellence in Innovation, India Marketing Awards - Customer Experience on Mobile, Mobexx awards - Excellence in rich media campaign, Mobexx awards - Excellence in AR/VR

For over 200 years, L'Oreal - the iconic beauty brand, has provided affordable luxury to those who demand excellence. The brand has further cemented its cult status through its partnership with Cannes, the legendary French Film Festival. While many Indian Ambassadors including Aishwarya Rai and Deepika Padukone, have walked the red carpet, women across the subcontinent couldn't help but feel disconnected from the excitement and glamour oceans away. The brand knew it was time to create a unique and immersive experience for their consumers. The brand launched a mobile-first ad campaign that utilized augmented reality to encouraging users to Get Deepika's red carpet look. This brought retail experience in the consumer’s palms.

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#2

Diageo India:

3 awards: India Digital Marketing Awards - Best use of mobile, Mobexx awards - Excellence in location-based advertising, Mobexx awards - Excellence in native advertising

McDowell's No.1 - #JoinThePact: Yaari -1, Drunk Driving - 0

McDowell’s No 1 – India’s leading alcoholic beverage brand, has always enjoyed a special relationship with their consumers. They have always believed in celebrating responsibly. Over the years the brand realised that a disturbing pattern had emerged in the community and wanted to help curb this menace of drunk driving. The brand developed an immersive video based storytelling experience which directly addressed the menace of drunk driving. McDowell's No. 1 was able to successfully reach millions among the community across the nation and nudge them to give up the terrible habit of drunk driving.

#No1Yaari: Jamming to the Sound of Friendship

McDowell's No.1, a Diageo India brand, reached out & engaged its target audience by leveraging a music album created in association with Salim-Sulaiman - one of India’s leading musician duo. The Brand engaged with consumers around the passion point of music. It wanted to appear in a manner that’s relevant and appears as consumable content in the daily life of consumers - on mobile!

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#3

Logitech/ Ultimate Ears: Millennials, Indians, countrymen, lend me your ears!

1 award:Mobexx awards - Best product launch

The revolutionary brand Ultimate Ears has been at the forefront of sound technology with innovative products such as its waterproof, virtually indestructible Bluetooth speakers. As the brand contemplated the launch of its WonderBoom Bluetooth Speakers in the Indian market, it was faced with a unique challenge. How can Ultimate Ears launch a product in a market as diverse, multicultural and complex as India, ensuring that they reached the right consumer at the right time? Carefully considering the one passion shared by millennials across the nation, the answer was obvious: the sport of Cricket! Ultimate Ears saw a great opportunity around the then-upcoming Indian Premier League.

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#4

Swiggy: "Swiggy-ing" It! Changing the Way India Eats

1 award:Mobexx awards - Best app install campaign

Indians are rapidly adopting the lifestyle of ordering-in, utilising the power of their smartphone to have food delivered at the end of a click. Operating in the hyperlocal space, it was important that Swiggy reached potential users with the right context and through the right channel, and maximize the ROI of their mobile marketing efforts. Swiggy partnered with InMobi to drive high-quality app installs at scale across the top 7 metro cities in India.

Note: This is the fifth post in our series on top trends for 2019. Our first post was on transparency, the second predictions post focused on OTT, our third post talked about in-app header bidding and our fourth blog discussed data monetization. Stay tuned for one more blog post all about what leading figures in the mobile advertising and marketing space think will become pervasive in the new year.

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Potential Benefits of AI and ML in Mobile Advertising

In 2019, here are just some of the ways in which ML and AI will help maximize lift and improve ad performance across the board.

For starters, AI can go a long way towards ensuring that ad creatives are the right fit for any target audience. Through advanced computer vision algorithms and extensive historical performance data, brands can determine what precisely it was about a particular ad creative that worked well in the past, and predict with greater certainty what kinds of creatives will perform well in the future.

“By applying advanced predictive analytics capabilities to the development of mobile ad creatives, however, mobile marketers can be more confident about the effectiveness of their campaigns. In such a system, data on past creatives and past campaigns is crunched to determine precisely what would work for ongoing efforts. With this application of AI, brands can get a better sense of how everything from messaging, fonts, colors, imagery, button sizes, or formats impact overall campaign performance,” Rajiv Bhat, Senior Vice President of Data Sciences and Marketplace at InMobi, wrote in VentureBeat in November. “It can also help advertisers see how their target audience responds to different creatives under different scenarios. For example, it’s possible that creatives with more color contrast perform better at night, or that ads that feature sports stars do best on the weekend. AI can provide this level of granularity and insights to ad creative development and performance.”

Further, using AI in conjunction with location data can help improve the effectiveness of local campaigns. Through a combination of both greater data granularity plus smart insights on who frequents particular locations at given times and days, mobile marketers can more effectively find, reach and talk to their target audiences.

For example, let’s say a grocery store chain wanted to run a smart shopping campaign. While they can run ads to people already at or near their locations, that wouldn’t capture new visitors. But, using ML algorithms with advanced location data, they could determine where their ideal weekend shoppers are likely to be spending their time during the week, and then be sure they see their messaging at or near these locations.

AI and ML can also help brands better manage and mitigate brand safety concerns, which have been a growing worry especially among programmatic media buyers. In real time, ML algorithms can learn to determine what kinds of specific placements are brand safe or not for a particular advertiser, and thus ensure that brands stay out of hot water without blacklisting entire properties - and their potentially vast audiences.

“We see the limitless potential for machine learning in digital advertising. Current advancements are blurring the lines between human and machine as evident in applications like sentiment analysis – machines are increasingly able to identify and categorize the opinions expressed in a piece of text, in order to determine whether the writer’s attitude towards a particular topic or product is positive, negative, or neutral,” says Harmon Lyons, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development at IAS. “Nuance here is always evolving as language expands and includes things like sarcasm and emoticons to express meaning. Rapid advances in deep learning are allowing computers to process images and video in a more human-like way. These advancements will enable a more robust generation of brand safety and fraud solutions that will help to protect digital advertising investments.”

Conclusion

Throughout this year, few trends were as widely talked about - and hyped - as ML and AI. In the realm of mobile in-app advertising, we expect that to continue to be the case throughout 2019.

“Machine learning will continue to play a huge role across ad tech in 2019,” Lyons predicts.

Do you think AI and ML will be trending yet again in 2019, or are they all hype? Either way, let us know your thoughts on social media! We’d love to hear from you on LinkedIn on Twitter.

Back in April, we began working closely with the IAB to develop a single SDK to cover all in-app viewability and verification needs. With the OM SDK now available, InMobi can now get its supply measured by all the viewability vendors (including ComScore, DoubleVerify and Google ActiveView, among others) that moved to OM SDK and got rid of their legacy SDKs.

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So far, OM SDK reaches more than 2 billion mobile devices across the globe. Less than 10 companies in the U.S. have been certified, putting us in exclusive company.

“With in-app advertising viewability and verification simplified and made more consistent, brands can confidently and more easily buy mobile app inventory. I encourage buyers, sellers, and relevant platforms, to update their systems to support OM SDK and pursue OM SDK-enabled media,” said Dennis Buchheim, Senior Vice President and General Manager at IAB Tech Lab “Let’s continue the momentum toward simplicity and support better business relationships and results.”

What is the OM SDK?

Let’s get into more details here. What, precisely, is the OM SDK?

It is designed to facilitate third-party viewability and verification vendors to measure impressions for ads served to mobile app environments without requiring their own SDK. The development of this SDK is an industry-wide effort lead by the IAB.

In layman’s terms, it ensures there is just one SDK to implement - as opposed to dozens - to cover all verification and viewability needs. Before, if an advertiser wanted to have a third party track its mobile in-app ad campaigns, it would need to make sure that third party had its own SDK implemented in all target apps. Now, instead of different advertisers using different third parties (and associated SDKs), everyone can use one shared SDK for all of their verification and viewability needs.

“This is a momentous day for the industry and for InMobi,” said Anne Frisbie, SVP Global Programmatic and North America at InMobi. “We are proud to share that all InMobi formats are now covered and certified by the IAB. Along with this, all major viewability vendors can now be supported, which will unlock more measurable supply for advertisers. Furthermore, this will create additional metrics consistency across vendors, since the data inputs are now the same.”

Why is the OM SDK Beneficial?

The OM SDK is a big deal for both advertisers (and their partners) and app publishers (and their ad partners).

On the demand side, the OM SDK makes it easier for advertisers and their partners to know with complete certainty that their mobile in-app ads are being viewed by real people and reaching the right audiences. Considering that most ad impressions fall below the IAB’s 70 percent viewability threshold, it’s easy to see why viewability is a longstanding concern for advertisers. As mobile devices and apps replace television sets and desktops as the screens of choice in most consumers’ lives, it’s critical that advertisers are able to effectively reach this growing audience and that they can accurately quantify their spending efforts.

“The Open Measurement SDK brings transparency and consistency to in-app mobile advertising,” said Dennis Buchheim, Senior Vice President and General Manager at IAB Tech Lab. “We’re excited to have InMobi on board and we encourage the adoption, integration and use of the OM SDK by everyone for easy ad verification and viewability measurement purpose.”

On the app publisher side, OM SDK provides two key benefits. For one, it can inspire greater trust and transparency among brands currently aiming to run ads on a particular app. It can go a long way towards convincing advertisers that they’re reaching real people and that their creatives are making a measurable impact.

The OM SDK can also help app developers and publishers reduce SDK bloat and get their apps to load more quickly. SafeDK has found that the average app now has around 18 SDKs implemented, with analytics and advertising SDKs among the common ones in place.

While each of these SDKs has a key purpose, they’re also impacting app load times and overall performance. A separate report from SafeDK on a sample property found that while the core app itself loaded in less than a second, the overall app loaded in close to three seconds because of all of the SDKs in place. By reducing its SDK load, apps can load much faster - which is key for placating today’s increasingly impatient end users.

Interested in getting started with the OM SDK today? Go to https://iabtechlab.com/standards/open-measurement-sdk/ for more information, and reach out to us to learn how you can begin leveraging the OM SDK.

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Brands: if you don’t take a smarter approach to data usage and data management, then your advertising campaigns are going to fall flat in 2019. Considering less than 10 percent of companies monetize their data completely effectively, a lot of businesses may be looking at failed efforts and wasted spend in the new year - unless they change their approach to data, of course.

Note: This is the fourth in our series on top trends for 2019. Our first post was on transparency, the second predictions post focused on OTT and our third post talked about in-app header bidding. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts all about what leading figures in the mobile advertising and marketing space think will become pervasive in the new year.

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The Growing Global Data Monetization Market

In 2017, The Economist now famously proclaimed that the “world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” Huge firms like Facebook and Amazon use data to fuel their growth, most notably using data collection and analysis to better understand and further optimize the customer experience.

Even older, pre-digital businesses like Siemens and General Electric (to name just a few) now have at least one steady revenue stream coming in from data. For example, AT&T’s 2018 acquisition of AppNexus (and newly created advertising branch Xandr) shows how it is moving beyond traditional telco offerings.

To what extent is data affecting all businesses across economic sectors? Chris Sharp, CTO and Executive Vice President of Service Innovation at Digital Realty, cited in Forbes, more than “4 percent of all jobs in the U.S., along with over 5 percent of national output, come from the contribution that data makes to the economy.”

And yet, considering that an estimated 90 percent of the world’s data is only around two years old, this may be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In a world where “big data” has gone from being a buzzword to becoming an industry norm - truly a given in most business - data has become increasingly central to every business venture. This trend shows no sign of slowing down in 2019 either.

Increasing Market Growth from Mobile, IoT and AI

So where is this data coming from? Increasingly, it’s coming from these two sources:

• Mobile data is growing in importance, especially among advertisers. Mobile operators know this, which is why deals like InMobi’s recent acquisition of Pinsight Media may well be a harbinger of changes to come in that industry. For today’s telcos, their data is by far their most valuable asset.
• As the Internet of Things (IoT) explodes and millions of new connected endpoints are coming online, new applications will emerge to mine these data sources. The use cases are endless - from data on on everything from what people put in their refrigerators to when they drive their car to work. With data pouring in from billions of newly connected endpoints, businesses in any industry now have brand new sources of potential insights to mine.

Much of this data growth is coming on the heels of further investment in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), like how Sky used its vast telco data reserves to power an AI initiative that boosted sales among existing customers by over 50 percent.

We’ll leave further details on AI and ML to another upcoming 2019 trends blog post, as we believe AI and ML are a huge, rising trend in their own right.

The Role of Customer Data in Advertising

Who is monetizing the data to greater degrees? While this trend is prevalent in just about every possible business venture today, it’s especially prevalent in advertising and marketing.

“When you know the time, place and devices people are using to consume your ads, you can make data-backed decisions to optimize on the fly and improve future campaigns,” says Kedar Gavane, VP of India, Australia and New Zealand for ComScore.

The velocity at which advertisers and marketers gain data from mobile devices is staggering in its own right as well. In close to real time, brands gain unique insights on where their target customers are located, what they are interested in and how they spend their time - all over any potential forecast period too.

Downsides to Mobile Data Monetization?

Of course, all is not rosy on the data monetization front. Increasingly, many people are concerned about how data - including personally identifiable data like dates of birth and Social Security numbers, among other examples - on them is used by companies for their gain. As a result, governments have stepped in with regulation - recent examples include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the state-level California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

“I expect that consumers will continue to demand more transparency and control over adtech use of their data,” eMarketer analyst Yory Wurmser said. “Many U.S. companies already have adopted much more transparent data policies and easier opt-outs in response to the requirements of GDPR. Companies that move slowly in creating clear opt-outs and that are opaque with their data policies will run into problems. Industry-wide, I expect more regulations (CCPA is next up), but in the long-run, it will be good for the ad industry and will force them to provide more clear value for their data use, either by providing direct incentives for data, or by making data-sharing transparently worthwhile for consumers.”

This has caused companies - especially mobile in-app advertisers and their partners - to rethink how they use data and where it’s coming from. In the past, many businesses were open to obtaining data from a wide variety of sources, including various third parties. But, that attitude is already shifting.

“The move away from third party data standard segments will continue,” predicts Anne Frisbie, senior vice president of global programmatic and North America at InMobi. “Clients will increase their use of their own first party data, and leverage third party high quality data sources to create more custom audience segments to ensure that they are seeing the return on investment in terms of data.”

Calculating the Growing Value of Data

In the realms of advertising and marketing, data has become increasingly critical. Today’s campaigns cannot run effectively without it, and this will be further apparent in 2019. Next year, expect advertisers and marketers - and end users and governments - to place an even higher premium on data.

Do you see data as being a key 2019 trend, or do you think it’s already arrived? How will data usage and attitudes around data optimization change in the new year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or on social media.

Even though it seems at times like everyone from the world’s biggest ad platforms down to tiny ad networks was talking about in-app header bidding in 2018, actual adoption of unified auctions among mobile publishers, app developers and their programmatic demand sources was low.

But, expect all that to change in 2019. In the new year, likely the entire mobile ad tech space will embrace this form of app monetization.

Note: This is the third in our series on top trends for 2019. Our first post was on transparency, while the second predictions post focused on OTT. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts all about what leading figures in the mobile advertising and marketing space think will become pervasive in the new year.

What’s The Current State of In-App Header Bidding?

Right now, relatively few app publishers, supply-side platforms and ad demand partners have embraced in-app header bidding to any real extent. In a survey we conducted in 2018, less than 40 percent of app publishers said they use in-app header bidding, while over half say they still leverage waterfalls.

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Why is this still the case? Primarily, it’s because many app publishers are using highly inefficient monetization strategies. For example, 14 percent of survey respondents said they use only use one ad exchange, while over 30 percent said they simply didn’t understand how in-app header bidding actually worked.

But, because of this, many app publishers are experiencing monetization issues. In particular, our survey found that 54 percent of app publishers and developers have seen their ad revenues decrease or remain stagnant over the past 12 months.

Why Will Unified Auctions Take Off in 2019?

App publishers are struggling with app monetization via ads, so in-app header bidding and unified auctions are here to help.

• In-app header bidding goes a long way towards improving the user experience, ensuring even rewarded video ads appear in as close to real time as possible. Our survey found that for 40 percent of app publishers, it takes a second or longer for an ad to go from the ad server onto an app. But, according to data from our network, unified auctions reduce ad load times by 28 percent.
• Unified auctions help apps realize more revenue. Mobile apps that used InMobi’s in-app header bidding technology in 2017 saw 48 percent more ad revenue and 44 percent higher CPMs compared to their peers.
• Unified auctions ensure apps see demand from a greater number of ad sources, according to our network data.

In 2018, app publishers and developers heard about in-app header bidding. In 2019, they’ll actually adopt unified auction technology en masse.

“From the supply side, it’s no surprise that I think unified auction methodologies will gain massive adoption over the waterfall mediation model. The idea that there are hundreds of publishers out there that don’t utilize an easy way to increase revenue and price means the market will shift toward that equilibrium,” says Mike Brooks, Senior Vice President of Revenue at WeatherBug.

WeatherBug is a prime example of a publisher that benefited greatly from in-app header bidding and unified auctions. By adopting this technology for their mobile app, they were able to increase their ad revenues by 15 percent while also significantly reducing their SDK load. In short, in-app header bidding helped WeatherBug boost revenue without having to change the demand sources they were using.

“We have had great success in driving eCPMs higher utilizing their unified auction, as we find this to be a more efficient and profitable way to do business,” says Ed Arrandale, Director of Programmatic and Monetization at WeatherBug.

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Do you think other apps will join WeatherBug in adopting unified ad auctions in 2019, or will this fail to take off in the new year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below, or share your comments with us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

We are confident that content on streaming services will become bigger than ever before in 2019, and that the dominance of traditional television on the largest screen in the house is declining.

Note: This is the second in our series on top trends for 2019. Our first post was on transparency. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts all about what leading figures in the mobile advertising and marketing space think will become pervasive in the new year.

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What is OTT Exactly?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) defines over-the-top (OTT) video as “video content transported from a video provider to a connected device over the Internet outside the closed networks of telecom and cable providers.” Roku boxes, Chromecast sticks, Hulu and Netflix are popular, common examples of OTT video.

Who watches OTT video content? OTT viewers are cord cutters or cord shavers. While OTT video viewers don’t outnumber TV only viewers just yet, they may very well be the largest audience segment between the two in short order.

Advertising’s Role in the OTT Ecosystem

Among advertisers, OTT viewers are a tempting audience since traditional audience segmentation strategies don’t reach them. Plus, they tend to have a higher income than their peers.

But is there an audience for ad-supported video (ASV) streaming content? ASV OTT viewers may be the minority - streaming video on demand (SVOD) viewers are more popular now, thanks to services like Netflix. But, it’s possible this audience has a higher ad receptiveness than is widely believed. OTT viewers likely don’t mind TV ads if that means not paying for three or more streaming services while still getting a positive viewing experience.

OTT video streaming services also offer a few other key potential benefits for advertisers and their partners:

• Ability to reach a large and diverse audience across ages and geographies.
• Ability to reach people that can’t be reached via traditional routes like radio or broadcast television advertising.
• Ability to precisely target TV-like ads without needing to spend a large TV media budget, and to have more knowledge on who is watching the ad and what they care about.
• Ability to capture someone’s attention for a longer amount of time than is possible on computers or mobile devices.

Still, all is not rosy on the OTT video advertising front. Because there has yet to be a critical mass of brands flocking to advertise in this space, it’s largely a new frontier at the moment. Standards and processes will need to be hammered out and finalized in 2019 (and beyond) before it becomes a de rigeur practice among savvy marketers.

However, since OTT is largely an app-dominated space, likely what works well now in mobile app environments will probably translate onto these larger screens. Time will tell if that indeed ends up happening in 2019 or not though.

What Will The 2019 OTT Video Landscape Look Like?

Right now, OTT viewership is still a small fraction of the overall video and television arena. But, that will likely all change in 2019.

“Once upon a time, software was eating the world. Now, it’s video’s turn,” says Abhay Singhal, Co-Founder and President of Advertising Cloud at InMobi.

The mystery in the new year is not whether OTT will reach a critical mass, but rather what shape it will take. Thus far, ad-free premium subscription services like Netflix and HBO Now have proven to be the dominant model. Nevertheless, ad-supported options may prove to be more lasting in 2019 and beyond as there is a large segment of viewers who still are willing to receive ads if that means they can get their content for free and not pay for yet another video streaming solution.

“Ad-supported OTT will prove to be a strong contender for television advertising dollars as more and more viewers shift away from traditional television,” says Kedar Gavane, VP of India, Australia and New Zealand for ComScore. “I believe that OTT will be take a lion’s share of the advertising pie” in 2019.

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To help address these worries, we recently developed an industry-leading partnership with DoubleVerify. Thanks to this brand new integration, any advertiser working with InMobi can be confident that their ads are being seen by real people across the world’s premier mobile apps and that their campaigns are certifiably free of fraud.

So how does this partnership work on the fraud side of the equation? The integration covers both pre-bid targeting for all impressions within the platform, as well as monitoring of post-bid fraud activity, such as spoofing. DoubleVerify identifies and screens the most comprehensive types of in-app fraud, including background ad activity, hidden ads, app misrepresentation (spoofing) and measurement manipulation.

This comes on top of the steps InMobi has already taken to fight fraud, including being independently certified by the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) Anti-Fraud Program. This is key for advertisers, as TAG-certified channels have, on average, 83 percent less fraud than ones that are not certified by them.

In terms of viewability, advertisers on the InMobi Exchange, whether they’re buying directly or programmatically, will be able to more effectively quantify their ad views through a DoubleVerify-enabled wrapper. This is available through all of our demand-side partners that run VAST video experiences - including vertical videos and fullscreen inventory - on Android or iOS.

While InMobi’s viewable rate has long exceeded industry benchmarks from IAS and Moat, this new partnership with DoubleVerify will provide measurable proof at the campaign level. This is not the first time we’ve secured partnerships to help improve and prove video viewability, as we began supporting Active View, Google’s viewability verification product, earlier this year.

“DV’s partnership with InMobi demonstrates our commitment to provide consistent, comprehensive quality coverage for global brand advertisers,” said DoubleVerify COO Matt McLaughlin. “With ad spend increasingly concentrated in mobile, it’s imperative that brands have transparency into the quality of mobile app inventory. We are proud of our partnership with InMobi, which expands the footprint of our fraud prevention capabilities and further distinguishes DV as the leader for mobile app verification.”

The Problem

In the programmatic world where publishers and buyers are not usually in direct contact with one another, unauthorized reselling, counterfeit inventory and domain spoofing have cropped up as major problems.

• Unauthorized reselling: Sometimes, intermediate sellers resell inventory without the knowledge of the publishers, resulting in underpriced inventory in the system. This prevents publishers from getting a fair price for their inventory.
• Counterfeit inventory: Ad networks/Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) sometimes claim access to inventory they don’t have access to, misleading buyers to spend their precious dollars on counterfeit inventory.
• Domain spoofing: This is when unscrupulous publishers, ad networks or exchanges misrepresent the nature of their traffic to resemble legitimate websites. In a recent study, for example, it was revealed that top publishers like The New York Times and The Washington Post lose $3.5 million a day to domain spoofing.

In all cases, unless the buyer actually contacted the publisher directly, she/he would not know if the ad network/SSP had legitimate access to the publisher’s inventory.

What is Ads.txt?

Ads.txt is a simple solution that gives publishers complete control over who is selling their inventory. The publisher creates a depository of authorized sellers that can be accessed by the buyers. Buyers can hence identify the legitimate sellers of the ad inventory they desire.

Think of this scenario, where you wish to purchase a pair of Gucci sunglasses. How would do you identify whether the person selling it to you is authorized to do so? You would not be able to do so without Gucci’s help. Ads.txt works in a similar fashion, as it guides advertisers to make their inventory purchases verifiable - and thus more valuable.

What Will be the Impact of Ads.txt?

Ads.txt is a great step towards driving transparency in the entire programmatic ecosystem.

With ads.txt, brand advertisers can protect precious advertising dollars from fraudsters and also enhance brand safety.

For publishers, ads.txt is the best solution around. It costs very little and is simple to implement. Brand advertisers will also be willing to pay for and prioritize brand safe legitimate inventory.

How Does Ads.txt Work?

Website and mobile web publishers create a .txt file containing the details of authorized sellers and then make it available on their website. The buyers periodically crawl the publisher’s website to update their database of which sellers are authorized to sell the publisher’s inventory. A buyer can then opt to reject bid requests that come from unauthorized sellers.

In the app ecosystem, things work a little differently. The publisher needs to provide the developer website on the app stores. The buyer periodically crawls the app stores to retrieve the website’s address, which is the location of the app-ads.txt file.

As in the case of website/mobile web publishers, the developer website is then crawled to gather information on who is authorized to sell the inventory. The buyer uses this information to reject or accept bid requests that come from various SSPs and ad networks.

At InMobi, we are committed to driving more transparency and control for both our publishers and advertisers, and we believe that app-ads.txt is a great step towards building more trust in the programmatic ecosystem.

We highly recommend all our existing publishers adopt ads.txt to reap the benefits of the initiative.

Note: This is the first in our series on top trends for 2019. Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts all about what leading figures in the mobile advertising and marketing space think will become pervasive in the new year.

Where Marketing Campaigns and Media Spending Currently Fall Flat

Digital media companies have been rapidly embracing programmatic advertising and real-time media buying across mobile apps. According to our latest report, mobile programmatic spending rose over 300 percent between the first half of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017. And, between January and June 2018, 56 percent of all in-app ad spending was conducted programmatically.

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But, all is not rosy in this new, more automated world. While programmatic has promised greater transparency, for many brands this has not been the reality. In particular, concerns around brand safety and an overall lack of transparency have emerged as the biggest issues cited by brand advertisers throughout both 2017 and 2018.

As brands look to spend more on mobile in-app advertising to more effectively reach and impact today’s mobile-first consumers, they want to be more confident in how they’re allocating their media budgets and whether real people are seeing - and acting on - their ads. This is especially key as ad fraud rises to record highs.

These concerns are also being raised on the end user/customer side as well, which helps to explain why laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are shining a brighter light on digital advertising practices and approaches. From all sides, the digital advertising ecosystem is under pressure to become more transparent and trustworthy.

“I expect that consumers will continue to demand more transparency and control over adtech use of their data,” said eMarketer Analyst Yory Wurmser. “Many U.S. companies already have adopted much more transparent data policies and easier opt-outs in response to the requirements of GDPR. Companies that move slowly in creating clear opt-outs and that are opaque with their data policies will run into problems. Industry-wide, I expect more regulations (CCPA is next up), but in the long-run, it will be good for the ad industry and will force them to provide more clear value for their data use, either by providing direct incentives for data, or by making data-sharing transparently worthwhile for consumers.”

In 2019, The Programmatic Ecosystem Actually Increases Transparency

While these issues have been laying dormant for years now, they will be increasingly put to bed in the coming year. In 2019, expect everyone in the digital advertising ecosystem to put more and more focus on transparency and openness throughout the entire supply chain. So what kinds of efforts can be expected in this arena?

For starters, new technologies designed to increase transparency will come to the fore. The recent introduction of Ads.txt for in-app environments and the Open Measurement SDK are just the tip of the iceberg here. It would not be surprising to see ad tech-focused blockchain applications - which have been long on hype but short on results so far - actually make real headway in 2019.

Additionally, supply chain partnerships will continue to push these initiatives forward. While these kinds of transparency-focused arrangements were starting to make real headway in 2018, walled gardens and siloed approaches still ruled the roost in 2018. In the new year, expect openness and cross-organizational transparency to be the norm.

And last but certainly not least, all digital advertising players will increasingly put their money where their mouth is in terms of prioritizing trust and transparency. For too long, the industry has paid lip service to these values while still allowing issues to run amok. That will end in 2019.

“The biggest issue in mobile marketing today is trust. As more and more companies enter the fray, with varying levels of technology and frankly, legitimacy, it becomes increasingly difficult for buyers to ascertain what is real and what isn’t,” says Mike Brooks, Senior Vice President of Revenue at WeatherBug. “That said, as more and more advanced types of fraud are being uncovered and taught to even the most basic buyers, the advertisers in the mobile space are going to optimize their spends toward partners they can trust to not perpetrate these schemes. I think this is finally the year where advertisers start talking with their money, and moving it to people they trust and business models they understand.”

To learn more about how WeatherBug approaches in-app advertising, read our case study.

CASE STUDY

To answer these and other questions related to mobile video ads, we took a look at data on in-app ads, we took a look at data from our mobile platforms dating back from the beginning of 2016. In short, we found that everyone is embracing video content in all forms. Even as the attention spans of the users of mobile devices shrink, more and more people watch video ads and respond to them at much higher rates than they do other formats like banner ads.

“The answer is clear: Advertisers love video ads. Publishers love video ads. And users enjoy well-delivered and well-placed video ads,” Srinivas KC, Vice President and General Manager of Advertiser Platforms at InMobi, told MarTech Series in July. “In 2017, advertisers doubled video ad spends over 2016. This is a huge move, and it continues into 2018, where we expect similar growth to continue. Publishers have responded to this move, more than doubling video ad inventory from 2017 to 2018. On the InMobi Exchange alone, we saw a 400 percent increase in video ad inventory in Q1 2018 vs. Q1 2017. It’s an exciting time for the ecosystem as far as mobile video ads are concerned.”

In our latest infographic, we dive into the stats, highlighting just how the in-app video advertising space is growing and evolving.

Predicting the Future of Mobile In-App Video Advertising

While in-app video ads have grown to new heights from 2016 to 2018, what does the future hold? How will the space evolve and morph in 2019 and beyond? While no one knows for sure, it seems safe to say that mobile in-app video ads will likely be even more popular in the new year and beyond. As long as mobile devices and apps are popular, and as long as apps monetize through advertising, then video will remain a highly effective and efficient format for reaching and connecting to various mobile audience segments.

“We have moved into a world of video consumption and video advertising that’s cross-device and predominantly rooted outside of the browser. A tremendous amount of video viewing is being consumed within mobile apps or connected TVs rather than only on desktop and mobile web experiences,” Anne Frisbie, Senior Vice President of Global Programmatic and North America at InMobi, said to MarTech Series in March 2019. “This alone is a major shift for advertisers. In the past, cookie-based audiences could effectively address audience buying in digital (browser-based) inventory including for video. Today, cookie-based audiences alone will simply not enable effective audience buying into the most premium video ad experiences within mobile apps and connected TVs. InMobi has spent the past two years addressing the challenges of advertising into mobile apps across smartphones and tablets. We have worked diligently to move the industry from javascript, browser-based technology like VPAID to technologies like VAST that can work with the native environments of these connected devices. InMobi has also worked to solve MRC accredited viewability and fraud metrics that will work seamlessly with VAST, and have rolled out ways to execute interactive creative with VAST and native technologies of the Android and iOS operating systems.”

What are your predictions for the in-app mobile video advertising ecosystem for 2019 and beyond? Do you think in-app video ads will become more common in the new year, or do you predict that they will fall by the wayside? Let us know in the comments below, or write us a note on Twitter or LinkedIn!

In this latest Whiteboard Wednesday video, Ryan Gauss, the Platform Product Manager here at InMobi, explains how the highest bid can be secretly tweaked, alternatives to the second price auctioning model and what demand-side platforms (DSPs) need to know before selecting a supply-side platform (SSP) to work with.

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Ryan Gauss, and I’m the Platform Product Manager here at InMobi. And today we’re going to talk about flaws of second price auctions.

In our previous Whiteboard Wednesday, we talked about second price auctions, what they are and how they work. And today we’re going to talk about different flaws in them, what some of the benefits are and weaknesses, and how they can be manipulated.

So first off, let’s focus on the benefits of second price auctions. As we mentioned previously in our Whiteboard Wednesday, the main benefit of them is it allows bidders to bid high for the inventory they really want, with relatively low risk that they will end up paying that amount, because they’re only going to end up paying one cent over the second highest bidder. So what ends up happening the majority of the time is they pay a much lower amount than they originally bid.

Now let’s take a look at the weaknesses. So there’s two main weaknesses that are typically mentioned when we talk about second price auctions. The first one is that bidders do not know what the other bidders or bids are that are coming into the auction. There’s no transparency. There’s no insight. And the problem with this is it really opens up the auction for manipulation. We’re going to go through a couple of examples and show how it can be manipulated.

The other potential downside and weakness of second price auctions, and we’re not going to spend really much time discussing this today, is that if a second price auction bidder must compete in multiple auctions, they really are at a disadvantage. And typically we see this come into play often when we’re talking about header bidding. So in header bidding, a bidder might have to go ahead and compete in multiple auctions, and in that case, they’re at a big disadvantage. So we’ll leave that for a future Whiteboard Wednesday that show how that functions, but that’s just one other potential weakness that we want to point out.

So let’s go through a couple of examples of how a second price auction can be manipulated. So the first example we’re going to do is we have an auction, and let’s say there are three bidders. So bidder one bids $7, bidder two bids $6, bidder three bids $5.50 and the bid floor is $5. Now, bidder one is the highest bidder, but they have no knowledge of what these other bidders have actually bid, so they don’t know that bidder two has bid $6. There’s no transparency, there’s no insight.

So what can happen is, the SSP can submit an artificial - or a fake or a dummy - bid. So what I mean by that is once all these bids have come in, if the SSP wants to drive up the price so they gain more revenue for themselves, they can go ahead and submit a fake bid at, say, $6.50. So this becomes the new second highest bidder, and so it inflates the price that bidder one will end up needing to pay.

So before this fake bid was submitted, bidder one would win the auction and pay $6.01. But now that this fake and dummy bid has been submitted, the final price for bidder one becomes $6.51. So you can see right there that this auction has been manipulated. Bidder one ends up paying more than there’s supposed to have to pay, but because bidder one has no insight on to the other bids and who else is bidding, this is virtually impossible to detect. So this is a very, very difficult thing for bidder one to figure out, but it is definitely a way that it can be manipulated.

Now let’s look at another example of how a second price auction can be manipulated. In this example, bidder one is going to bid $7. But, in this case, the bid floor is not actually sent out in the bid request. It’s not a required field, but if it’s not there, obviously there’s a lack of transparency and it opens it up to this other possible way of manipulation. So what can happen in this case without a bid floor being sent out is when bidder one submits their bid at $7, the SSP can now artificially raise the bid floor and end up getting more revenue.

So to put a more concrete example to our scenario right here, let’s say bidder one submits $7, and initially the bid floor was $5. The auction is held. Only one bidder sends in a price of $7, and now the SSP says, I’m going to raise that floor say, all of a sudden, $6. Now bidder one has no knowledge that the bid floor has been raised, because they never received the initial bid floor. So now, instead of the original closing price being $5.01, which would have been one cent over the original bid floor, the final price now becomes $6.01. Now, once again, bidder one is paying more than they should have to pay, but because they have no insight into what is happening within this auction, it is virtually impossible for them to detect what is actually happening.

So because of the different ways that a second price auction can be manipulated, more and more DSPs are starting to move towards first price auctions. And in a first price auction, a DSP, if they win the auction, will end up paying exactly what they bid. They may end up paying a little more that they would in a typical second price auction, but they know exactly what they’re going to pay if they win.

Another possible auction type that’s starting to come into play is what’s called bid shading. And we’re not going to go into an explanation of that, but basically what bid shading is, it attempts to split the difference between a first price auction price and a second price auction price. But once again there’s still some lack of transparency in that because when that price is split in between that, that’s decided by the SSP, and once again the DSP really has no insight into that and what else is happening as far as other bidders in the auction.

So because of all these potential weaknesses and manipulation that can happen in a second price auction, it’s really important that DSPs have trust, and know and have a lot of transparency into what is actually happening in the auction. So we would encourage all DSPs out there: before you start working with an SSP, to make sure that they’re always providing the auction type, a bid floor, and that they know and trust the SSP they’re working with.

That’s all for today. Thank you very much. We’ll see you next time.

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Here are the top eight perks of mobile in-app advertising that make it the best mobile strategy.

1) Target Consumers Without Cookies

Within mobile web advertising or any other browser-based marketing effort, most data available to marketers and advertisers has traditionally come from cookies. That may be fine for Cookie Monster, but it won’t cut it for savvy marketers today.

There are a few core problems with cookies:

• Cookies miss close to two-thirds of all mobile devices, since they’re only available with browsers and not apps.
• They have a short shelf life. Some cookies only last until a user’s session is over, failing to capture historical trends. Also, many people set up their browsers to automatically clear even persistent cookies.
• They are specific to devices, so they don’t account for people who use multiple devices. For example, let’s say a target customer looks at a website on a desktop and then later looks at the same site on a laptop later in the day. Cookies would track this as two separate people coming to the site, not one person coming from separate devices.
• It doesn’t capture identifying information like email addresses, meaning that it typically won’t tell you very much about who came to the site and how they can be reached.

2) Mobile Device IDs

Every mobile device has a unique identification number, kind of like its own UPN code or Social Security number. This number is agnostic to specific apps or websites, unlike cookies. For advertisers, having device ID data can be enormously helpful, as this data can help provide deeper insights on how someone uses their phone across all of their apps. For instance, if someone was on one app and then clicked on an ad to go to another app, the device ID would provide information on that total journey across the different apps.

3) Reach Mobile Users Across a Wide Range of Properties with Deterministic Data

Digital marketing has long been based on single action points, which is in part why last-click attribution became the default standard. While the final ad may have caused someone to finally pull the trigger and convert, likely that person took a lot of key steps before they elected to click.

But how do you know what precisely they were doing, viewing and seeing before that final action? With most datasets, you just don’t know for certain.

This is where deterministic data comes into play. By providing a more holistic look at a person’s actions and habits across apps, websites and devices, brands gain a deeper understanding of the overall customer journey.

For example, let’s say someone saw an ad for a pair or shoes on their laptop in the morning, conducted research on their smartphone in the afternoon and ultimately purchased the brand on their tablet in the event. Without deterministic data, it would just look like a direct site visit led to the purchase, without taking into account all of the crucial previous steps.

4) Target Audiences with a High Degree of Precision

Thanks to GPS signals and other factors coming from mobile devices, it’s possible to determine where someone is located. For advertisers with access to these kinds of insights, having location data can be enormously useful.

Consider these scenarios:

• Advertisers that specifically target business travelers can run ads to only people located in or near airports and convention centers during the work week, to better guarantee that its target audience received the ads.
• Brands hoping to reach sports fans could aim to have its ads run only on mobile devices located at stadiums and sports bars on game days.
• Publishers can be sure that their users only receive ads from brands that actually do business in their geography.
• Ad creatives can include maps, which help to highlight a company’s nearest physical storefront to the app end user.

The mantra of real estate is location, location, location. In advertising, location can be just as impactful as well.

5) Total Share of Voice Within Mobile Apps

Go open a newspaper or web page, and count how many ads you see. Chances are, there will be multiple creatives vying for your attention. As an advertiser, how do you cut through this clutter and ensure your ad is actually seen?

This is where in-app advertising can prove enormously useful. Regardless of whether an advertiser is running 300x250 banners or fullscreen videos, there is almost always only one ad on screen at any one time. This way, brand messaging and positioning is not competing against any other ads for the end user’s attention and awareness.

6) No Blocking of In-App Ads

Whether you run display ads, banners, video ads or any other creative, you don’t have to worry as much about it not showing up in front of our target audience. That’s because within apps, there are no ad blockers. Considering that over 75 percent of people in North America now engage in some level of ad blocking, being able to ensure viewability is hugely beneficial.

7) Get Ideal Click-Through Rates with High Impact Creatives

Thanks to the wide variety of creative options available on mobile (including video ads with interactive end cards, playable ads, 360-degree ads, etc.), getting targeted individuals to visit your site, check out your social media profiles, download your app or make a purchase is easier than it would be on a mobile site or other browser-based environment.

8) Great Video Completion Rates with In-App Advertising

Overall, the click-through rate for all display ad formats within browser environments is 0.05 percent, and it’s only 0.1 percent for rich media advertising. And, not only are 60 percent of banner ad clicks accidental, but less than 10 percent of all digital advertising is viewed for longer than a second.

Contrast this with in-app video advertising. One study found that around 64 percent of all video ads were viewed from beginning to end on mobile devices. Thanks to the many benefits that come with in-app advertising, these kinds of ads are often more viewable and thus more effective than just about any other form of paid digital outreach and acquisition available today.

Interested in learning more about the benefits of mobile in-app advertising? Be sure to check out our other blogs on the topic.

Download our full report for the complete findings of our survey, along with exclusive data from our network.

Based on our research, here are six key takeaways:

1) The App Monetization Status Quo Isn’t Working

The current approaches that apps are commonly taking in regard to ad monetization are just not cutting it anymore. In particular, our survey found that 53 percent of those polled said that ad revenues had mostly remained the same or had dropped in the last 12 months. And, an additional 24 percent said they didn’t or couldn’t track this.

Further compounding these issues is ad latency, which negatively impacts revenue potential and the overall user experience. According to the report, 40 percent of respondents said it took a second or more for an ad to appear within the app once the call first goes out. That may not seem like much, but to increasingly impatient mobile app users it can seem like a lifetime.

2) In-App Header Bidding Solutions Already are Proven Effective

Luckily, a solution to these woes already exists. In-app header bidding and unified mobile ad auctions have become increasingly popular monetization options, and are already helping app publishers and developers more effectively optimize revenue yields while also delighting end users.

To see just how effective unified auctions are today, we analyzed data from InMobi’s network from 2017. This review found that apps leveraging InMobi’s mediation offering (which includes unified ad auctions), in comparison to their non-mediating peers, saw the following results:

• ⚫ 44 percent more ad impressions.
• ⚫ 7.4 percent more ad sources.
• ⚫ 48 percent more ad revenue.
• ⚫ Ads loaded 28 percent faster.

And, mediation and unified auctions are now used for a wide variety of ad inventory, even rewarded video. Our survey found that among those currently utilizing in-app header bidding, 47 percent have open auctions set up with video ads and 52 percent have it set up with interstitials, among other ad formats.

3) The Historical Average Still Holds Sway, as Misconceptions Reign Among App Developers

If in-app header bidding is proven effective, then why do 57 percent of publishers still use waterfalls to determine the highest bidder?

The reason why is because many app developers and publishers aren’t fully aware of unified auctions and their benefits. Only 22 percent of survey respondents said they had a very good understanding of in-app header bidding, while 12 percent had a limited amount of knowledge on the topic and 11 percent admitted to not understanding it at all. And, among survey respondents not utilizing in-app header bidding, 11 said they weren’t using the technology because of latency concerns, even though unified auctions are proven to improve ad load speeds.

4) In-App Header Bidding Will Become Increasingly Necessary

But, despite concerns, in-app header bidding will likely become more commonplace in the industry. As the ad tech landscape changes and becomes more dependent on programmatic tech, old ways simply won’t prove effective. The same change that occurred on desktop and mobile web will happen here.

5) Publishers of Mobile Apps Willing to Experiment and Try Out New Things

Even though waterfalls and historical averages still dominate the mobile app ad monetization space today, there are signs that app publishers are beginning to look at new and different approaches. For example, 43 percent of survey respondents are already using real-time bidding, and the number of in-app header bidding auctions on our network rose 56 percent in 2017.

Server side connections help with testing, as a direct connection to the ad server makes it easier to try out new options and conduct trials. Among survey respondents currently using in-app header bidding, close to half have a hybrid wrapper or server-side wrapper in place with their chosen auction partner.

6) In-App Header Bidding is Not the Same as a Unified Auction

Nowadays, it seems like every major app monetization player claims to offer header bidding within app environments. Even the Facebook Audience Network now claims to offer in-app header bidding. But, all that glitters is not gold.

So what’s the difference between the two? With most in-app header bidding setups, only part of the demand occurs via auctions.

For example, consider a waterfall that has three ad network demand sources. Just because the second demand source determines its winning bids via an open auction doesn’t mean that waterfalling’s issues go away. In contrast, in a unified auction, every single ad bidder competes against each other in real time for every bid opportunity.

Interested in more insights on the current state of monetization and in-app header bidding? Be sure to grab the full report today.

Source:

1: trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=header%20bidding

To answer these questions, check out our latest Whiteboard Wednesday video featuring Ryan Gauss, InMobi’s Platform Product Manager. This video covers:

• How, among all of the ad servers and ad exchanges, a winning bid is determined in a real time bidding-based second price bid auction.
• The benefits of truthful bidding.
• How advertisers and publishers view this bidding strategy.
• How price floors impact the minimum price a bidder pays.
• What happens when there are two winning bidders (i.e. two or more advertisers bidding the same price) and who pays the price of the ad in the end.

Transcript:

Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Ryan Gauss, and I’m the Platform Product Manager here at InMobi. And today we’re going to be discussing second price auctions, specifically what they are, how they work.

So before we get into that, we want to talk about the originations of second price auctions. And they were originally based on what was called a Vickrey auction. Now this concept was then taken by Google and Yahoo! and their advertising products, and it was tweaked a little bit to where we get to today, which is our modern day second price auction, which is used in our programmatic auctions.

And basically what a second price auction is, is that the highest bidder in an auction will pay one cent higher than the second highest bidder. That’s important because what it does is it encourages bidders to bid as high or as high as they can for inventory that they really want.

And the reason that that is important is that because they’re only paying once cent higher than the second highest bidder, the risk to them that they will end up paying that amount that they bid is relatively low. The caveat to that, of course, is that if there’s two bidders that bid high, then the final bid price will end up being high. But that is not a typical situation.

So we’re going to run through a few examples of second price auctions, and show how the final price is settled upon. But before we do that, we want to talk about a couple of elements of second price auctions that are really important because they impact the transparency of the auction and the final outcome price.

So first off, we want to talk about the auction type. And today specifically, we’re going to be focusing on second price auctions. But the two main auction types that are used in programmatic auctions are first price and second price. Now with first price, it’s pretty simple. Whatever the bidder wins who wins the auction, they pay that amount. So they bid $10 and they win the auction, they pay $10. In a second price auction, as we’ve already talked about, the highest bidder who wins the auction will pay one cent higher than the second highest bidder.

Now the auction type is not a required element that has to be sent out in the bid request. But it’s really important that the bidder works with an SSP that always provides the auction type. The bidder wants to know exactly what auction mechanics they are functioning under, so they know how they should be bidding, so they use the correct algorithm. So, if you’re a DSP out there and you’re looking for an SSP to work with, make sure you work with one that always provides the auction type, so there’s no type of ambiguity there about what type of logistics they’re functioning under.

The other element we want to talk about before we get into our examples is the bid floor. Now the bid floor is also another element that is not required. But, without it, once again there’s a lack of transparency, and the bidder’s a little bit in the dark to try to determine how much they should actually bid. What the bid floor is is the minimal amount that a bidder must bid in order to be eligible to win the auction. So, if the bid floor is $2, the bidder must bid at least $2 or higher to be eligible to win the auction.

So now that we’ve kind of defined some of our basic elements of a second price auction, let’s run through a few examples.

In our first example right here, we’re going to say that there are three different bidders who bid. So the first bidder will say has bid $7, the second bidder has bid $6, the third bidder has bid $5.50, and let’s say there’s a bid floor of $5. In this auction, bidder #1 is going to win the auction because they bid the highest. But, they’re not going to end up paying the $7 that they bid. They’re only going to pay one cent higher than the second highest bid, which would be $6.01.

In our next example, there’s only one bidder. So let’s say again bidder one bids $7, and there’s a floor of $5. In this example, the bid floor acts as the second highest bidder. So bidder #1 will win the auction again, but they will pay $5.01.

Now in our last example, we have two bidders that have bid, but they bid the exact same amount. So let’s say they both bid $7, and once again we have our bid floor of $5. Now the highest and the second highest bidder in this case have bid the same amount. So we cannot add one cent to the second highest bid because that would make it $7.01, which would we higher than either of these bidders had bid, and we can never charge a bidder higher than what they actually bid. So the final price in this auction will end up being $7.

Now in a case like this, where the highest bid is equal between two bidders, who wins the auction really depends upon the logic that is set at the SSP level. But the typical way that it’s resolved is that one of the two that bid the same amount is randomly chosen to be the winner.

So now that we’ve run through some examples, the last thing we want to touch on is bid depth. Bid depth is the amount of bidders that have actually placed a bid and are actually eligible to win the auction.

So bid depth can be seen as either a positive thing or a negative thing depending on the party that is viewing it. So it’s seen as a positive thing by publishers, who are the ones offering the inventory. They want to see greater bid depth because the more bidders that bid in an auction, it drives up the price and increases their revenue. And we can see that in example one right here, where there’s three bidders, and so the final price ends up being $6.01. If we compare that to our example #2, where there’s just one bidder, we have a much lower bid depth, we see the final price is $5.01. So from a publisher’s perspective, they definitely want to see example one, where there’s a greater bid depth.

Now on the opposite side of that, we have our bidders, who want to see a low bid depth because it’s less competitive and the price they end up paying ends up being much less. Once again from a bidder’s perspective, example two will be the better option for them because they’re the only ones that have bid and they will only pay one cent over the bid floor. Whereas in example one, where there is much greater bid depth and much more competition, they’re going to end up paying a higher price.

So that’s what we wanted to cover today with second price auctions. We hope this has given you a better idea of how they work, how they originated and where they’re going. And we’ll see you next time, in our next edition of Whiteboard Wednesday. Thank you very much.

But, how do you determine how to monetize your app? Each app monetization model has its own pros and cons. What works for one app could be totally wrong and misguided for another one.

So, among the various app monetization strategies out there, how do mobile app developers and app publishers decide what will be best for the app and their target audience? After all, you’d likely rather focus on mobile app development, not app revenue.

To help, we’ve compiled this handy guide to walk you through the pluses and minuses of the most common options out there.

Option 1: The In-App Advertising Model

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This is one of the most common - and most lucrative - mobile app monetization options available to mobile app developers and app publishers. Yes, we may be a little biased here, but the data backs us up. Non-gaming apps earn 76 percent of their revenue from native ads, banner ads and video, while gaming apps get 53 percent of their revenue from advertising.

In comparison to other options, in-app advertising offers a few key advantages:

• Ad-supported apps are, more often than not, totally free to download. This helps to ensure more people likely download and begin using your app, to ensure greater scale right out of the gate.
• It’s fairly easy to set up. By implementing one or a few ad network and/or ad exchange SDKs, you gain access to ads from the world’s top brands. This makes it much easier to generate revenue early on.
• It’s profitable. There’s a reason so many of the world’s top apps monetize via advertising.
• It’s flexible. There are many different flavors of in-app advertising, enabling you to determine how ads appear, what they look like and when they show up. For example, while a gaming app may like having rewarded video ads appear after key levels, native advertisements or interstitial ads are often well suited for news apps. "Fullscreen creatives, interactive end cards, 360-degree ads and others are all possible in-app," says Kayla Wilson, Head of Client Success, Programmatic, for InMobi.
• It’s universal. Just about any type of app can be monetized through advertising.
• It’s recurring. So long as an app has users and supports ad formats with decent click-through rates, it can continue to generate ad revenue.

"All players in the mobile advertising ecosystem benefit from in-app advertising. Advertisers reach their target audience effectively and at scale, app developers get a steady stream of income and end users get their favorite apps for free with minimal intrusion," Anne Frisbie, Senior Vice President of Global Brand & Programmatic at InMobi, wrote in AdvertisingWeek 360. "And, while in-app advertising is already powerful, it will become even more of a necessity in the months and years to come."

But, it’s not without its drawbacks. Most people (i.e. your user base) are not fans of ads of any kind, and it can negatively impact an app’s usability if implemented poorly. Plus, between issues related to tracking, data usage/sharing and brand safety, not all brands are yet totally convinced of its merit.

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Option 2: The Freemium Model

With a freemium app, most of the app’s functionality is totally free to use, and likely the app itself is free to download as well. But, in order to unlock additional elements or features, in-app purchases are required from the target audience.

This monetization model can be lucrative for many apps, with freemium games in particular making over $24 a month per user on average. This helps to make freemium model quite popular in games. Over 43 percent of all gaming apps earn revenue through mobile commerce and in-app purchases.

In this kind of environment, it’s easy to see why someone may want to pay extra for a special weapon, a unique costume or another similar in-app purchase. Apps that don’t lend themselves well to in-app advertising, like apps that target children or apps where ads would negatively affect the user experience, can benefit from the freemium model.

The downside to the freemium model is that the app needs to have enough in the free version to entice end users to grab it from the app stores, but also be able to offer more so that someone is willing to pay. Utility apps, like a weather app, are often not good candidates for the freemium model for this reason. And, in order to make significant revenue as a freemium app, the app needs to have sufficient reach plus sticky users to entice enough people towards the premium version (or added features).

Option 3: The Paid Download Model

This monetization model is fairly straightforward: someone pays to download the app. The benefit here is that you earn money upfront for user access to the app, meaning lifetime value and user retention have less of an impact on the bottom line. Games, especially those from big-name publishers, will utilize the paid apps model, as will premium utility apps like high-end fitness trackers and business-centric apps.

Of course, paid apps need to provide significant value to someone to compel them to spend money on it. A dollar isn’t much, but with so many free apps out there, it can be hard to get someone to fork over their money within the app stores. And, app revenues can only scale in direct linear correlation to new app downloads. These reasons tend to make paid downloads a less popular option, which is why most of the world’s top apps are free to download.

Option 4: The Subscription Model

Under this monetization model, users are asked to pay a recurring fee either for use of the app in its entirety or for particular features. Magazines and news publications have long operated under a similar model, which is why it’s popular with the likes of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Apps that work well with the freemium model and the paid download model can make subscriptions work too, as a similar pay-to-play functionality is being offered.

The subscription model is beneficial since, unlike with one-time app or feature purchases, it allows publishers to generate recurring revenue. But, because it’s more expensive, people may be even less likely to fork over their money than they would be with a standard freemium app or a paid app.

Option 5: The Facilitation Model

This isn’t an official name, but it’s one way to describe apps that facilitate a purchase or another transaction even though they’re typically free to download, don’t feature ads or have in-app purchases. Ridesharing apps like Lyft are a good example, as are banking apps. Just about all of the apps behind the growing gig economy fall under this umbrella.

This can be a tempting model to follow. After all, it combines the low barrier of entry of ad-supported apps with the user experience of a paid app. What’s not to love?

But - and there’s always a but - it still must provide enough value to a user to keep them around and paying. Apps like Uber and Bird need a lot of upfront funding to get off the ground, while apps like Wingz never quite cracked through to profitability. It can be a long journey to generate sufficient revenue for many of these apps, and they often require either a successful business or another source of outside funding to get off the ground and keep functioning.

Option 6: The Combination Model

We’ve presented each of these monetization models as an either/or proposition, but that’s not necessarily the case in real life. Many apps will utilize a combination of options. After all, a pay-to-download app could still have a subscription feature, while another app could feature both ads and in-app purchases. A combination can help an app generate additional revenue, but having too many ways to make money in one app can be off-putting to users.

Of course, these are not the only monetization models out there. Some apps, like Angry Birds, make money through merchandising, while others are made and distributed without any regard for app revenue.

What model do you use with your app? Let us in the comments, or on Twitter and LinkedIn!

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It’s true that marketing starts and ends with understanding the customer. But marketing to consumers today is different from what it was like in 1999, when Kotler wrote ‘Kotler on Marketing’. From A/B testing to the popularity of “Agile Marketing,” marketing and marketing tools have evolved to new levels of sophistication and speed. And yet, market research still feels like the 1990s.

For one, old-school approaches prevail. Market research still relies on panels, which lose effectiveness over time as panel members experience “survey fatigue.” Whether it’s survey phone calls or emails, panel members are bombarded with requests, making survey responses become less objective and authentic. Additionally, recruiting new panel members is hard, which is why the industry is still reliant on in-person, phone and email recruitment and participation incentives.

Time to market also has not caught up to the needs of today’s marketers. It typically takes market researchers at least two months to recruit panels, write and disseminate surveys, collect data and develop analyses.

To help address these concerns, we’ve developed InMobi Pulse.

So how is InMobi Pulse different? By leveraging our 10-year experience in mobile and AI, InMobi has created a platform that is delivering outstanding results for customers:

• Many customers report that InMobi Pulse delivers 5x reach over their traditional panels (by leveraging the InMobi network of 1.6 billion-plus global mobile users).
• Advanced machine learning capabilities ensure greater survey accuracy and more powerful deep insights.

InMobi Pulse changes the game for marketing – bringing research results live in days, not months. Think of it as a “Do It Yourself” market research platform, including survey authoring, user targeting and real-time dashboards.

Authoring

The easy-to-use survey editor enables users to build stunning mobile surveys in a matter of minutes. The tool makes it possible to leverage the following smartphone capabilities for optimized mobile usage:

• Advanced survey formats and survey experiences: Beyond radio buttons and checkbox options, the survey editor provides a wide variety format choices such as image select, star ratings, 10-point scales and matrix questions to help marketers conduct a variety of research studies.

Intuitive Authoring Screen

• Innovative capture of qualitative feedback: Users can capture qualitative responses via the support of unaided text input- and voice-based responses.
• Easily incorporate video and rich media: Frequently test creative – regardless of format – and ensure a real feedback loop by measuring post campaign impact.With its visual media support, InMobi Pulse makes it easy to conduct creative testing and post campaign brand lift analysis.
• Intelligent survey design: Utilize advanced features such as logical jumps to skip certain questions, screener questions to filter the respondents, response piping to subsequent questions, and the ability to randomize questions.

> Easily Insert Screener Questions

Targeting

After authoring the survey, users then choose the target audience, including lifestyle-based segments and 125+ pre-defined personas ready for use. Users can also leverage advanced location targeting capabilities from a range of point-of-interest categories or any of the 200,000+ precisely mapped building locations. To meet specific research requirements, users can tie quotas to maintain the intended respondent profile composition.

>
Leverage Precise Targeting Tools

Reporting and Dashboards

Once the survey is published, responses are collated into insightful reports which are continually updated as more responses are received. The output is layered in with AI-powered highlights, calling out correlations clearly.

> Access real-time, AI-powered dashboards

Our mobile-optimized surveys yield high completion rates and enable quicker time to market. At the same time, the platform employs 30+ machine learning-powered validation checks. Signals such as time spent on survey input, response patterns, phone orientation, gyro and passive user data help determine if the survey is getting good responses, ensuring the derivation of high-quality insights.

The dashboard allows for roll-up and drill-down, crosstabs and auto-generated AI-based insights. The interactive dashboard can be shared, downloaded into PDFs, or exported into .csv files for further analysis.

InMobi Pulse enables a new type of market research: “DIY” market research that ensures research and feedback power the entire business. Now, product concept testing, campaign creative design and the hundreds of other daily decisions that require customer feedback can be powered by InMobi Pulse. It is about time we made market research as sophisticated and agile as the rest of marketing today.

InMobi Pulse officially launches today. After already touching 4 million-plus mobile users globally in less than 6 months during our beta phase, we invite you to see how easy and impactful DIY research can be with InMobi Pulse. Get started with your market research study at pulse.inmobi.com.

Introducing the Digital Marketing Players

In the past, advertisers would communicate directly with app developers and publishers whenever they wanted to run an in-app ad campaign. Essentially, the advertiser would pay the publisher directly for access to their user base.

But, as the number of apps (and brands investing in digital advertising) rose, these one-on-one deals no longer made sense. Programmatic ad buying and real-time bidding have affected matters further, by introducing greater automation and efficiency to the mix.

Note: If you need a refresher on all of the acronyms and terms used in mobile advertising, then be sure to check out our guide.

So, who’s now involved in getting an ad to appear in an app?

On the advertiser side, a marketer will either have their own team members and/or a creative agency develop a mobile app advertisement and put together the creatives to use. From there, a demand-side platform (DSP) will aggregate creatives/campaigns from multiple advertisers, and then work to ensure they are offered up to app publishers.

On the app publisher side, developers and app owners will integrate with a source of advertiser demand either directly or with a supply-side platform (SSP) that aggregates publisher supply. Typically, this integration occurs through a software development kit (SDK), but sometimes it’s through an application programming interface (API).

An ad network is the bridge between the two sides. An ad network connects advertisers and their partners with publishers and their partners, ensuring that lots of brands can reach their target audience across lots of apps, and that apps have lots of advertisers clamoring to reach their users.

Breaking Down the In-App Advertising Supply Chain

So how does an ad actually end up in front of someone? What happens to make sure the right mobile ads appears at the right time and for the right person? Let’s break it down:

1. First, marketers need to determine who they want to reach and what kind of messaging they want to bring to market. For example, an energy drink brand may decide it wants to reach male gamers between 18 and 25 in the U.S. with their campaign.
2. From there, marketers (and their partners) need to determine their goals for the advertising campaign, including how much they want to spend and how they will be determining success. Goals could range from brand awareness, i.e. reaching as many relevant people as possible looking at their ads, to driving a specific action like a mobile web landing page visit or an app download via a particular app store.
3. Concurrently, app developers and publishers need to determine how they will generate ad revenue and how ads fit into the user experience being offered. Consider this: while banner ads are fairly easy to unobtrusively include in an app, more immersive formats like video ads typically provide greater ad revenue. App publishers need to consider how ads affect app usage, while also maximizing earnings.
4. Now back to the advertisers for a moment. Once a campaign is finalized, it’s entered into an ad network’s campaign management system. From there, an ad ops team will review the campaign to ensure it meets the ad network’s quality standards. Creatives and campaigns that don’t adhere to compliance standards, publisher preferences or existing laws will be rejected. When a campaign is approved by ad ops, it’s placed in a queue on the ad server until the right time.
5. Now, when a user opens up an app, the ad network’s SDK (or API, in some instances) is triggered, to highlight the fact that a particular person is ready to have an ad served to them.
6. Based on the data available from the SDK, the ad network determines which potential ad would be most relevant and offer the greatest payout to the app publisher. When impressions and reach are the primary campaign goal, determining the right ad to serve is fairly straightforward. But, when a campaign tracks success using performance metrics like ad click through rates, the ad network needs to determine which ad will likely be clicked on and engaged with by the end user, and then use that prediction to determine payout rates and ad revenue. Having historical data and advanced predictive analytics capabilities powered by artificial intelligence helps in this arena, as does machine learning algorithms.
7. Once an ad is selected (or served) it’s then (hopefully) rendered on the app and shown to the end user. The whole process, from start to finish, happens in as close to real time as possible - ideally, around 200 milliseconds. It’s important to note, however, that just because a mobile ad is server doesn’t mean it’s rendered. In the time it takes for the SDK to present a potential ad opportunity, someone may have left the app environment or scrolled past the advertising opportunity window.
8. Finally, after all this, there’s the reporting and payout period. This occurs either during or after the campaign. Essentially, this is where advertisers and their partners determine how the campaign performed, and how much they owe based on performance. For instance, if the campaign’s goal was to ensure a certain amount of time spent engaging with an ad, then the data will determine how much an advertiser should spend with the ad network. Typically, advertisers will use third parties like AppsFleyer, Adjust, etc., in combination with the ad network’s own data to determine how the campaign went and how much is owed. This data can also be hugely influential in determining which ad network partners to use. But, certain platforms limit how much third-party verification is possible. With a Facebook ad, for example, advertisers are limited to just data from the publishing platform.

Other In-App Advertising Considerations

Getting in-app advertising right is about more than just understanding how the ecosystem works at a basic level, as there are many other factors at play in a mobile app advertising campaign.

For starters, it’s key to understand that mobile web advertising is very different than mobile in-app advertising. While many brands are often tempted to run the same campaigns for both audiences, such an approach is not primed for success. Even though both involve mobile devices, they are dramatically different. In particular, how ads are displayed and what data is available can vary significantly between a browser-based environment and a mobile app environment.

What ad formats will work best for the goal, and for the target app? Like the earlier example, sometimes lighter ad formats like banners, native ads or interstitial ads are fairly easy to integrate, and a lot of apps have available inventory. These formats can be good for awareness, but not always for interactivity. In contrast, video ads and ads with interactive end cards are ideal for generating clicks, but not all apps incorporate these ad types. It’s important to weigh reach with cost and interactivity when deciding which ad formats to develop.

What technology is used to serve and then render an ad on mobile devices? This is another key question to full answer, as it’s crucial to ensure ads are served and rendered in a timely and efficient fashion. After all, even the best ad will be rendered moot if it fails to appear. This is why the VAST video ad delivery standard is gaining traction over VPAID, as its precaching capabilities ensure that ads render in less than a tenth of a second and are not encumbered by loading problems.

And, another key question to answer is, how does the publisher determine which ads to serve? Typically, app publishers use more than one source of ads, and often leverage dozens of ad networks. Many apps now use waterfalls - in which different ad networks, exchanges, etc. are called in a sequential, static order until all ad opportunities are fulfilled - although unified auctions are becoming more popular since they introduce more competition and reduce latency.

It’s important to note that this all covers the basics in how mobile in-app advertising works in September 2018. As new technologies, methodologies and ad formats come to the fore, in-app advertising may change further. For example, what does in-app advertising look like on a connected television set? But, if recent predictions come true, then the space will become even bigger - and possibly more complex - than ever soon.

Didn’t have a chance to make it this year? Here’s what you missed.

Tuesday Early Afternoon: Why Mobile In-App Advertising is a Whole New World

On Tuesday afternoon, Anne Frisbie, InMobi’s SVP of Global Programmatic and North America, took the stage to chat about all things mobile in-app advertising. Her talk centered around how younger audiences can’t be reached by more traditional avenues like television, and how lessons learned from in-app environments will be applicable across the wide range of connected devices now coming online. She also discussed what marketers need to know in order to see the best results from in-app advertising.

Immediately following her presentation, Anne sat down with Rebecca Zulch, Senior Manager of Integrated Investment at UM New York to discuss her approach to programmatic advertising and what UM’s clients need from in-app environments. Here are two memorable quotes from their discussion:

“Would be great to see ads.txt for in-app. Once we get the app stores to buy-in and adopt ads.txt, we expect to see a decrease in ineligible inventory and an increase in reach.” - Rebecca

“The drop off from an in-app ad to a landing page is enormous and is not the right way to get the User to engage with the brand. Cross device attribution should be the focus.” - Anne

Attendees of this event later said they really appreciated how Anne brought up the distinct differences between mobile web and mobile in-app advertising, and were curious to hear more about how some of the world’s biggest brands approach in-app and programmatic.

Tuesday End of Day: Programmatic for the People

At the end of day two of Advertising Week, Anne joined Taboola's Jeremy Varner, Clear Channel Outdoor Global's Wade Rifkin and MiQ's Charlie Neer on a panel moderated by Neil Shapiro from CAPTIVATE titled Programmatic for the People. The panel served to highlight the growth of digital out-of-home advertising.

The panel discussion centered around different applications for programmatic advertising, highlighting how programmatic media buying is reaching a wide variety of screens beyond just desktops or laptops. During the panel, Anne highlighted how mobile is the first step to this connected device world, and that viewability is very much possible with programmatic despite lingering concerns.

Top Trends: Talk of the Show

Outside of these panels, what else were attending chatting about? What were the big trends and themes of Advertising Week New York 2018?

• ⚫ One of the biggest talking points was around the future of television sets. As connected TV and over-the-top (like Roku) slowly become more popular and replace traditional linear models, how do advertisers make the most of these channels? In particular, marketers at Advertising Week expressed concern around frequency capping (seeing the same ad during every break), lack of measurement and fraud when it comes to these environments.
• ⚫ Another big talking point of the event was around the evolving role of agencies. While there’s been a growing trend of brands bringing their media buying and advertising efforts in house, a number of major companies at Advertising Week said they still turn to agencies, trading desks and demand-side partners for assistance, especially when it comes to programmatic.
• ⚫ There were also lots of chats about inner drive and delivering meaningful messages that help people and help the world. For example, the sessions on Great Minds Think Unlike with Emma Stone and the Child Mind Institute addressed Emma’s childhood anxieties, highlighting how she dealt with and overcame them to recognize hidden talents and superpowers for career success. Similarly, Refinery29 with Bethenny Frankel spoke about being a real-life disruptor, power through purpose and success by breaking barriers in business and life. And, none other than Will Smith spoke about making positive connections with the world, finding joy and bettering people’s lives with content and storytelling so they can be better, take risks and confront fears.
• ⚫ What else was talked about? During the event, we heard a lot about influencer marketing, cannabis marketing and ecosystem diversity as well.

If you attended Advertising Week New York this year, what were your top highlights from the event? What did you learn, and what did you hear the most about? Let us know in the comments below, or send us a note on Twitter or LinkedIn!

But, these naysayers may be surprised to learn that most of the common gripes are easily addressable. Here’s how it’s done.

Problem #1: Lack of Transparency

In a recent survey of media agencies conducted earlier this year, this was by far the top challenge cited by programmatic advertisers. With so many different players involved in getting an ad from an advertiser to their target audience - not to mention all of their acronyms - it can be hard for some to keep track of everyone and determine who is and isn’t involved in a given campaign.

Solution to Problem #1: While this is a common concern, it can be addressed. For starters, we are totally transparent with all of our supply chain partners about what data we collect and how it’s used. We also let advertisers know exactly who they’re targeting and what apps they’re using before a campaign is ever run. And, unlike others, we provide app-level campaign performance in as close to real time as possible. That way, all of our advertiser partners always know exactly what’s going on with their programmatic campaigns.

Problem #2: Brand Safety

This is a fairly recent concern. If brands are not careful, they could find their ads appearing next to objectionable content, and that proximity could lead some to erroneously believe that the brand endorses the content.

For instance, let’s say a brand chooses who they advertise with basely solely on total app users and total web traffic, which means their ads appear on properties owned by top news outlets. But, it’s entirely feasible that unless they’re careful, a display ad could appear next to a news story about something objectionable, like violence or racism. The mere fact that their ad appears next to such a news story could cast them in a highly negative light that significantly damages their brand perception.

Solution to Problem #2: While brand safety is a growing concern, it’s one that we’ve taken many strides recently to address permanently. One potential solution is through blacklisting, in which we make sure that certain apps don’t receive ads, or whitelisting, so that only certain apps get a brand’s ads. We also recently started using an innovative brand safety solution from IAS to guarantee the quality of our app inventory.

Certain ad formats help here too. For example, with fullscreen video ads, you never have to worry about an ad appearing next to objectionable content, since literally nothing else besides the ad appears on the screen.

It’s also important to know that apps are inherently more brand safe than digital inventory. With apps, it’s easier to determine if the environment is suitable in all instances. Take a weather app for instance. There’s an extremely slim probability for a brand safety concern to be present here. The same can’t be said of a news website’s weather section, however.

Problem #3: Mobile Ad Fraud

As programmatic spending rises, it makes sense that fraudsters follow the money. But, as mobile in-app ad fraud grows to new heights, many advertisers are worried that their budgets are being improperly spent and eaten up by fraud.

Solution to Problem #3: Mobile ad fraud may be a growing issue, but we’re rising to the occasion to address it.

• InMobi has been independently certified by the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s Anti-Fraud Program, allowing us to proudly display their Certified Against Fraud seal.
• We offer in-app viewability accredited by the Media Rating Council.
• Our invalid traffic rates are consistently much lower than industry averages as noted by Moat.
• We are constantly innovating to go above and beyond mobile ad fraud, including by applying our artificial intelligence capabilities to fighting the issue.

Problem #4: Not Enough Quality Data

Concerns about a lack of quality data abound among both those who own programmatic tech and those who don’t. The 2018 survey found that a majority of both groups cited this as a major challenge.

Solution to Problem #4: We address concerns about data quality by collecting high quality insights directly from our own SDK. Not only is our mobile-first SDK data highly valuable, with information including device IDs, location, demographics information and more, but our audience insights are certified by Nielsen. Data quality is an area where mobile in-app advertising blows browser-based digital advertising out of the water.

Problem #5: Lack of High-Quality Inventory and Scale

Ultimately, what does any advertiser want? They want to reach the right people, and get them to actually take action off the ad. They want to reach as many people as possible, and to reach them where they actually are. This is not unique to programmatic, but these concerns are just as prevalent in mobile in-app advertising.

Solution to Problem #5: Compared to other programmatic exchanges, we are uniquely suited to address these concerns, in large part because InMobi is the largest independent mobile in-app exchange, capable of helping advertisers reach up to 1.6 billion people globally. And, our quality data ensures that advertisers can talk to the right people with every campaign.

Plus, InMobi works with many of the globe’s leading app publishers and developers. Of the 22,500 apps that advertisers can connect with via our open exchange, their average app store rating is 4.3 and three-fourths of these apps are not gaming. That way, advertisers can be sure their ads are only running on the very best apps out there.

While issues around inventory, fraud, quality and transparency may persist, they are problems with existing solutions. To learn more about programmatic ad buying and why it may be right for your next mobile in-app advertising campaigns, request a demo of our industry-leading ad exchange for yourself today.

What have you done to make the most of mobile in-app programmatic? Let us know on social media! We’d love to hear from you on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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However, when done right, location based mobile ads can yield huge dividends for marketers, far greater than anything from word of mouth, content marketing or social media marketing. After all, it can be a great way to provide messaging and offers targeted to where people are, shop, live and work, ensuring creatives provide real value to key audiences.

So why do mobile marketers have a hard time finding new customers? Why do they struggle to effectively target their customer base? Part of the issue is in how they approach location based marketing. But, by rethinking current approaches to customer outreach through mobile, marketers can more effectively use location data to reach and engage target audiences.

Ways to Reach Mobile Device Users: Mobile App vs. Browser

For too many marketers, mobile ads are mobile ads. It doesn’t matter where they run, so long as they appear on a mobile device. But, this kind of thinking is a recipe for disaster, especially in the realm of real time targeting.

Mobile in-app advertising is a very different beast than mobile web advertising. These differences are especially stark with location and targeting. On mobile web, targeting occurs primarily through cookies, which come with limited geographic data. IP addresses help somewhat, but lack specificity and aren’t always available to mobile marketers.

Plus, some features of cookies may soon no longer be available in iOS 12. Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Protection 2.0 requires websites to specifically have users opt in for cookie-based tracking. And, the new default setting is for Safari to delete all cookies after 30 days, unless the end users has specifically consented otherwise. Previously, Safari by default recorded and tracked cookies for everyone for up to 24 hours after a site visit.

In contrast, mobile in-app provides a wealth of more accurate options. Particularly, SDKs enable marketers to have over 75 data signals at their disposal, which ensures the creation of highly accurate user profiles.

How Does Location Based Advertising Work on Mobile?

When mobile marketers run campaigns through apps, they gain access to a variety of markers that help with geographic targeting.

Through the built-in GPS within just about every mobile phone, locating users by latitude and longitude is possible. This is ideal for providing advertising based on where a user is actually located at that moment in time, as opposed to where they are most frequently.

How GPS signals help marketers:

Places of interest highlight key locations for users, along with signals that indicate when someone is located at a small business, workplace or another key area.

Geofencing establishes parameters and extends the reach of a place of interest. For example, a geofence can be used to determine when someone is in the vicinity of a high-interest location like a mall or an airport.

Polygons take geofencing one step further, by defining more clear boundaries. For example, marketers can use polygons to only show display ads to people within a stadium or a parking lot while also excluding anyone who lives nearby or is just passing by.

Location Verification

How can marketers be sure the location data signals they have access to are indeed accurate? For business owners and marketers, it’s critical to ensure the location data is trustworthy and verifiable.

Understanding this data is key, as it’s a major challenge marketers face. One study of 250 global marketers found that “ lack of visibility into data used to define audiences for targeting” was the most common reason they didn’t meet their marketing goals. Forty percent of survey respondents said this was a major challenge. And another study showed that 94 percent of senior marketers “had difficulties working with location data.”

Third-party verification can help here, to ensure that any location data meets or exceeds industry benchmarks. Of course, any data captured also needs to pass the scrutiny of the privacy policy, as misuse can lead to even more problems.

Location Based Mobile Advertising Examples

So how do marketers use location data to advertise a product or service? Here are a few location based mobile advertising examples to consider:

• Samsung successfully used location data as part of one of its mobile ad campaigns for the Galaxy S7 smartphone when it first come to market. For example, targeted users would be shown ads highlighting the phone’s waterproof nature if it was raining where they were located. The campaign, which reached 600,000 people in total, had an average click through rate of 3.74 percent, an average session time of 90 seconds and an average interaction rate of 6.67 percent.
  
  
• Europe-based telco Orange leveraged location data to help increase traffic to its stores in Poland in one especially successful campaign. The goal of the campaign was to use mobile ads to drive traffic to physical stores, and to promote Orange’s financial services business. The campaign utilized location data to via ad creatives, driving people who viewed an ad to the nearest Orange location. Later, once the campaign came to an end, device ID data was analyzed to determine if that person did indeed go to one of Orange’s 781 stores in Poland after being served an ad. Of the 1.3 million people who saw an ad during this campaign, close to 6,500 ended up visiting a store after viewing a mobile ad. Indeed, people who were served these ads were 2.5 times more likely to go to a store then those who did not see these ads, helping the campaign to far exceed initial expectations around cost per lead.
  
  
• A location based mobile ad campaign can be especially beneficial for promoting a singular event like a sporting game. For example, in one mobile ad campaign for a major sporting event in the Middle East, different audience profiles in target geographies would receive native and interstitial ads with interactive video creatives highlighting different aspects of the match. The campaign, which reached 2.9 million people throughout the Middle East, increased awareness of the event by 1.83x and boosted brand uplift by 1.7x. The event’s organizers used footfall attribution technology to determine the campaign’s success in reaching over 13 percent direct purchase intent from ad recipients.

If you’re interested in more insights on our location targeting capabilities, go to https://www.inmobi.com/advertising-cloud/targeting.

It’s now well known that app publishers can maximize their revenue through in-app advertising, but some of the mechanics behind the scenes within an in-app ad auction are not always well known about among the app developer community. Technologies like in-app header bidding and real-time bidding are involved, sure, but many app publishers often have questions about the specifics.

In particular, one question we often here a lot concerns the price of in-app ads and how pricing within in-app bidding really works.

• When ad networks are called, how much is determined by historical average versus a real-time assessment showing the ad network willing to pay more to reach a specific audience network in their auctions?
• Do high value advertisers ever pay more for high quality ad inventory?
• Do advertisers ever change their historical average CPMs? What about among the highest bidders?
• How do publishers access to establish an impartial and open auction over their ad inventory?
• What can be done to enable app publishers and developers to establish an impartial and open auction over every ad impression?
• How do you make sure an auction never overlooks a network? How do publishers ensure access to high quality ad demand?
• Ultimate, how are prices set in an auction? How do app publishers get to the root of the issue?

To begin to answer these questions, be sure to check out our latest Whiteboard Wednesday video:

Prefer to read instead of watch? Be sure to check out the full transcript for this whiteboard video below.

Video Transcript:

Welcome to another Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Andrew Gerhart. I’m the VP of Publisher Platforms for InMobi.

Today we’re going to address a common question that we get, which is: for my mediation, how do CPMs get into the auction? There’s a few different ways. Let’s take a look.

So when the app makes a call to the InMobi ad server, we’re going to look at the CPMs from each of the different ad networks that you’re working with. How do they get in there? Well, there’s three different ways.

The first way is a stated CPM. That’s where you’re entering a flat CPM into the system for that particular ad network. Let’s say it’s $6.

The second way is when the ad network offers API reporting. And so we’re able to connect our system to their system. Now, that’s going to be dynamic, and so sometimes we’ll pull that daily. Sometimes we’ll pull that hourly, based on the parameters and the limitations of that particular ad network.

The third way that we can get the CPM from an ad network or exchange is through a dynamic bid. And so that’s the third - and preferred - method for pulling CPMs from an ad network.

Let’s take a look at what that means daily. So let’s say that for user A, if it’s a stated CPM on day one, it’s going to be $6 across the board for every user. So that means if there’s an auction that runs - I have five different auctions - each one is going to be $6.

Now, let’s take a look at that for the API reporting. So, we’re going to be pulling back the actual revenue, the actual CPM that you’re generating from that ad network. So instead of being a stated CPM, maybe for day one it’s $7.76. But, that same number is going to be used across all those different auctions. And so, we have to drag that down, across. So what we see here is that ad network that uses API reporting has a chance to be more competitive because we can get more accurate data about the revenue and the performance.

Let’s look at the dynamic bidding. So we have day one of dynamic bids. What we see here is that because they’re passing back dynamic price for each individual auction, price can change. And so maybe they don’t value user A and they only want to bid $4.75. But, there’s something about user B that they really like, so now they’re going to bid $30. They really want to win that impression. User C, well, there’s somewhere in the middle. User D, they really like that impression. And then same with User E. So you can see here there’s able to send back accurate pricing, they’re more competitive within the auction and the publisher is able to capture more yield.

Let’s look at how that influences on day two. So day two, because this is still a stated CPM, unless the publisher has changed the pricing in the platform, we still have to use $6 across all those auctions.

Now, if we’re using API reporting for an ad network, that price will have changed. So maybe they perform better, and the average CPM for that ad network has gone up. Now that’s going to be, let’s call it $8.25. But again, we have to use that number across all of the different auctions. So, we see that we can get more accurate with API reporting, we pull that back in, the CPM can go up or down.

The third one, the one with dynamic bids, we have the same thing where they can bid for each individual impression, and so maybe they want to win more for User A. They still like User B, so they’re bidding $30.

So that’s how CPMs get influence into the auction. We have three different types: we have stated CPMs, we have API reporting, which most ad networks support, and we have the dynamic bids, which is really where the market is evolving towards and which gives the publishers more accurate data, accurate reporting and allows them to capture more yield from their auction.

Thank you for your time. This has been another Whiteboard Wednesday. We look forward to seeing you again.

Curious where the industry is headed? Here are our top highlights, trends and takeaways from this year’s conference.

1) Greater Focus on Programmatic

Programmatic buying through open exchanges and private marketplaces (PMPs) is on the rise worldwide, and that’s especially the case in EMEA. The automation and greater efficiency of programmatic is dramatically improving and streamlining in-app advertising throughout the region.

To help support this growth and further push programmatic advertising in EMEA, we announced our launch of the InMobi Exchange in the region right before DMEXCO. The InMobi Exchange allows us to meet the rising demand of in-app programmatic advertising, and provide more premium mobile ad experiences in EMEA.

Right now, different countries in EMEA are at different stages of programmatic adoption. Western Europe has, by and large, embraced it, while others have been relatively slower to frequently utilize programmatic buying. But, in the future, expect the majority of ad buying in EMEA to be programmatic heavy.

2) Programmatic is Changing Customer Expectations

As programmatic grows in popularity throughout EMEA, it’s changing customer expectations around in-app advertising. This was the theme of the panel Kunal Nagpal, InMobi’s Global Head of Client Services, participated in during DMEXCO with Cadreon’s Max Bublitz and MediaMath’s Lewis Rothkopf.

One of the points the panel, which was moderated by DoubleVerify CEO Wayne Gattinella, discussed was around consistency. While programmatic is better than direct deals at facilitating scale, advertisers need to make sure their campaigns are consistent across geographies and that they have good data in all regions, so that they can be confident they’re getting what they pay for.

The panel also discussed how the increased automation has brought up issues relating to transparency, including brand safety, and how these can be effectively addressed.

3) Data Usage and GDPR Still a Concern

By the time DMEXCO first kicked off, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) had been law for more than two months. But, it was still a key talking point at DMEXCO this year.

Many in attendance were in agreement on the need to better explain data collection and usage with end users. Also, for many, GDPR has made first-party data (your own data) more valuable than third-party data (data from others).

4) Greater Buzz Around OTT (and Voice)

Have we reached peak mobile? While time spent with mobile devices and in apps is at an all-time high and growing, many DMEXCO attendees were, according to Digiday, all about a different kind of device: the connected television set. This space - and its in-app advertising environment - are still quite nascent, but it’s poised for significant growth in the future, according to eMarketer.

“OTT adoption is set to scale up quickly, just like how digital channels quickly took away a large share of the consumer eyeballs from print,” said Ishma Siddiqi, InMobi’s Head of Market Research. “Ad tech industry is gearing up for a similar shift, and we all need to be prepared.”

There was a lot of excitement about voice-activated devices like Amazon Alexa and Google Home as well, and what advertising and programmatic here might look like.

5) New Trends Coming to the Fore

Many of the latest and greatest technologies, including ones that have not yet entered the mainstream but are likely about to, were all the rage at DMEXCO this year. Event attendees could not talk enough about how augmented reality/virtual reality and artificial intelligence have the potential to dramatically affect mobile advertising and marketing in the months and years to come. These channels provide lots of opportunity for advertisers and publishers alike.

Blockchain was another much hyped technology, but crowds at DMEXCO were split on whether it would have much of an impact. Some thought it would dramatically improve transparency and help with fraud prevention, while others were much more skeptical on what, if any, practical applications it might have on the space.

6) More Support for Vertical Video

As mobile devices become the primary connected device for people, brands are starting to take more steps to support the unique habits of smartphone users. This was especially evident in YouTube’s announcement during DMEXCO that it would begin supporting vertically-aligned video ads. While YouTube video ads have long been horizontal, in alignment with how its video appears on desktops and laptops, this move signifies the disruptive role mobile is now playing in video (and video advertising).

If you attended DMEXCO this year, what were your top highlights from the conference? Let us know in the comments below!

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But, while advertisers have mostly mastered effective ad creatives on older formats like print and television, mobile in-app advertising is a whole different ballgame. What kind of creatives work best on the mobile device?

Top KPIs for Mobile Marketing

Let’s get into how effective ad creatives are developed. Whether you’re creating fullscreen video ads, interstitial ads, native ads, banner ads and display ads, it helps to have... a firm understanding of what success looks like.

Is the goal of the campaign to generate high click-through rates back to a landing page? Is having a specific conversion rate for the ad important? Or are impressions and views the key performance indicator? It can often help to design the ad (and the larger campaign) around its ultimate goals, and that typically helps streamline creative decisions.

And, if you’re not sure what video ad metrics you should be tracking, then be sure to check out out guide on the topic.

Key Principles of Effective Mobile Ad Creatives

In our experience, the very best mobile ads (and other effective ads!) have most of these things in common:

1. Brand logo/name/presence is ever present. This way, there’s never any doubt in someone’s mind regarding what is being advertised and who’s ultimately behind the creative.
2. Branding is prominent, and promotes the company’s monetary goals (bottom line). Not only should it be clear who is behind the advertisement, but the ideal next step for the viewer should be just as clear too.
3. The ad’s message is crystal clear. Aim to cut through - not contribute to - the clutter.
4. Capture attention above the fold. Our eyes tend to focus on the top half of the screen - especially when a phone is oriented vertically - so having the key ad message featured here is ideal.
5. The creative features people. Humans respond to, and identify with, other humans. This helps you to engender an emotional response in the target audience.
6. The ad should be informative. It’s always ideal to feature what is being sold in the ad, and it’s even better if the creative includes a human using the product or service.
7. The ad captivates, and requires user focus. Being eye-catching is the name of the game here.
8. Interactivity creates an effective and memorable user experience. Unlike more traditional ad formats that are inherently passive, it’s possible to include interactivity into digital ads. This can help ensure you’re actually connecting with your target users.
9. Humor is injected into the creative. When done right, it can make an ad more memorable and enjoyable.

To see some of these points in action, consider this in-app ad:

Is the message clear? Yes, this is definitely an ad for the hit movie Black Panther.

Is the branding prominent? Definitely, there's no doubt about it.

Is the product featured in every shot? Considering that this is advertising a movie, we can answer this one in the affirmative.

Does it feature people? Not just any people, but famous actors to boot.

Is it eye catching? For sure! Not only does the action in the trailer catch the eye, but so do the characters featured in profile.

Is it interactive? Yep, that's true here. Not only can users scroll through the ad, but it features a rich media end card as a call to action as well.

This in-app ad ticks at least six of the nine boxes here, which is exactly what you’d want to see from mobile ad creative. And, it’s vertically oriented, making it especially ideal for smartphone owners.

Determining Effectiveness of Mobile Advertising Campaigns

So how do know if your creative worked? In the mobile in-app advertising space, there are dozens of third-party vendors that specialize in viewability verification, tracking, attribution and audience verification. The data collected from these third parties, along with data collected directly from the campaign and the ad network, can help determine if the right people saw and engaged with the ads, or if generated a lot of accidental clicks.

Why Bother with Mobile Apps in the First Place?

Now that we’ve covered the “how” here, let’s consider the “why” next. Why should any advertiser consider mobile ad formats in the first place, let alone in-app experiences? There are two fundamental reasons why:

1. It’s where your target customers are. The average adult in the United States spends 215 minutes a day with a mobile device, and 90 percent of all time spent on a smartphone is devoted to apps, according to eMarketer.
2. It’s more powerful than other forms of digital advertising, including mobile web advertising. In-app environments provide better reach, better targeting and better creative opportunities than mobile web and other digital environments.

Today, it’s harder than ever to get a consumer to actively view, pay attention to and interact with an ad on any digital channel. While the advertising user experience is typically better in apps than on any browser, it’s still increasingly difficult to capture someone’s attention. This is why getting in-app ad creatives right is key. With ideal creative, however, an ad campaign is much more likely to be successful.

Do you agree with our tips and tricks? Share your thoughts with us on social media! Send us comments on Twitter on LinkedIn, or let us know in the space below.

Here are the steps we recommend you follow when determining how you want to make money from your hard work.

Step 1: Consider at the Beginning How You Want to Make Money.

In the very early stages, it’s helpful to think about you want to make money from your app - assuming you actually want to be paid for all of your hard development work, of course. You could charge people for the app itself, or you can include in-app purchases.

Many apps go with advertising here, and for good reason. It’s fairly easy to implement, and it’s effective fairly quickly right out of the gate. Unless you know your app is going to be a massive hit quickly, enabling advertising can help you to make money even when you don’t have the biggest audience.

But, it’s key to think about this early. That way, you can incorporate your chosen monetization plans into the heart of the app. Trying to shoehorn something in later on can be a recipe for disaster.

Step 2: Determine Which Types of Ads Make Sense.

If you go down the advertising route, think about what types of ads you want your users to see. Different ads provide very different user experiences, along with different payout rates.

Most apps that run ads in them feature a 300x250 banner either at the very top or very bottom. They’re light touch, and while lots of advertisers have ad creatives ready to go, they’re easy to ignore and not always lucrative. Lots of apps also run native ads (where the ad appears within the app and looks fairly similar to the rest of your content) and interstitial ads (ads that take up most or all of the screen).

Next-gen ad formats include fullscreen video ads, 360-degree ads (ads that mimic a 3D experience and let you pivot around an environment), interactive ads and playable ads (ads that are mini games). These ads are highly immersive and engaging, which makes them more lucrative for everyone, but can be technically challenging sometimes to implement and insert naturally.

Step 3: Work Out the Technical Considerations.

How will you access advertisers? How will you be able to work with as many advertisers as possible? What tech will you use to get ads from advertisers onto the app? How long will it take for ads to load? How much time will it take for an advertiser to successfully deliver an ad to one of your users?

These are the kinds of technical considerations you need to work out before moving forward with any monetization effort, but especially when advertising is involved. And if you ever find yourself overwhelmed by too many terms and acronyms, then hopefully our handy guide will be useful.

Step 4: Profit

Think your app is eligible for monetization through advertising? Reach out today to learn more!

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the “InMobi | AppsFlyer Mobile Soirée,” an event organized by InMobi in partnership with mobile measurement partner - AppsFlyer.

The Mobile Soirée is a unique platform for marketers to share, network and unwind - in a casual setting with a very close-knit audience. Bringing together the best of latest trends and insights in the mobile industry and a much needed prescription of craft cocktails, the Mobile Soirée is the perfect platform to strike a chord with peers and leaders from the mobile marketing community. Having received a great response to our earlier editions in Chicago and New York in partnership with measurement partners Integral Ad Sciences and MOAT respectively, we decided to bring the party to Bengaluru.

Partnering with AppsFlyer, a leading mobile measurement partner, InMobi organised an evening of craft cocktails, tasty snacks and insightful conversation at one of the hallmark venues in Bengaluru - UB City. The Soirée was witness to a one-of-a-kind discussion called the Soirée Ad Lib. The Soirée Ad Lib is a forum that enables fluid conversation amongst brilliant marketing minds without any barriers between the speakers and the audience. The session involved a highly engaging and interactive conversation as the digital marketing community tried to decode The Future of Growth Marketing.

The Soirée Ad Lib hosted Sudeep Bansal, AVP - Marketing, Swiggy, Arunava Chatterjee, Associate Director, Head - Performance Marketing and Customer Growth, Myntra and Venkatesh Kamath, Associate Director, Flipkart, and the session was moderated by Nikhil Parachure, Growth Consultant at Measur-ed. The gathering discussed a variety of themes driving growth marketing on mobile ranging from video to remarketing to the role of machine learning and data sciences in the lives of performance marketers.

Video is King!

"Mobile video has been a revelation for marketers since the launch of Jio. Video as a medium with multiple formats on mobile and the ability to drive impactful storytelling, especially in the vernacular, has become the preferred medium for marketers. This is true not just for branding but also performance marketers, as they see a significant contribution of quality installs coming through video ads," shared Venkatesh Kamath from Flipkart on the technological advancements that have redefined growth for marketers.

Location accuracy has been a boon

Speaking about Location, another mobile-first technology, Sudeep Bansal from Swiggy opined on the shifting landscape, "Location targeting through mobile devices has improved by leaps and bounds over the last couple of years. For players like Swiggy, rich mobile signals have enabled performance marketers to drive growth via hyperlocal advertising. Be it accurately mapping restaurant offers or activating dark zones, hyperlocal has been and will remain a boon for performance marketers."

Machine Learning needs to solve for the unknown

Arunava Chatterjee from Myntra shared his views on the growing role of machine learning and data sciences in performance marketing, "Machine learning and data sciences have become a part and parcel of all things customer engagement at Myntra. Be it recommendations, messaging or experience, machine learning plays a critical role. However, the biggest impact of machine learning would be when it solves for the unknown - driving predictions for new user cohorts, about whom we do not have any data yet."

The evening was privy to a bunch of these insights with a great opportunity to pursue more intimate conversation later during the networking session. Watch the key highlights from the evening here:

Video:

Marketers, watch out for our next edition and make sure you don’t miss it! Partners, reach out to rajesh.pantina@inmobi.com if you’d like to host the next edition of the Mobile Soirée in partnership with InMobi in India.

The InMobi Mobile Soirée is a series of meetups organised by InMobi across the globe along with its mobile advertising and marketing partners.

InMobi nominations at the MMA India Smarties 2018

The award winners will be announced at the MMA Smarties to be held in Mumbai on Sep 28, 2018. Earlier this year, InMobi was listed among the top global technology providers in the MMA Smarties Business Impact Index 2017.

Take a look at our innovative work with leading brands in India:

Diageo battles the menace of drunk driving in India

Brand Name: Diageo India
Nominated Categories: Mobile Video and Location Targeting

McDowell's No.1 - #Jointhepact from InMobi on Vimeo (The Diageo campaign was in partnership with Mindshare India.)

L’Oreal delivers retail experiences to consumers in their palm!

Brand: L'Oréal Paris India

Nominated Category: Most engaging mobile creative

L'Oreal India: Beauty for all - Retail Consumer Experience in your palm! from InMobi on Vimeo

Ultimate Ears leverages mobile to launch WonderBoom in India

Brand: Ultimate Ears (Logitech India)
Nomination Category: Product/Services Launch

Millennials, Indians, countrymen, lend me your ears! - UItimate Ears partners with InMobi to win big on mobile! from InMobi on Vimeo.

Interested in knowing how we partner with leading brands across the globe and how you can leverage mobile better? Check out the InMobi Success Stories page on our website or subscribe to the InMobi Video Channel.

Blog Preview Pic Courtesy: Mobile Marketing Association

Given how trends come and go in a flash, marketers often struggle to stay on top of changing customer expectations and buying behaviors. This prevents them from staying in touch with on-the-ground realities at all times. The truth is that marketers just can’t do without these consumer insights for strategizing and executing timely marketing decisions. They need it to stay relevant, influence customers’ purchase intent and increase brand engagement.

To measure and monitor the constantly changing consumer preferences, marketers truly need a platform that empowers them to engage in always-on research, or the ability to conduct market research and surveys on the go, in close to real time. A recent study suggests that successful marketers are 242 percent more likely to engage in consumer research at least once in every quarter. However, the conventional tools and methods for market research are typically constrained by budget, panel size and time limitations, making always-on research less feasible.

With InMobi Pulse, our mobile-first market research platform, marketers can easily carry out always-on research and surveys. This way, marketers can quickly, accurately and reliably generate the survey responses they need to formulate an impactful and appropriate marketing strategy.

Why Always-On Research Matters for Marketers

Today’s markets brim with numerous brands engaging in a neck and neck race to capture the attention of customers who have turned more passive to marketing activities. As per recent statistical data, nearly 39 percent of marketers believe their marketing strategy is ineffective! To avoid expensive mistakes, marketers need research and survey methodologies that make them more relevant and impactful.

Conventional research approaches take a long time and can’t consistently capture insights on temporary events and short trends amid fast-moving markets. With mobile-first survey platforms like InMobi Pulse, the time lag between executing a study and gathering responses in a research is reduced to a matter of hours.

For brands looking to track down and follow ongoing trends to build a compelling marketing plan, always-on research is useful in keeping a closer watch on current market situations and leveraging the accuracy and reliability of timely survey responses.

Simply put, InMobi Pulse allows marketers to have a better hold on subtle variations that are relevant to the brand and avoid basing their decisions on historic information from long, drawn out research processes.

Always-on research with InMobi Pulse benefits marketers in three key ways:

1. Customer Centricity on Constant Basis: To increase customer centricity, brands need to continuously stay in touch with their target audience and understand them at a deep level. These insights help shed light on changing tastes, audience perceptions of brands and behavioral patterns, all of which facilitates strategic planning and decision-making.
   

   

2. Increase Measurability of Marketing Activities: Always-on research with InMobi Pulse allows brands to track and measure changes in sales volumes, buyers’ engagement, satisfaction and loyalty impacted by marketing activities. With conventional research methods, it is difficult to observe these changes due to lengthy customer feedback loops.
3. Cause-Effect Analysis: On a continuous basis, brands need to track NPS (net promoter score) and other brand metrics within their target groups and various audience segments to draw correlations between brand metrics and other happenings within the business. With InMobi Pulse, marketers can engage in always-on studies to observe cause-effect analysis and check the level of impact on customer satisfaction levels, loyalty and brand perception, among other important metrics.
   

   

How InMobi Pulse Makes Always-On Research Possible

InMobi Pulse leverages InMobi’s existing mobile network to increase the reach of market research by providing access to nearly 1.6 billion mobile users. As users’ daily average spending on mobile devices surges, mobile becomes even more relevant for research agencies to directly reach audience and engage in exploratory, descriptive and quick research.

In comparison to other research methods, mobile surveys provide a few key benefits:

● No Recency Biases: Point-in-time research suffers from recency biases. Meaning, the results from a market study conducted at a specific period will only be relevant to the trends and situations prevailing at that time. Audience’s responses differ across different settings, situations and periods. InMobi Pulse allows marketers reach target audiences via mobile to gain responses in hours, as opposed to waiting for days or months to follow up. Relying on historic data to avoid recency biases is like trying to win a foot race against a cheetah; it’s just not going to end well.

● No Relevancy Biases: Audience responses are subject to the changes that both markets and customers undergo on a constant basis. The recurrent transformations cause shifts in customers’ needs, requirements, expectations, perceptions and satisfaction levels, making their responses from one standalone survey irrelevant with time and changing trends. This is called relevancy bias. Through InMobi Pulse, marketers can run new surveys at any point or state to extract audience insights hot off the press.

● Less Scope for Panel Exhaustion: Sometimes, marketers run out of new and appropriate audiences for surveys. With InMobi Pulse, marketers can push questions for formulating timely, valid and accurate insights from unique and fresh audiences without exhausting the same survey panels.

● Simple and Cost-Effective Research: InMobi Pulse’s reach also comes with the advantage of economies of scale. Marketers can engage in mobile-optimized research and surveys almost every day, without incurring huge expenses. One of the advantages of always-on surveying is no more hefty spending for organizing research resources and activities. At the same time, InMobi Pulse allows marketers to gain control and transparency on research and keep it economical.

Always-on research is instrumental to tracking all the marketing metrics that change on a constant basis and are indicative of the brand or business performance round the clock. Always-on research thus lends itself to the following studies which largely belong to Brand Pulse and Customer Pulse:

● NPS Studies: NPS is useful in understanding customer loyalty and satisfaction levels by studying their likelihood to recommend the brands to their peers. InMobi Pulse helps product companies and service providers leverage the reach of mobile to conduct studies and surveys that measure their brand’s NPS on an ongoing basis, establishing a continual feedback loop.

● CSat Studies: Always-on research through InMobi Pulse is useful in conducting studies on customer satisfaction levels, or CSat studies, by tracking customers’ feedback on products or services. This also helps marketers understand the sensitive areas that need attention.

● Brand Tracking Studies: InMobi Pulse helps marketers to measure their market foothold and brand awareness levels across different audience segments on a regular basis through mobile surveys. The platform helps in discovering nuances in brand impact levels on target groups, along with their brand perceptions and affinity. Always-on research with InMobi Pulse is also useful in tracking brand performance and competitive benchmarking.

● Tracking Brand Metric across Different Segments: InMobi Pulse allows marketers to track brand metrics like NPS, customer satisfaction levels and brand awareness on the go. This helps marketers have an insightful picture on the varying impact of brand activities and simultaneously observe it across different audience segments.

Always-on research is one of the game-changing bonuses of InMobi Pulse that helps brands and marketing agencies to steer clear of issues that can plague decision-making when quality, timely data is not used. If knowledge is power, then InMobi Pulse is a quick and efficient way for marketers to become more powerful and impactful in the organization.

InMobi Pulse is designed to help marketers take insight driven and data-backed decisions, every day. Find out more about what InMobi Pulse has to offer to bolster your business at InMobi Pulse.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

• By next year, people in the United States will spend more time looking at a mobile device than a TV.
• This year, the typical American adult devotes more than three hours and thirty minutes a day to their mobile devices, up 11 minutes from 2017 averages.
• In the U.S., 90 percent of all time spent with a smartphone is spent using apps.

Brands want to be where their target audience is, so their agencies must adapt. Any brand agency worth its salt today must be able to provide its clients with a range of advertising options for reaching and targeting mobile users.

For agencies just stepping foot into the world of the app store and app developers, let this guide show you how to advertise on apps so that your client see real, lasting results at scale.

As part of our ongoing Mpower Mobile Masterclass series, we’ve been traveling the country to talk to agencies just like you about all things mobile in-app advertising. If you’re interested in having a mobile ad expert stop by, drop up a line at scheduleachat@inmobi.com to schedule a session.

How is Mobile Advertising Different from Digital Marketing?

First, before we dive into all things app, let’s take a moment to consider broadly how mobile as a format diverges from digital advertising more broadly. If digital marketing is a rectangle, mobile advertising is a square - mobile is a subset of digital.

While some of the mechanics are the same (programmatic display networks, real-time bidding, scale, etc.), in other ways the two are nothing alike. It all comes down to the form factor.

Consider how someone uses a mobile phone versus how they might use a desktop or laptop. Mobile devices don’t have a house, are navigated through scrolling, gain internet connectivity from Wi-Fi or cellular service, and have smaller screens that are typically oriented vertically. These differences affect how people interact with an ad, what they expect from it and what ad format is likely going to perform best.

For example, a playable ad that required a keyboard likely wouldn’t work well on a smartphone or tablet. On the flip side, banner ads that push app installs to promote your app (this is the kind of ad Uber might want, for instance) wouldn’t work well outside of a mobile device.

Mobile Web Versus Mobile In-App: Is There Really a Difference?

To properly optimize your mobile ad spend for your client, it’s key to know the differences between mobile web advertising and mobile in-app advertising. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it on mobile.

If you’re used to standard digital marketing, then mobile web advertising is just an extension of that environment - except on a smaller screen. Also, some of the functionality may be limited. The ads themselves will be smaller, and it’s harder for your target audience to type (i.e. fill out a form) on a smartphone, among other attributes.

To really target your desired user base, it likely makes sense to embrace the mobile in-app ads space. A mobile app advertisement is so much more powerful for a few key reasons:

1. Apps are how people interact with their phones. The average smartphone owner utilizes at least nine apps a day and around 30 apps every month, according to numbers from App Annie, and spends the bulk of their time in apps (as opposed to in mobile web browsers).
2. Apps provide much greater targeting capabilities. Instead of relying on cookies and JavaScript tags, SDK-enabled app inventory provides you and your clients with rich device ID data, which includes latitude and longitude, and other key identificators.
3. Apps can better guarantee brand safety, which is especially key for household names when advertising online. While mobile web advertising can mean your clients end up in uncomfortable advertising situations, you can control which apps make the most sense for your customers and won’t put them in brand unsafe situations.

“Mobile is often oversimplified as one strategy, while in reality there needs to be two distinct approaches to design and execute a successful mobile ad campaign,” says Kayla Wilson, Head of Programmatic Client Success for the InMobi Exchange.

How to Scale Mobile App Advertising

Hopefully, by now you’re convinced of the benefits of mobile advertising and want to provide more options for your clients. So where to begin?

First, consider if you want to run universal app campaigns, or if you’d prefer to target a specific mobile app (for example, just a Facebook ad campaign). While larger apps have a significant built-in audience, it can be hard sometimes to break through the clutter. Plus, if your clients want independently verified metrics and cost-effective ad spending, this might not be the most ideal route to take.

A campaign involving multiple apps allows you to offer scale to your clients, while also being more targeted and more focused on the bottom line. For example, let’s say a major headphones manufacturer wants to target hip-hop fans between the ages of 18 and 24. Instead of advertising on just the top 10 apps in the app store, your client may have better luck with this target audience on more niche music sites that already cater to this audience, like DatPiff and SoundCloud.

But, is there a way to easily reach all of these apps with as minimal effort as possible? In short, yes! Let’s take a quick look at some of the key players in the mobile in-app advertising supply chain.

• Instead of connecting to every single app, you’re much better off working with a mobile ad exchange. An ad exchange will directly connect with a wide variety of apps, often through a dedicated SDK. Imagine you’re at a fork in the road, and there’s a gap in the pavement preventing you from going forward. An ad exchange is like a bridge: through it, you suddenly gain access to many different options.
• Don’t know which ad exchange to choose? Not sure how to work with all of them? Fear not, as this is where a demand-side platform (DSP) comes into play. DSPs already have connections with multiple ad exchanges and other sources of app inventory. By working with one or a few DSPs you can easily be ensuring that your clients’ ads appear on dozens if not hundreds of different mobile apps.
• On top of all this will typically exist various independent tracking solutions. These third parties will help you and your clients confirm that their mobile in-app advertising were indeed successful or not. They provide peace of mind that the ads were seen by the right people.

There are a lot of terms and acronyms in the mobile advertising space, as the above guide is just scratching the surface. It can get confusing keeping track of them all. Let our guide on The Crazy Advertising Technology Landscape be of assistance!

Before beginning any mobile in-app ad campaign, be sure to choose the right partners. Ask diligent questions about how each selected vendor works, and who they work with. Make sure you have alignment on goals, and that they can actually help you and your clients meet key performance indicators.

Interested in getting started with mobile in-app advertising at scale for your clients? Be sure to go to inmobi.com/advertising-cloud/ad-exchange for more information on the InMobi Exchange, and drop us a line at inmobi.com/company/contact/ if you have any questions or want to get in touch.

In this edition of the event diary, we cover our presence at the famed data science conference - Fifth Elephant 2018. Anthill Inside+Fifth Elephant is one of India’s most renowned data science conferences and this year, the conference was held at the Bangalore NIMHANS Convention center.

The conference delves in the areas of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Reinforced Learning (RL), Deep Learning (DL) and Big data. The conference aims to bridge the gap between research in these areas and their usage/application in the industry. With the recent advancements in hardware efficiency, a lot the data-science research ideas are now successfully being ported to reality for specific use cases.

We at InMobi are also trying to bridge the same gap with newer deep learning models for a bunch of problems in the mobile advertising and marketing domain. At Anthill Inside, The Fifth Elephant’s adjunct event, we presented one such model: Neural Field aware Factorization Machine (NFFM). The NFFM is a model that predicts user behaviour such as install rate, video completion rate or click through rate, when engaging with mobile ads.

NFFM combines the power of field-aware factorization machines which can easily reduce the dimensionality of high cardinality features and find the second order interactions across features. NFFM then runs these newly discovered second order interactions through neural networks to find higher order interactions and share the required behaviour prediction.

Watch the complete video to learn more about the NFFM model and its application in mobile advertising.

Or, view the complete deck here.

Subscribe to the InMobi ML-AI newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest in the field of data sciences from us.

Over the past few years, some major brands have found themselves in hot water when their ads inadvertently ended up next to questionable or objectionable content. This can have a hugely detrimental effect on brand perception, as unfortunate placements can make the advertiser seem tone-deaf or as if they are promoting something highly controversial. According to eMarketer, at least three-quarters of U.S. marketers have dealt with brand safety issues before.

This problem has not gone unheeded. InMobi and IAS are committed to making brand safety issues a thing of the past. In March, IAS launched its innovative in-app brand safety solution, which allows advertisers to filter their media directly within their DSP of choice when buying programmatically.

This new solution categorizes an app as either brand safe or as part of a potentially risky category (including adult content, alcohol, gambling, illegal downloads, illicit substances/drugs, offensive language, violence, etc.). IAS built this solution specifically for in app environments. After all, an app that is brand safe on the surface (particularly violent gaming apps and dating apps, etc.) could lead to potentially dicey situations for advertisers.

“With brand safety as a growing concern for major marketers looking to advertise programmatically, we are excited to work with IAS in-app brand safety on a post-bid verification perspective. InMobi is committed to partnering with leading, independent measurement companies like IAS in order to provide greater transparency and controls to brand advertisers,” said Anne Frisbie, SVP of Global Programmatic and Brand for InMobi.

IAS’s pre-bid in-app targeting solution has opened up InMobi’s inventory to brands without risk. In one campaign that a major Fortune 500 company leveraged IAS pre-bid in-app brand safety targeting through their demand-side partner, we were able to measure and verify brand safety across InMobi inventory. This allowed them to run their ads with total confidence, as they knew with certainty that their ads were running only in brand-safe environments.

“Brand safety is a priority for all UM clients and something that we actively work on monitoring. We were happy to see InMobi integrated with buy side (DSPs) and measurement technologies (IAS), which, further extends our ability to measure and verify media within the mobile app environments,” said Alex Andreyev, VP, Partner at UM, part of IPG Mediabrands.

“Programmatic offers advertisers powerful opportunities to make the most of their digital dollars. For many years, supply-side partners have been challenged to meet these needs. By offering pre-bid mobile in-app segments to our customers via their DSP, we’ve opened up their ability to control performance. Additionally, key partnerships with supply-side partners like InMobi allow brands to monitor their performance and ensure that our pre-bid targeting solutions are delivering results,” said Harmon Lyons, SVP Global Business Development, IAS.

Computing the dollar impact of ad fraud on your campaigns isn’t as direct. In reality, the hidden costs can potentially be multiple times higher.

It’s important to get an accurate picture of the actual cost of mobile ad fraud, as it can indicate the true effectiveness of various marketing channels. It can also help you evaluate the performance of the fraud tools (internal or external) that you have deployed and even prevent you from losing out to the competition.

Opportunity Cost

1. Ad Fraud Exhausts Your Budgets Early

Fraudulent clicks and installs cause your daily budget caps to be hit earlier than they would otherwise since reversals are usually done post-facto. This means fewer conversions (installs, page visits, sales, etc.) on a daily basis.

So, while you get your money back on reported fraud, you don’t utilize the allocated spend. This lowers the expected performance.With fewer real people seeing your ads, you lose out on potential users and sales. This is illustrated in the following scenario:

Daily budget cap: $5,000
Cost per Install (CPI): $5

Total installs driven: 1,000
Fraudulent installs: 200
Billed amount: 800 x $5 = $4,000

Unspent Daily Budget: $1,000 or 20 percent

2. Fraudulent Installs Give Your Competitors an Advantage

Ad fraud means you are being taken out of the game early, every single day. In the above scenario, 20 percent of the daily budget is unspent, meaning two hundred fewer users for that day.

Every install or sale you missed out on due to unspent budget is one more potential install or sale for your competitor. Assume every five installs results in a purchase. That’s 40 additional sales being taken away from you and made available to your competitors.

While one might think that simply boosting the daily budget cap by 20 percent should fix the problem, it isn’t as easy. Fraud is not always constant. So, what is 20 percent today could as well we be 40 percent tomorrow.

In essence, fraudulent installs is a theft of the future even if you don’t pay for the cost of the fraud committed. This directly impacts your competitiveness, especially in winner-take-all industries.

Sunk Fraud Costs

3. Misallocation due to Skewed Metrics (Reducible Cost)

If you are manually optimizing campaigns, then decisions based on real-time metrics will likely be heavily biased by fraud.

For instance, ad click-through rates (CTR) will be higher on campaigns with high click fraud rates, while Cost Per Sale reported will be higher than it is in reality. Also, some segments may appear to be performing better due to fraud (misattribution or stealing organics) leading to allocating higher ad dollars to those campaigns.

This means you end up allocating more budget towards fraudulent channels and less budget to clean channels.

However, this cost can be minimized to a large extent by deploying more accurate fraud detection and prevention mechanisms.

4. Irreducible Sunk Fraud Cost

It’s not possible to detect, much less prevent, all fraud. Thus, despite the best efforts, there will always be a certain percentage of conversions that escape the most advanced fraud detection frameworks. There is no way to recover this amount.

There is also the cost of recovery. In extreme cases, such as the MethBot operation, advertisers learn much later about the extent and the impact of fraud. It might not always be possible to recover the costs.

Cost of Anti-Fraud Tool

5. Payment to Anti-Fraud Tool

As more and more money flows into digital and specifically mobile, ad fraud will grow. The cost of anti-fraud tools are significant as billing structures are either click-based or conversion-based.

Note: The pricing model is probably the best indirect indicator of effectiveness (and intentions) of the anti-fraud product and the company. Billing on the basis of number of installs flagged as fraudulent is incentivized towards marking fraud and not necessarily detecting fraud. It’s easy to see why — the more installs marked as fraud, the higher the payout.

Intangible Costs

6. Optimization and Productivity Losses

Instead of spending time strategizing and optimizing campaigns, digital marketers are busy tackling fraud and dealing with arbitration, causing optimization losses. Also, such efficiency loss and increased overheads are long-term effects.

Computing the True Cost of Install Ad Fraud

Cost of Fraud = (Fraudulent Installs * CPI) + Opportunity Cost + Sunk Fraud Cost + Anti-Fraud Tool Cost + Intangible Costs

As seen above, while the true cost of ad fraud might not be completely quantifiable, you can be sure that it is much higher than what’s shown on the dashboard of anti-fraud tools.

Thus, advertisers who aren't assessing the impact of ad fraud accurately on their campaigns are already at an increasing competitive disadvantage. This is because they significantly underestimate the costs, risks and exposure to ad fraud, and so they end up not being able to tackle fraud as effectively.

Ad fraud continues to be a growth industry, but the situation is not irreparable. Using better and more advanced anti-fraud frameworks, plus employing best practices, can help assess the risks and curb the ad fraud menace.

Next Steps

You need to ensure your mobile advertising increases your ROI. With fraudulent activities rendering a portion of your team’s efforts worthless, it’s important to invest in good anti-fraud tools to safeguard your ad dollars.

The most direct way to interpret the effectiveness of anti-fraud tools would be to see if it:

1. Increases conversion rates
2. Decreases invalid clicks and installs

This is possible only if the anti-fraud tool has fraud prevention capabilities and not just fraud detection. Being reactive (detection mode) means losing out on users and revenue directly to the competition.

So, how does one evaluate the countless anti-fraud solutions available in the market? Check out our blog on A Buyer’s Guide to Anti-Fraud Tools for more on how to choose an anti-fraud tool that effectively handles install fraud prevention.

Image: Opportunity Cost illustrated

The (mostly) complete suite of advertising and marketing products available to advertisers today

For instance, the modern marketer has to integrate with a tracking partner for attribution, an analytics partner for ROI measurement, a DMP partner for data management, a marketing automation partner for creating successful marketing campaigns, and finally ad networks and DSPs for media buying. A consequence of the options available in the marketing and advertising ecosystem is the lack of deep and direct integration between these solutions.

As a result, advertisers are unable to share the data they want, when they want, with whom they want in a seamless and convenient manner.

This makes the economics of mobile advertising difficult, if not impossible, to compute, resulting in wasteful ad spends.

The Fragmented Landscape in MarTech and AdTech

The Advertising & Marketing Landscape. Source: Luma Partners

In this fragmented world filled with dozens of services and tools to integrate and hundreds of partners to choose from, the event that inspired a consumer to make a purchase on your app becomes difficult to attribute. Thus, the allocation of ad spends towards the most effective channel becomes little more than guesswork— leading to the misattribution and/or cannibalization of ad dollars.

For instance, to which channel should a purchase be attributed when the user is sent push notifications and shown retargeting ads for the same product on the same day? If data from the marketing automation platform indicates that the push notification was opened and acted upon, then it is an organic conversion.

The inability to ascertain the purchase influence in the absence of such data means that attribution partners could misattribute a purchase to a paid source rather than an organic source. As a result, attribution partners lose the ability to measure the incrementality of ad campaigns.

The Criticality of the Influence Window in Advertising

Seamlessly sharing the data between trusted partners in real time is key to successful marketing and/or campaigns, as the influence window for different activities varies. See illustration below.

Currently, there are limited ways in which advertisers could share data or segments in real time with ad networks or DSPs in a seamless and secure manner. And concerns of data leakage, oversharing data and trust only complicate matters further.

Thus, if advertisers are unable to share post-install events (such as add to cart, product view, abandoned cart users, etc.), they cannot run retargeting campaigns effectively on Day Zero itself with InMobi. Instead, they share segments offline with InMobi - which is a sub-optimal process. These are all key factors that affect conversion ratios.

Advertiser’s need of the hour

The ability to synchronize data gathered in real time with the integrated partners and in a secure manner is critical to driving maximum impact and reducing or eliminating wasteful spends. This allows advertisers to do the following:

●Drive incremental revenues

●Eliminate wasteful ad spends

●Generate campaigns that drive more user journeys

Launching InMobi’s PartnerEdge Program

InMobi’s PartnerEdge program provides an Integrated Platform for advertisers to make their data fluid across platforms while ensuring the integrity, privacy and security of the data shared.

This enables the advertiser to better optimize for each step in the user’s customer journey, resulting in higher user engagements, increased revenues and, ultimately, more value from each ad dollar spent

If the advertiser has configured segments or audiences with any of our certified partners, they could start running user engagement campaigns seamlessly and without delays from the get go. This also enables the advertisers to share only customized user segments relevant for their targeting need.

By being able to seamlessly and securely integrate data from various mar tech and ad tech players, advertisers can now answer critical questions that drive the business forward.

1. Which ads are working best for different audience segments?
2. What is the incrementality delivered by paid campaigns?
3. Which segments are giving the maximum ROI and how should the budget allocation differ?

Our Partners

InMobi has partnered with a number of top players in the marketing and advertising technology space, delivering combined marketing and advertising ROI for advertisers.

PartnerEdge Program — Live Partners

Unlike other ad networks and DSPs, which do not have segment (audience) and/or event integrations with marketing automation companies, InMobi, through its pioneering PartnerEdge program, can deliver higher engagement and eliminate wasteful ad spends.

Reach out to your InMobi campaign manager to learn more. If your partner isn’t listed above, let us know and we will start integrations.

If you are a marketing cloud player (DMP, marketing automation, analytics or tracking partner) interested in joining the PartnerEdge program, please reach out to us at partneredge@inmobi.com.

The Current State of Mobile Video Advertising

Earlier this year, we released a report, The Present and Future of Mobile Video Advertising, that highlighted how usage of mobile video ads has evolved since early 2016 through the first three months of 2018. We took a look at our own network data here, to see how video was or was not being incorporated into the typical in-app advertising campaign. Here’s a small snippet of what we found:

• Globally, spending on in-app mobile advertising grew 109 percent between 2016 and 2017.
• In the first three months of 2018, over a third of all money spent on in-app advertising went to video.
• In the U.S. close to half of all video ad inventory is fullscreen now.

“We have moved into a world of video consumption and video advertising that’s cross-device and predominantly rooted outside of the browser,” Anne Frisbie, InMobi’s Senior Vice President and GM of Global Brand and Programmatic, told MarTechSeries earlier this year. “A tremendous amount of video viewing is being consumed within mobile apps or connected TVs rather than only on desktop and mobile web experiences. This alone is a major shift for advertisers.”

In short, our data found that in-app video advertising is not just growing, but it’s also becoming more sophisticated. Not only are fullscreen video ads becoming more common on mobile devices, but the days of targeting audiences only through pre-roll ads are long gone. Next-generation ad formats like interstitial video, rewarded video and video ads with interactive end cards are now the norm, not the exception.

Can The Video Ad Metrics Keep Up?

In this new era of in-app video advertising, while creatives and formats have evolved, metrics and tracking have not. All too frequently, marketers rely too heavily on raw link clicks, click through rate or the total number of video views.

But does a figure highlighting the number of times a video ad was played really indicate its effectiveness? Can a conversion rate be effectively calculated if advertisers don’t have granular insight on who viewed a video ad? Is the landing page proving effective, or is no one relevant making it that far? Is the video effective on social media, games or utility apps? Can an ad’s relevance score be accurately calculated?

These are the kinds of questions advertisers (and publishers) need to be asking. Good video ad metrics should be able to provide deep insights. Download our guide to learn more about these advanced metrics.

Table of Contents for the Guide:

• New Ad Formats, Apps and Devices Demand New KPIs
• Problems with Legacy Metrics
• New Metrics to Consider
• How to Achieve Results: Aligning Creatives with Best-in-Breed Metrics
• How to Achieve Results: Aligning Delivery with Best-in-Breed Metrics
• Picking the Right Partner

Sneak Peak at the Guide’s First Page

Even the ancient Greeks knew that change was a constant. This is especially true in the mobile space, with new devices, ad formats and apps coming to life seemingly every day.

To put things into perspective, here’s just a snapshot of how the mobile environment has shifted of late:

• In 2011, only 35 percent of adults in the U.S. owned a smartphone. That figure climbed to 64 percent in 2015 and then to 77 percent by February 2018. More than one out of every 10 Americans solely relies on a cellphone for internet access, and 70 percent of people worldwide spend between one and seven hours each day on a smartphone.
• In 2007, the average smartphone screen size was under three inches. By 2014, it had ballooned to more than 4.5 inches. This trend shows no sign of slowing either, as by the end of 2018, the vast majority of phones sold will have screens between five and six inches.
• As phones get larger and as mobile technology improves, the kinds of ads brands can now leverage has diversified. In 2012, advertisers in aggregate spent less than a billion dollars on mobile video ads. Now, as more immersive and interactive video ad formats become possible, spending has grown. By 2019, brands will likely devote $22.5 billion to mobile video advertising.

The world of mobile - and by extension the world of mobile advertising - has changed dramatically over the past few years. So then why haven’t the metrics digital marketers rely on caught up? Why are too many advertisers judging their campaigns based on key performance indicators built for a different time?

Like What You See?

Be sure to download the full copy today!

Complement your User Experience with the Right Ad Experience.

In a world where the user is king, user experience is no laughing matter. You’ve relentlessly tinkered your app and built the best experience for your users. It’s crucial that you don’t disrupt this experience you’ve painstakingly constructed with intrusive and irrelevant ad formats. Strike the right balance by choosing a partner who will not only be a great revenue generator but also provide ad experiences in tune with your app.

Access Demand from Across the Globe

With the geographical boundaries blurring due to the rapid increase in global smartphone penetration rates, apps rarely cater to single-country audiences. Today the world truly is the app developer’s oyster. A global audience supplements global demand, and it's crucial to choose a partner who can help fulfill the unlimited potential your app holds. As audiences from different countries log in to your app, brands will look to tap into the audiences your app offers, making it imperative for you to zero in on a partner who can support global demand.

Maximize Yield for your Inventory

While choosing a monetization partner keep in mind the importance of maximizing yield on your premium inventory. Be it through the use of dynamic pricing or campaign optimization, it’s important for you, the publisher, to have ultimate control over your inventory.

InMobi not only covers these bases for developers but offer them much more. You can find more details here or reach out to us here if you’d like to start a conversation with InMobi.

Every year, around the same time, InMobi works on its own SDK release. Keep an eye out for our latest updates here!

ARKit2: Powering Immersive Experiences

Introduced in iOS 11, ARKit is the biggest Augmented Reality (AR) platform in the world. It greatly simplifies the building of AR experiences, combining features like device motion tracking and camera scene capture.

With iOS 12, Apple has announced the release of ARKit 2.0, which opens up even greater possibilities for developers to innovate with AR. There are several features that developers now have access to, including improved face tracking, 3D object detection and creating shared experiences.

Creating shared experiences or multi-user functionality has been a difficult feat to accomplish in the AR world. Using the new functionality, developers can create experiences in which users can share their AR environment to play against each other, collaborate on a project or simply be part of the experience as a spectator. At WWDC, Apple showed off the new functionality in a demo of the game, Lego AR, creating a lot of buzz in the gaming community.

For developers, this opens up a host of new opportunities, including from a revenue perspective. We’re not quite at AR ads just yet, but it’s possible for that to be coming in the future.

Core ML 2: Smaller, Faster, Customizable Models

Above: Craig Federighi announces Core ML 2 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2018 on June 4 in San Jose, CA. Image Credit: Apple

Recently, apps have started to use a significant amount of machine learning in order to personalize the user experience. For instance, Netflix uses machine learning to recommend personalized content, and Snapchat filters use a combination of augmented reality and machine learning.

With the introduction of Core ML in iOS 11, developers were able to load machine learning models into an Apple device and use the power of these models without an internet connection.

With iOS 12, Apple has released an improved version, Core ML 2.0, which makes training machine learning models 30 percent faster and shrinks the size of these models by 75 percent. It also supports extensive deep learning as well as standard ones like generalized linear models. This improvement will pave the way for more intelligent apps.

AI and ML have already been instrumental for app developers, from helping to fight ad fraud to improving audience reach. Core ML 2.0 represents another step forward in this space.

SiriKit Shortcuts: Accelerating App Interactions

Sirikit was originally introduced in iOS 10 as a framework for app developers to integrate with Apple’s voice assistant, Siri. SiriKit in iOS 12 is much smarter as it can predict user behavior and suggest a relevant shortcut to an app’s feature. For instance, if a user orders tomato soup every day in the afternoon, Siri can learn to suggest and provide a shortcut to the same item. App developers only have to expose features to the SiriKit to now accelerate app interactions.

Voice is still a highly nascent field, but it’s rapidly growing. Siri is more popular than ever, and other voice-enabled devices like Alexa have become increasingly pervasive. The possibilities to monetize voice channels have not yet emerged en masse, but are likely to become more prevalent in the near future.

HealthKit: Enabling Personalization in Health Apps

Users can now share their medical history with your app through HealthKit. With the user’s permission, apps can use this data to significantly improve the in-app experience, through personalized recommendations and targeting.

Moreover, iOS 12 also has a new Natural Language Processing Framework, a new framework called CarPlay for navigation apps and now supports user interactivity in Notifications.

The overall performance improvement with speed and responsiveness in iOS 12 is quite likely to improve app retention. All this and more in iOS 12 release presents developers with a strong platform comprising of Augmented Reality, Machine Learning and personalized experiences.

Image source 1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/06/apple-unveils-arkit-2/

Image source 2: https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/04/apples-core-ml-2-is-30-faster-cuts-ai-model-sizes-by-up-to-75/

Image source 3: https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/04/apples-shortcuts-gives-developers-a-reason-to-care-about-siri/ (Image Credit: Apple)

If you’re attending, we’d love to see you there! Go to go.inmobi.net/dmexco-2018 if you’re interested in scheduling a meeting with us.

Still on the fence about heading to Cologne for DMEXCO? Here are four key reasons why we think you should make the trip this year:

1) We’ll be Making a Big Announcement

On the eve of DMEXCO, we’ll be making a big announcement. What will we be announcing then? You just need to wait to find out.

2) Meet with Top In-App Experts

Interested in learning more about InMobi, what we offer and how we can help? Be sure to stop by our booth - A038 in Hall 6 - to chat with one of our experts and get the inside scoop. If you want a more intimate conversation, schedule a one-on-one chat with an InMobi team member. Drop us a line at go.inmobi.net/dmexco-2018 and then someone will be in touch!

3) Come say Hi and Schmooze with Peers before DMEXCO

If you’re in town early, then come stop by at our Happy Hour we’re hosting the night before DMEXCO. If you’re interested in RSVPing for our Happy Hour, be sure to drop us a line and we’ll provide you with the details.

4) Enter to Win a Great Prize

Now’s your chance to get your hands on an amazing prize! Be sure to stop by our booth to enter into our raffle. Our booth number is A038, and we’ll be in Hall 6.

We hope to see you there!

For the typical mobile app publisher, opening up ad inventory is consistently a top monetization strategy. Close to half of all non-gaming apps and over 80 percent of mobile games leverage mobile advertising in order to increase revenue.

But, just turning on advertising and then expecting lots of ad revenue to roll in is not always realistic. Enabling ad formats with the highest eCPMs like rewarded video helps, but sometimes the technology behind it all can be at fault. In particular, what if you need multiple server side and client side ad network SDKs to meet your revenue targets, ensure each ad request is successfully completed and have consistently high ad fill rates?

To address this increasingly common scenario, many app publishers turn to ad network mediation. Having a quality ad mediation partner in place helps to resolve many issues top app publishers run into with ad-based monetization strategies. For one, it’s much preferable to have just one ad mediation SDK in place as opposed to multiple ad network SDKs implemented. Plus, it helps app publishers to get a handle on their ad revenue figures in close to real time.

To learn more about the benefits of mobile ad mediation and why it helps publishers, check out our latest Whiteboard Wednesday video presented by Andrew Gerhart, InMobi’s VP of Publisher Platforms.

Full transcript:

Welcome to another Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Andrew Gerhart, the VP of Publisher Platforms for InMobi. Today we’re going to talk about the basics of mediation.

So let’s take a look at a typical app. I have an app, and lucky me I start to get lots of different users that are funnelling into the app. Now I want to make money from that so I integrate advertising. Pretty common for app developers to integrate interstitial ads. So now I have an interstitial ad in my app, and I’m working with one ad network SDK. So I put the SDK in my app, and that SDK is going to make a call to the ad network’s ad server. Now, tomorrow I want to know how much money I made, so I have to log into the ad network’s UI and pull down all of my analytics about how much money I made, where I made that money, etc., etc.

What we typically find is that as the publisher’s users scale, the ad network’s revenue for that particular app does not scale at the same rate. And so they can’t keep up, they can’t monetize all the different geographies, the different types of ads, the different types of users at scale. And so I’ve solved the problem of generating money from my users, but now I have challenges around - and so we have a check box here - now we have challenges around fill rate. And we have challenges around CPM and keeping the auction and competition within, with different ad sources we’re working with.

So, as my users continue to scale, then I may start working with multiple ad networks. So instead of having one, maybe I integrate five or more. A recent study by SafeDK suggested that a typical app developer will work with anywhere from 15 to 18 different ad networks. That’s a lot of SDKs to be managing within the app. And so as I’m working with all these different ad network SDKs now, they’re all making calls out to their individual ad servers. And, the next day when we want to see how much money each of them made, I have to log into all of their UIs. And so now I have the lucky job of logging in each day to all of their reporting systems and pulling down the data of how much money I made. So, we’ve now changed the trajectory of how much money we’re making, and we see a little bit of an uptick. Now we’ve solved some of the problem of fill rate, right? We’ve solved some of the problems around CPM. But I’ve introduced some new problems. Now I’ve introduced the problem of efficiency and management. Now I’ve introduced the problem of latency, as I’m making multiple calls to each of these guys, and they’re making calls to their ad servers and that’s coming back. I’ve introduced complexity into my app.

So let’s look at how mediation solves this. As I’m working with a mediation layer, now I have a mediation SDK. And this mediation SDK is going to control all the different ad networks that I want to work with. It’s now the communication layer with those SDKs, so they’re talking to each other and it’s determining who to serve. And so now, instead of each of those SDKs being called and then calling out to their ad servers, now the mediation layer is calling to their ad server, and so I’m consolidating. And now, instead of every morning having to log in to the ad network UIs, now I can just log in to the mediation layer to see how much money I’m making.

So now I’ve optimized CPM, I’ve solved for fill rate because I’m working with multiple partners across geographies and I’ve also solved the issue of management and efficiency. Those are some basic ways a mediation layer can help you to optimize your ad revenue and solve some of the problems of scaling your ad monetization.

Thank you for your time, and we’ll see you soon.

There are many reasons why fraud is on the rise, not least of which that fraudsters continually work to develop new, evasive tactics. But, another major concern is the lack of universal definitions regarding what constitutes fraud in all instances. Without common standards, marketers and advertisers have a far more difficult time identifying and then stopping all instances of fraud.

Spotting mobile ad fraud is no simple feat. What may seem fraudulent could actually be legitimate, and vice versa.

So, how good do you think you are at spotting fraud? Let’s look at a few scenarios.

In this situation, we can see that the click to install rate for Site A is seven times higher than it is for all of the other sites. It’s generating a lot of clicks, but not many installs considering the click totals.

So is this fraud?

A. Yes, definitely

B. No, definitely not

C. Not sure/Need more information

Here, over 97 percent of installs have a mean time to installation between 15.5 and 20.5 hours. So what about the small spike right around the 30-minute mark? Is this anomaly indicative of fraud?

A. Yes, definitely

B. No, definitely not

C. Not sure/Need more information

Of the four sites runnings ads for this gaming app, the outlier here is Site A. While the rest of the sites are using multiple site IDs to generate thousands of clicks per day, Site A has by far the greatest number of clicks per day - and all from a single Site ID.

So is this fraud?

A. Yes, definitely

B. No, definitely not

C. Not sure/Need more information

This scenario looks at the number of clicks coming from two different devices, A and B, going to a utility app. In less than five seconds, one click comes from device A, while device B is generating 20 clicks.

Is this fraud?

A. Yes, definitely

B. No, definitely not

C. Not sure/Need more information

So how do you think you stack up? Are you a fraud expert, or a total n00b?

Answers:

1. C. On the surface, this definitely looks like ad fraud, likely click flooding or high clicking ad templates. But, that’s not the only possibility here. This could also be an instance where the network is not doing any targeting on this site, adopting a "spray and pray" approach instead. In short, more data is needed here before this can definitely be labeled as fraud or not.
2. C. Yet again, more context and data is needed. It’s possible that click sniping is leading to the short MTTI numbers seen, but that’s not the only plausible explanation. There could easily be a scenario in which ads were highly targeted and some creatives included a timely call to action, which would explain some of the shorter MTTI figures.
3. C. While this scenario is likely fraud, it’s not totally clear that fraud is actually happening in this instance. Incentivized installs and/or click flooding would explain Site A’s high click volume per day from a single device, but so would an integration/device ID issue. Alternatively, it’s possible that Site A has significantly more volume and users per day than the other three sites being looked at here. More data would be necessary before a definitive conclusion can be drawn here.
4. A. This is an instance where fraud is far and away the most likely explanation to what’s happening here. In this situation, ad stacking is highly likely to be causing this anomaly. It’s possible an integration issue is leading to the large number of clicks being recorded from device B in such a short time frame, - for example, an improperly installed SDK - or that Offer Walls are responsible for the high velocity of impression counts, but that’s unlikely. If these were impression counts instead of clicks (i.e., a single device rendering 20+ ads in 5 seconds ), then the right option would have been C.

In short, it’s important to know that spotting and fighting ad fraud is almost never a straightforward endeavor. Before making a firm call, consider alternative explanations and think about what additional data is needed for deeper insights. As the stakes surrounding ad fraud increase, it pays to do proper due diligence to more efficiently crack down on ad fraud.

To learn more about what InMobi is doing to fight ad fraud and build trust in the advertising ecosystem, visit inmobi.com/trust.

What is Driving The Growth of Mobile OTT?

According to PWC’s global entertainment and media outlook report, India’s OTT video segment has grown by 18 percent since 2017 and is set to enter the top 10 largest markets by 2022 with revenues of over $815 million. “Great internet speeds, especially affordable mobile internet data, have without doubt bolstered OTT adoption,” states Navin, “But, most importantly, the investment in exclusive online content by players such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, ALTBalaji, Voot etc. has drawn consumers to these OTT platforms. The online production houses have created a strong pull through ‘Originals’ that could never be seen on the big screen either due to production scale, niche genres made for smaller audiences and/or censor board issues.” And, if you are thinking it is just the Originals or exclusive content driving consumers to OTT, Navin throws more light on what’s driving consumers to OTT, “Live mobile TV on platforms such as Airtel TV, Hotstar, SonyLIV has been another revelation, with sporting properties such as IPL and FIFA 2018 world cup seeing unprecedented scale. The recent football world cup had a whopping 192 million users watching it online.”

Are OTT Ads Just TV-like Video Ads on Mobile?

While the mobile OTT pull is strong, subscriptions for premium content typically cater to only a smaller segment of the audience. Hence, advertising remains an integral part of the monetization. Then, would advertising differ from the most obvious and in-your face fashion that viewers are used to in the TV world? In response, Navin shares, “It (OTT integrations) is definitely beyond TV-like video advertising, in the fact that it is a direct communication to every user individually in a private viewing mode as against consumption on larger screens in groups of families. And, to advertisers, this means a whole new world of personalised video advertising while experimenting with a variety of ad formats including interactive video ads and deep integrations beyond just pre-roll and mid-roll video ads. Advertisers can measure consumer engagement with their brands through impressions, views, video completes and actions, and combine it with accurate demographic and video consumption data to drive personalisation. The digital channel also provides brands the opportunity to A/B test and curate impactful campaigns in a short period of time. “Brand integrations on mobile OTT platforms are bringing a new dimension to user engagement and video monetization,” explains Navin.

The Evolution of In-content Advertising

“In a news world, native ads within the content streams are the pathway for users to experience brands. Similarly, in-video brand integrations are becoming the gateway to consumer-brand engagement, especially in the smaller OTT world.” Global subscription video on demand (SVOD) players such as Netflix have been championing in-content video advertising over the last few years. Through in-content video advertising that users very often don’t realise, brands not only reach extremely targeted audiences but also tightly interlock their messaging in the context of the video content, in a subtle yet impactful manner. Be it Dunkin Donuts in the political drama - House of Cards or KFC in the sci-fi series - Stranger Things, brands have found their calling with Netflix.

Vimeo-on-demand, another OTT platform, featured Hewlett-Packard as part of their new online series, Bartlett.

Image(s) Source: Branded Entertainment Network (BEN)

“As the next step in this evolution, we see mobile and connected TV being the only medium that will provide path-breaking opportunities for reaching out to users in an extremely impactful manner. The medium in itself provides very high engagement opportunity for brands and category-wise interest graphs for individual users means innovation in user engagement beyond just placing ads within content. Beyond all of this, measuring the impact of brand integrations as well, amongst other things becomes more meaningful and easier (unlike a TV world which is still anchored on a TRP led model from a representative sample). ”

In a first-of-its-kind partnership, we are partnering with ErosNow to drive this as they launch Eros Now Originals, a set of originally produced content, starting September to provide high quality entertainment to users, adding to their already existing rich Bollywood catalogue. “We can only wait and watch how Indian brands innovate on the back of these opportunities in the mobile OTT world, ” concluded Navin.

The Power of Research on Mobile

Traditionally, consumer market research entailed a slow and arduous process of searching for people who qualify to reside in panels, maintaining the panels over a long period of time and rewarding the respondents for participating in market research.

In a day and age when the mobile consumer’s preferences change fast and where brands need to remain agile and nimble, marketers across the world face multiple challenges when conducting market research:

1. It is slow and cumbersome to reach out to target panels on a phone call or even knocking at their doors, which requires significant effort and time.
2. It is difficult to find and reach niche segments. Imagine an outreach to a panel of 2000 sports enthusiasts between the age range of 40-55 years in urban America.
3. It has generally been an expensive affair due to the costs associated with maintaining the panels, costs for retaining the members in the panels, and rewarding the respondents for their participation in the research.

Enter mobile market research: which solves for most of the shortcomings of traditional research and allows for market research to become more lean and agile.

Meet Your Customers Where They Are

Market research at its core is reaching the target audience and understanding their opinion. It is only natural that marketers need to do research where their consumers are - mobile. With the ubiquitous presence of mobile, the consistent user engagement and the availability of myriad user attributes, mobile empowers marketers to bring speed, accuracy and scale to market research.

1. Precise understanding of the customer: Through the breadth of data points available on mobile, marketers can easily and precisely identify their target customer. Information about mobile users such as basic demographic understanding, behavioural profiles such as them frequenting universities, stadiums or malls, their app ownership and usage profiles can be indicative of their interests. With this clear understanding, mobile market research not only allows for precise panel creations through customer profiles but also allows for the marketer to understand a lot more about the customer.
2. Scale of reach: Billions of consumers today are using a smartphone. With such massive scale, marketers can be precise about their identified personas without losing scale. This allows for the panel to not get exhausted easily, enabling true random sampling and minimal spillover between studies conducted on the exact same persona type or panel.
3. Speed of research: Mobile is the new native screen with most consumers spending an average of 3 hours on their devices daily. This provides an ‘always-on’ engagement opportunity to marketers for gathering responses at an unprecedented speed. Gone are the days when marketers had to wait weeks and months to get the research responses. Through mobile market research responses can be collected in a matter of hours, enabling marketers to stay nimble when making data-backed, everyday decisions.
4. It is Always On: Through the combination of scale, speed and continuous engagement, mobile market research opens up a completely new paradigm of always-on research to marketers. It enables marketers to track their brand KPIs on a trendline, removing the recency biases resulting from a point-in-time research. The always on research gives the power of gauging true brand metrics as a result of every interaction that a consumer has with a brand, be it advertising, in-store experience or the product experience.

For the past decade InMobi has been leveraging the power of mobile to help brands innovatively engage with their consumers through its mobile advertising platform. We’ve taken a step further in helping brands understand their consumer through a completely disruptive solution: InMobi Pulse - world’s largest mobile market research platform.

InMobi Pulse is designed to help marketers take insight driven and data-backed decisions, every day. Interested in learning how you can do mobile market research? Visit us at InMobi Pulse to get a demo.

But, fear not! Many app publishers have already leveraged our mediation solution to great results. Just check out some of the reviews we’ve gotten on G2 Crowd:

And if you ever run into issues with our mediation platform, our team is always on hand ready to help.

Note: None of these G2 Crowd reviews were paid for or solicited. These all reflect the genuine, honest opinions of our many happy mediation publisher partners.

Interested in learning more about our mediation platform and trying it out for yourself? Drop us a line today to schedule a custom consultation!

(3:00) Can you give an idea in nontechnical terms of how machine learning plays a role in the bulk of operations of your business?

Avi Patchava: A big part of an advertising network is understanding where the opportunities lay for advertisers. To help advertisers and publishers alike achieve their objectives in a high-frequency marketplace, advertising technology (adtech) companies such as InMobi have to match the right advertiser with the right sites for both to achieve their KPIs (key performance indicators).
To do that, the company determines the value of a single ad request and decides which specific profile or audience will complete the CTA. Because ad requests often total more than 10 billion daily, quick decision making is imperative, a skill brought by a machine learning system. The ad is then run through a bidding mechanism, helping the advertiser to ultimately achieve their KPI.
This process happens potentially millions of times in every given advertiser campaign for every single request. The model acts on the advertiser’s behalf, valuing the potential of that request. A bid is run across that is either won or lost depending on the market mechanisms.
Adtech companies are committed to finding the best equation and bringing them together in an effective way to ensure that both advertiser and publisher are successful. On a scale of more than 10 billion ad requests, only automated algorithms with matching intelligence in your data can do that. Increasingly, the company brings in experts to share insights, ways of building algorithms, and how they are testing and learning.

(6:42) To paint a clearer picture of how the process goes, let’s take an example of an ad with a call to action (CTA) that targets a particular audience in a specific location. Your application can potentially predict how this ad will respond to a specific person, giving us a decent starting point for exposures. Then, the application would need to test the audience. Is that how the process goes?

AP: Matching the advertisement with the right audience entails two mechanisms, both of which involve machine learning. Firstly, the ad network must determine what it already knows about this profile and the likelihood that the audience will complete the CTA based on the historical data gathered from the billions of requests every day. Machine learning helps put a price on that specific ad.
For new categories or new types of applications that do not have the data, adtech companies use a machine learning system that allows them to learn, take feedback, and further invest or divest, all happening at a high level of data and speed for decisions to happen.

(8:48) Can you explain what targeting is?

AP: To target correctly, the company must be able to determine the audience and location of that audience. An audience can be defined by any variable. For instance, the advertiser wants to take its product to 25-year-old women living in suburban cities across the west.
You need to know how many people there are with those similar attributes. On the ad network, how many people like that do you have access to with that profile? Targeting helps you achieve that, building its different audience segments. Understand the scale of them, and you can maximize the potential of each person that meets this profile. This will give them the best chance of achieving their objective at scale.

(10:05) Do you sometimes need to find proxies or look-alikes when you target an audience? Is that part of building an audience quickly?

AP: Look-alike models are a big part of InMobi’s work because not all audiences are fully defined or variables may be incomplete. In those cases, the company needs to make inferences based on other types of data. You have two of three variables to define your audience. You will have to confidently infer the last variable based on other types of data. That variable could be a device or app that the audience may be using, or the location. When you know clearly what you are looking for and have good data to identify that audience, the look-alike helps you achieve scale.

(12:30) With regards to changes in the individual business functions of marketing and advertising. how are those coming together? What are those functions and what is bringing them together? And how does that bode for the future of your industry?

AP: Moving forward, marketing and advertising functions will be disrupted in a way that unifies them with the help of data.
In a world where that value chain—from marketing to the last mile of your advertising dollar—is integrated and the data and feedback is flowing well with the help of speed and scale of automation, you have a world where these two functions become one.

(15:10) So this is how the ad network world is affecting marketing. Instead of being the execution, it becomes part of the strategic function.

AP: Let’s take the example of a chief marketing officer (CMO) with ideas on how to drive user acquisition or reduce the user attrition. The CMO can quickly learn from the data related to that last mile of advertising spend and decide to adjust the strategy and spend. This helps the company achieve acquisitions at the lowest possible cost.
With data available at speed and scale, we are driving insights, testing, coming up with hypotheses and competitor analysis and insight. Ultimately, we can maximize intelligence and learning to help CMOs make decisions.

About InMobi:
InMobi is a global provider of enterprise platforms for marketers. As a leading technology company, InMobi has been recognized as a 2018 CNBC Disruptor 50 company and as one of Fast Company’s 2018 Most Innovative Companies. For more information, visit inmobi.com

This article was originally published by TechEmergence

While there was a lot going on, here are our top four lessons from Postback 2018:

1) Brands will Increasingly Reach Target Audiences through OTT devices/Smart TVs in the Future

According to eMarketer, over 10 percent of all people in the world will use an over-the-top video service (think Netflix, Hulu, etc.) in 2018, and the global OTT market is set to rise 24 percent this year. And, more than 168 million Americans already have a web-connected TV, although this number is sure to rise even higher in the coming months and years too.

As consumers begin to spend more time viewing video and content through these channels, it behooves brands, advertisers and publishers to think more deeply about how these channels work and how they can go about leveraging them optimally. The changing state of video viewership thanks to OTT video and connected television sets was a major talking point throughout the conference.

2) User Expectations are Changing Rapidly

As the mobile space has grown and matured, old ad tactics and legacy approaches to app UX no longer cut it. The rising consumer demands now placed on advertisers and publishers was a major talking point during the Monetizing the Fridge panel on the first day of Postback that featured Andrew Gerhart, InMobi’s VP of Publisher Platforms, as one of the participating industry leaders.

“Users expectations are higher than ever. They want to understand how their data is being used, they want content for free, they want to see true value in exchange for advertising, and they want advertising that is relevant,” Gerhart noted during the panel. “Brands, marketers and the advertising industry need to work together to improve advertising for this digital generation, and show users non-intrusive ads they want to see.”

3) The Industry is Still Figuring Out GDPR

It’s been over two months since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect, but it’s still very much top of mind for those in the mobile advertising and oversight space. According to Andrew, it was a frequent topic of discussion throughout both days of Postback this year.

4) TUNE Knows How to Throw a Great Event

This one comes as no surprise, but yet again TUNE put on a fantastic conference this year. It’s much smaller and more intimate than some other events, and its single stage ensures that no great insights go missed. Plus, TUNE CEO Peter Hamilton’s turn rocking out and then delivering another rousing keynote address really set the right mood for the conference.

A big thanks to everyone who met with one of us at Postback, and to everyone who stopped by Andrew’s panel. We hope to see you all next year at Postback 2019!

In a recent interview with TechEmergence, InMobi’s Avi Patchava, VP Data Sciences ML & AI, spoke about what he believes are India’s four biggest strengths to face the upcoming AI disruption. Read his views below:

·“India has an abundance of engineering talent which has been trained over the last 2 decades which needs to be funneled into a new direction due to the automation of IT services. This core base of engineering is required to do things with AI at scale”

·“India has a culture that produces a large number of mathematicians, coders, and statisticians (independent of the engineers) Bangalore and to some extent Hyderabad already have decent ecosystem set up. London essentially tried to build its tech ecosystem in the past 5 years Bangalore has been at it for the last 25 years.”

·“Data – We’ve got a country that is rapidly moving towards digitization – For example, the Aadhar or UIDAI Project in India is the largest ever unique identifier project in the world. India is actively pushing more and more into creating public datasets and the fact that it is a democracy helps with this fact over China where public data may be restricted to the government”

·You’ve got over 3 million people who are either directly engaged in the IT services world in India and its around 14% of the Indian GDP. It was skilled work, but it was routine, which makes it a key opportunity for machine learning and automation. The IT services players like Infosys, Wipro etc have noticed this and started internal reorganizations to adopt AI”

About InMobi:

InMobi is a global provider of enterprise platforms for marketers. As a leading technology company, InMobi has been recognized as a 2018 CNBC Disruptor 50 company and as one of Fast Company’s 2018 Most Innovative Companies. For more information, visit inmobi.com

This article was originally published by TechEmergence

We’ve gazed into the crystal ball to see what the future holds. Based on trends from the recent past, here’s what we see happening in the coming months and years:

1) Short, In-Your-Face Video Ads Will be the Norm

While the amount of time people are spending on their phones is rising, users don’t want their time interrupted by too much advertising. Increasingly, shorter video ads are the best option for advertisers. On Facebook, video ads between 16 and 20 seconds long have the best conversion rates, while one YouTube ad experiment found that a 15-second version of an ad was more likely to be recalled later on than a 30-second or 120-second version of that same ad.

With limited time, advertisers are utilizing more visually distinctive advertising to effectively reach people. During the first half of 2017, our data showed that 76 percent of all video ad spend went to full-screen spots. Over half - 58 percent - of all video ad inventory during that time period was fullscreen. Short video ads displayed in an immersive manner will become increasingly more common coming up.

2) Current Breakdown in Who’s Buying Video Ads Will Remain Intact

When in-app video advertising initially became available, digital-native brands with firm metrics underpinning their ad campaigns (think downloads, sign-ups, etc.) were first to embrace these kinds of ads. But, as in-app video advertising has gone from a relative unknown to a trusted, known entity, advertisers looking primarily for brand awareness and impressions have become the most common buyers of video ads.

Between 2016 and the first three months of 2018, these brand awareness campaigns have gone from accounting for 43 percent of all global video ad spend to 70 percent. In the foreseeable future, the ratio seen in the first quarter of 2018 will very likely remain intact (70 percent brand advertisers, 30 percent hard KPI campaigns).

3) Expect A Lot More In-App Video Ad Inventory in the Future

Both video ad spend and video ad inventory have grown considerably since 2016, although ad spend has thus far outpaced inventory worldwide. For example, between 2016 and 2017, while global ad spend grew 109 percent, global in-app video ad inventory only increased 31 percent.

But, these ratios are unlikely to last for long. In the next few months and years, expect a lot more in-app video ad inventory to come online. Indeed, this is already happening in the U.S. Between the first quarter of 2018 versus the same period in 2017, in-app video ad spend rose 75 percent while inventory rose 414 percent. Soon enough, the world will catch up to the U.S. in this regard.

4) We’re Nowhere Close to Peak Programmatic

More and more, expect advertisers and demand-side platforms to utilize automated methods for buying in-app video ad placements. Programmatic buying has already been rising rapidly, but this may be only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Between 2016 and 2017, programmatic mobile video ad spend grew 128 percent in the U.S. and 136 percent globally. But, comparing Q1 2018 to Q1 2017, programmatic buying rose 220 percent in the U.S. and 238 percent worldwide.

5) The World Will Catch Up to the U.S.

Nowhere else in the world has embraced in-app video advertising the way that American advertisers have. During the first three months of this year, 53 percent of all spend devoted to in-app video ads came from the U.S.

But, don’t expect the U.S. to reign supreme to quite this extent for too long. In-app video ad spend is growing rapidly in just about every corner of the world. In particular, video ad spending in China rose a whopping 470 percent between Q1 2017 and Q1 2018.

Of course, like many other past predictions, these may end up falling spectacularly flat. New technologies may emerge that will dramatically upend the status quo. But, based on the numbers from our recent report, we think the odds are good that all of the above predictions will come true in the near future.

For more insights on in-app video advertising today and how it’s progressed, be sure to download the complete guide today.

GET REPORT

But what do app publishers think about video advertising? While its benefits are easy to see for advertisers, it’s less clear cut for publishers. After all, video ads (when done poorly) can be slow to load and annoying for users who just want to read an article or play a game. Integrating video ad files into the mix is no easy feat either, as these formats present their own technical and logistical challenges.

Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that our research has found app publishers embracing in-app video advertising as readily as advertisers themselves. Between 2016 and 2017, in-app video ad inventory rose 31 percent globally and 163 percent in the U.S. During the first quarter of 2018, over half of all ad inventory globally was video.

Demand is meeting supply. In-app video advertising is a classic chicken-and-egg scenario. Who adopted video ads first: publishers or advertisers? Either way, as long as app users respond well to video ads, advertisers will want to run them. And as long as brands want to run in-app video ads, it behooves publishers to meet demand.

GET REPORT

Here are other key reasons why publishers are embracing in-app video ads:

• It’s valuable for publishers to enable video ads. Advertisers have proven willing to pay more for extremely valuable audiences or placements. For example, one recent study found that brands will pay twice as much for first impressions. And video ads are highly valuable impressions. The InMobi report found that click-through rates for video ads are 34 percent higher than native ads and 56 percent higher than banners. Plus, between 2016 and 2017, video ad click-through rates improved 300 percent. To paraphrase former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, in-app video ad spots are a “valuable thing; you just don't give it away for nothing.” Valuable inventory can command higher prices, making video advertising ideal for monetization.
  
• Technology today makes it easier to display video ads. Three main trends are at play here:
  1. Screen sizes and resolutions continue to increase, which means in-app video ads appear crisp and stand out.
  2. Not only are mobile wireless internet connections becoming far more commonplace, they’re also faster than ever. This helps video ads to load in a timely fashion, with all formats supported by adequate bandwidth in most instances.
  3. The industry’s embrace of VAST over VPAID or MRAID ensures lightweight video ads pre-load on the mobile device, and are not subject to buffering or seconds-long load times.
     
• It’s a valuable way to provide a brand-safe ad experience that works for users. As brand safety concerns continue to mount, publishers - especially those providing news or talking about potentially divisive topics - need to take steps to ensure advertisers don’t flee due to such worries. Video ads, especially immersive formats like fullscreen spots or rewarded video, help to allay such fears because these kinds of in-app ads, by their nature, never appear next to any content. There’s a reason 58 percent of all video ad inventory during the first six months of 2017 was fullscreen.

This is just a small snippet of what’s covered in our 2018 State of Mobile Video Report. For more insights on in-app video advertising today and how it’s progressed, be sure to download the complete guide today.

Mumbai on June 27, 2018. Exchange4media formulated the Indian Digital Marketing Awards in 2010 with the objective to recognize, celebrate and encourage the work being done in the digital marketing space - specifically, internet, mobile, gaming, social media and the blogosphere. InMobi won the silver, which is the highest honor in the mobile category.

The award recognized InMobi’s work for McDowell's No. 1 in India as they battle the toxic culture of drunk driving in the nation. With the Supreme Court of India banning the sale of liquor within 500 metres of states and national highways citing drunk driving as the chief culprit, McDowell’s No. 1 knew it was high time they educated its consumers about enjoying responsibly.

The campaign featured among 900 applications and 192 final entries across 33 categories at the 9th edition of the awards. InMobi emerged as the winner in the category - Best Use of Mobile - having being evaluated on various parameters such as innovation, scalability, impact – social and on the sector, sustainability and disruptive/game changing nature of the campaign. The jury was chaired by Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and MD, Hindustan Unilever Limited & Executive Vice President, Unilever South Asia, and included other industry leaders and domain experts. Excited much! Check out the award winning video case study below.

McDowell's #Jointhepact from InMobi on Vimeo.

If you want to drive innovation on mobile for your brand, reach out to: rajesh.pantina@inmobi.com

About InMobi:

InMobi is a global provider of enterprise platforms for marketers. As a leading technology company, InMobi has been recognized as a 2018 CNBC Disruptor 50 company and as one of Fast Company’s 2018 Most Innovative Companies. For more information, visit inmobi.com

The numbers from our 2018 State of Mobile Video Report back this up. Between 2016 and 2017, spending on in-app video advertising doubled both globally and in the U.S. within our network. In the U.S. in particular, over a third of all mobile ad spend was devoted to video spots during the first three months of 2018, and that will likely only grow over time.

So why are advertisers embracing in-app video advertising so readily? According to our data, there are three main reasons for the shift.

1) Because It’s Effective

In short, video ads work. Our data shows video ads having click-through rates that are 56 percent better than what banner ads get (no surprise there) and even 34 percent better than native ads.

As marketers become savvier about video advertising, and as video display and delivery technology improves, advertisers are seeing improvement with engagement. Just between 2016 and 2017, video ad click-through rates increased 300 percent.

2) Because Publishers are Making More Video Inventory Available

The laws of supply and demand are coming into play in mobile advertising. With brands now developing more video ad spots, publishers and app developers are opening up additional video ad inventory. This cycle continues on, according to our data.

Between 2016 and 2017, video ad inventory grew a whopping 163 percent in the U.S. The growth was even more pronounced between the first quarter of 2017 and the same period in 2018. In comparing that time span, video ad inventory in the U.S. increased 414 percent.

3) Because Phones can now Replicate TV-Like Environments

Screen size and screen quality have been rising steadily over the past few years. This means advertisers know their video ads will be just as immersive and visually memorable on mobile as they would be on a television set. In 2015, the vast majority of smartphones shipped worldwide had displays under five inches. Now, devices with displays bigger than five inches on the rise worldwide. Plus, in more developed countries, devices with high-definition displays are increasingly becoming the norm.

Not only are screens growing and increasing in definition, but the technology to display video ads on mobile devices is improving rapidly as well. As VAST video ad delivery technology becomes more popular than VPAID or MRAID, advertisers can ensure video ads pre-load as soon as the app is launched. That way, as soon as the time is right, the ad is launched seamlessly, just like a TV ad.

Ad network integrations facilitated through software development kits (SDKs) as opposed to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) or other setups improve video ad performance as well. SDKs, in comparison to competitive integration types, SDKs handle more heavy lifting without much manual oversight, making it more seamless to transfer even large files like video ads. This goes a long way toward ensuring video ads are displayed as intended without interruption or lag.

And of course, recent changes in both the speed and ubiquity of mobile internet connectivity - through 4G, LTE and Wi-Fi - make it easier for end users to more seamlessly load and watch video ads. For example, among the three biggest wireless service providers in the U.S., average network download speeds went from under five megabits per second in 2010 to around 30 Mbps in 2017, according to PC Magazine.

This is just a small snippet of what’s covered in our 2018 State of Mobile Video Report. For more insights on in-app video advertising today and how it’s progressed, be sure to download the complete guide today.

However, this is both ineffective and inefficient against constantly evolving, newer fraud methods for a simple reason  —  how do you find something when you don’t know what to look for?

No system can be 100 percent foolproof. There will inevitably be fraudulent installs/events that solutions fail to catch (false negatives) — or worse, flag clean installs/events incorrectly (false positives). This is critical, since such inaccuracies have adverse impact on advertising ROI, as we will see later.

This brings us to the next point: how does one evaluate the countless anti-ad fraud solutions available in the market?

We have made that daunting process easier for you with this systematic checklist to evaluate anti-fraud products.

1. Accuracy and Reliability

Say a mobile campaign delivered 100 installs, of which 20 installs are fraudulent. The (accuracy) problem with most anti-fraud solutions is which 20 they flag as fraud.

One way to evaluate this is to compute the false positive and false negative metrics.

The confusion matrix (Image source: sanyamkapoor.com)

It is important to note that both false positives and false negatives reward bad players in the long run and hurt clean players severely.

More importantly, false positives and false negatives hurt advertisers even more as they fall prey to cognitive biases such as hyperbolic discounting  —  i.e., the tendency to overvalue a present reward and undervalue a future reward, even if it is larger. This is illustrated in the example below.

Say InMobi drove 100 installs at $2 CPI and a fraudulent network drove 1,000 installs at $1 CPI. An anti fraud solution marks 2% of the installs from InMobi and 20% of the installs fraudulent network as fraud.

In the short term, the fraudulent ad network will “appear” to look like the better partner purely based on campaign performance that return high numbers of installs. But in reality, these ad networks hurt the advertiser because 80–85% of the fraud lies upstream which cannot be detected in downstream metrics such as MTTI that most anti-fraud solutions rely upon. This means it’s very likely that 90% of the installs (900 installs) driven by the fraudulent network were misattributed. That results in an effective CPI of $10 as against $2 CPI driven by InMobi for the same scale (100 installs).

Sample Illustration: Seemingly high ROI campaigns does not mean fraud-free or efficient spending. True ROI is reflected in incrementality.

Thus, determining the false positive rate and false negative rate of an anti-fraud solution is critical.

However, computing these numbers is not so straightforward. This is because suspected fraud installs (as opposed to confirmed fraud installs) cannot be definitively classified as fraudulent in a short period, which affects computation of the false positives.

What to Ask: It’s important to check if anti-fraud systems have done detailed studies that publish their false positive and false negative numbers. Be sure to place an importance on these stats when evaluating various products.

2. Transparency

How frameworks deal with noise (especially false positives) is a key indicator of reliability of the service.

As seen earlier, incorrectly set thresholds and criteria can lead to genuine events being identified as outliers and flagged as fraudulent. This results in exceedingly high number of false positives.

The good news is that there are many techniques that can help determine the accuracy of the anti-fraud solutions. Two often used methods include:

1. Setting up honeypots.
2. Cohort analysis of fraud installs (i.e., evaluating installs marked as fraudulent with similar clean paid cohorts for behavioral differences).

It is important to note that these methodologies involve significant cost and time (usually upwards of two months), which again indicates the seriousness of the player in tackling fraud.

If the player is investing in such techniques, then they would also be reversing decisions constantly to reduce their false positive and false negative errors. They should also be able to defend their decisions (on fraudulent installs) when ad networks ask for conclusive data on why installs are marked fraudulent.

What to Ask: Evaluating a fraud solution’s framework is a continuous process, and anti-fraud solution providers need to be willing to invest resources to check the accuracy of their flagging mechanisms constantly for each and every advertiser and campaign. Be sure to check with other ad networks and advertisers how many times the anti-fraud product has been able to successfully defend their decisions  —  this is a marker of their reliability.

3. Pricing

The pricing model is probably the best indirect indicator of effectiveness (and intentions) of the anti-fraud product and the company.

Billing on the basis of number of installs flagged as fraudulent is incentivized towards ‘marking’ fraud and not ‘detecting’ fraud. It’s easy to see why  —  the more installs marked as fraud, the higher the payout.

As often noted in the points above, the objective is to minimize errors and accurately flag fraudulent installs. However, billing structures, such as the one described above, set the wrong incentives in marking a higher percent of installs as fraudulent without sufficient evidence or reason.

A click-based model to pricing is best suited — that is pricing on clicks analyzed and not number of installs flagged.

What to Ask: What is the reasoning behind the pricing model of the solution?

4. Evaluation Criteria

As discussed in our previous blog, fighting fraud is not easy as it requires the following:

1. Investment (of resources and time).
2. Experience (in dealing with ad fraud).
3. Data (large data points from across markets).

When choosing the product, evaluate them on each of the above criteria.

Access to data across regions, experience, availability of resources (how many other customers does your anti-fraud account manager oversee?) and diversity of clients is critical in building a strong framework and adds to their credibility.

5. Use of Machine Learning

Machine learning is a huge buzzword at the moment. So much so that it is used as a “catch-all” term to either flag installs as fraudulent when sufficient evidence isn’t available. The term is also frequently used to defend inadequate methodologies such as ones with static and manually set thresholds.

Make no mistake that machine learning is critical to designing a system whose outputs are based on probabilities and that is adaptive to changing evidence. However, many products use machine learning as nothing more than a buzzword without actually having a working model in place. Fortunately, it’s possible to call out those who engage in such tactics.

What to Ask: Evaluate the list of reasons provided by the solution and carefully scrutinize those which are vague. For example, fraud reasons such as “too many engagements” and “distribution outliers” do not say much and are very likely to be false positives. Question the salesperson and their engineering teams on the algorithms and models used. If they can’t explain what their machine learning algorithms and models do in simple to understand terms, then it’s very likely that they are simply using machine learning as a guise.

6. Evaluating the Detection Methodology

It is important to understand that the most widely used integrations with anti-fraud products is server-to-server. It basically means that all fraud checks that happen are based on the post-click data that is shared by the ad network or DSP with the anti-fraud product (it is the same with trackers as well).

This means that most anti-fraud frameworks inordinately focus on the last mile (post-click data) for fraud detection. But, as we had covered previously, fraud is not a last-mile problem. Fraud starts upstream.

• Today’s solutions start their analysis and classifications post-click. But, that is just one piece of the puzzle while tackling fraud.
• Fraud requires checks at every touch point → right from the time of a publisher getting onboarded until the time an install event happens (and beyond), every step needs to be scrutinized for fraudulent activity.

Reactive Fraud Metrics such as MTTI work well only for downstream checks.

• While metrics such as MTTI (aka CTIT) help detect fraud downstream  —  i.e., detecting installs as fraud after they have come in (reactive), there’s a lot more fraud that goes on upstream that go undetected.
• The MTTI metric along with MTTI distribution plots alone cannot detect or prevent those upstream frauds. This again leads to high number of false negatives and false positives.
• The major problem that false positives create is that they can easily drown out legitimate installs from clean ad networks.
• How anti-fraud frameworks minimize such false positives without blinding the advertiser to fraudulent installs is the ultimate goal.

Does the framework go beyond MTTI metrics?

• If a network is driving an install every 300 clicks per user, then metrics such as MTTI are irrelevant. The installs are, without a doubt, suspicious.
• The directional indicators of such fraud all lie in upstream metrics.

Adoption of Leading Metrics

If the anti-fraud framework uses reactive fraud metrics as the sole source of truth, it ends up with a lot more errors (false positives and false negatives), and penalize the good ad networks who do more stringent checks upstream. Check with the makers of the anti-fraud product if and how they use the leading metrics such as Mean Clicks to Install (MCTI) in fraud detection.

7. Look for Conflict of Interest

For instance, a tracker offering their anti-fraud product as a separate, paid point solution. The business model is set up in such a way as to make up for any lost revenues from the attribution services business line (since fraud means fewer installs billed) with anti-fraud services that make up for those revenues. If these players were serious about fighting ad fraud then they should either bundle the anti-fraud service and provide it as a unified solution or provide it for free.

— Isaac Asimov, Foundation

Until recently, the approach to fighting mobile ad fraud has been defensive and reactive.

For instance,

1. Ad networks and publishers deploy rudimentary static defence mechanisms and wait for the bad guys to counter them before deploying hotfixes or undertaking countermeasures.
2. Anti ad fraud frameworks work mostly on static data, which is only good enough to detect - not prevent - limited types of fraud.

Reactive Approaches Focus on Detection over Prevention

This cat-and-mouse game has continued unabated with the bad actors continually evolving, varying their means of attack and using techniques that have grown in complexity and scope over time. The Methbot operation showed how the ad fraud industry has become more sophisticated and organized.

The Tide is Shifting towards Fraud Prevention

The methods used by ad fraud crime syndicate are fast changing in the wake of increasing adoption of advanced data analytics and machine learning algorithms by adtech. After all, an automated learning system that continuously detects and prevents fraud is much more desirable and more efficient over static rule-based and manual intervention systems.

At InMobi, we are taking control of the battleground by using the attackers’ own predictable yet ever-evolving methodologies to not just detect fraud as it happens, but to actively prevent it as well.

How is the Current Framework Being Fundamentally Changed?

The primary strategy used to counter fraud today is to define known frauds, and then to focus on detecting those anomalies with pre-determined fixed thresholds. This is ineffective and inefficient against constantly evolving, newer fraud methods for a simple reason — how do you find something when you don’t know what to look for?

Thus, a framework that can detect such anomalies sooner, i.e., what is genuine and what isn’t, and neutralize them quickly is essential.

An Adaptive, Real-Time Framework

The ideal framework constantly learns and memorizes what’s normal. This way when something anomalous is detected, no matter how sophisticated, it can react.

InMobi’s Deep Learning algorithms adaptively learn complex patterns and extrapolate to detect newer types of fraud.

Our deep learning algorithms automatically model every device and user on the network, enabling the system to ‘memorize’ how everything from requests to post-click events normally flow. It extrapolates this data in real time to detect fraud.

Machine Learning Techniques Applied at InMobi

Anomaly detection techniques and unsupervised learning methods are employed to discover deviant behaviors, across multiple dimensions, that are indicative of fraud. In addition to this, fraud indicators are tracked over time to determine, with higher certainty than ever before, repeated fraud activity from particular devices or market cuts. Further, time-series analysis enables us to spot fraudulent on-or-off patterns over time and better catch serial fraudsters as well as better filter 'accidentally labeled' fraudsters.

But, No System is Perfect

There’s no substitute to human intelligence. Therefore, in addition to using deep learning, InMobi’s industry leading framework uses a three-pronged approach supported by data, insights and human intervention.

3-Pronged Framework

1. Prevention → ML + Data
2. Detection → Heuristics + Automated Insights
3. Reactive Measures → Operations (human intelligence)

The Final Piece of the Puzzle — Data

Deep learning algorithms function better with more data and better data. Thus, the availability of quality data across regions and verticals is a critical component to building frameworks that effectively use machine learning to detect fraud more reliably and accurately.

InMobi, having been part of the incredible mobile growth story for over a decade, has vast amounts of quality data worldwide — including data specific to fraud. This helps not only in training our models iteratively and quickly, but also to validate its accuracy and reliability (i.e, measure bias/variance) on test data.

Lastly, in addition to data, having knowledge and experience in fighting ad fraud is key to developing better algorithms and models.

As an added note, this framework is enabled by default on the InMobi ad network to all advertisers and has been extensively tested over the years. To know more, visit inmobi.com/trust.

InMobi has recently been certified by the Trustworthy Accountability Group’s (TAG) Anti-Fraud Program, allowing us to proudly display their Certified Against Fraud (CAF) seal. We are now the largest independent in-app mobile exchange to be certified by TAG.

The TAG is a consortium of industry groups committed to fighting ad fraud and promoting wide transparency in the mobile in-app supply chain. TAG is spearheaded by luminaries such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

This TAG seal of approval is not easy to obtain. Firms have to be audited by global organizations including the Business of Providing Assurance Worldwide (BPAw) in order to confirm they do, and can, adhere to TAG’s high anti-fraud standards. InMobi has always been committed to trustworthy, transparent advertising; this is simply further proof of our dedication to the cause. AerServ, which InMobi acquired earlier this year, is also TAG CAF compliant, as they were audited by BPAw as well.

"The TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal has become the ad industry's gold standard for companies to demonstrate the rigorous steps they've taken to protect their partners and customers against fraud, and we are delighted to recognize InMobi for its leadership and commitment by achieving the seal," said Mike Zaneis, CEO at TAG. "We look forward to continuing to work with InMobi to raise the industry's standards for brand safety while building a fraud-free and transparent mobile advertising ecosystem."

Organizations in TAG’s Anti-Fraud Program don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk too. TAG found that certified channels had 83 percent less fraud versus non-certified ones. When players like InMobi have TAG’s Certified Against Fraud seal, advertisers know they are reaching real people and publishers know they are only working with the most reputable partners.

Interested in learning more about other steps InMobi is taking to promote transparency and quality in the mobile ecosystem? Visit inmobi.com/trust for more information.

The problem is especially acute with video. The percentage of firms worried about fraud specifically on their video ad networks rose from 33 percent in 2017 to 48 percent this year.

This is far from a new problem, as fraud is nearly as old as time. Fraudsters follow the money, and as in-app advertising spend rises, nefarious players will continue to want to illicitly grab a cut. The questions for everyone in the digital ad space then becomes, what can be done to combat ad fraud, and can it ever be stopped for good?

Know Thy Enemy

This famous idiom from Sun Tzu’s Art of War may be referring to military battles, but it’s just as apt in the battles against ad fraud. The problem is, when it comes to fighting fraud, everyone’s got their own definitions - and these can often be conflicting.

For instance, consider how some would use Mean Time to Install and Retention Rate (daily/monthly usage) metrics to identify fraud. If an ad network sees a sudden spike in installs (low MTTI) but then a low retention rate after the first month, it could very well determine those installs to be fraudulent. But, such a knee-jerk reaction could be premature. After all, that spike in downloads could have been due to a well-timed and effective promotion, but the nature of the app (i.e. a hotel-booking app or car rental app) could mean that it is just not used with great frequency throughout the year.

Everyone in the ecosystem will have different definitions of ad fraud, and often these parameters are self-serving. First and foremost, all supply chain partners need to agree on what actually constitutes ad fraud before it can be combated effectively.

Why Most Current Fraud Fighting Methods Fall Flat

In many ways, ad fraud prevention takes its cues from anti-virus software. First, a threat is identified, sometimes because it has already infected a network and caused damage. Once it’s been identified, an effective tactic to quarantine that threat is developed and then rolled out.

The problem is that this is reactive in nature. As soon as an issue is identified and neutralized, fraudsters have already developed another way, an alternative mechanism, for achieving their nefarious ends. This cycle then just continues ad nauseam, without the good guys making any real headway.

How to be One Step Ahead of Fraud

Instead of being reactive, a proactive approach that anticipates and stops problems before they ever occur is far more ideal. Only such a methodology can capably prevent fraud from happening and causing havoc in the first place.

But, getting to this stage is far easier said than done. Achieving such foresight requires the use of advanced machine learning algorithms able to model and predict all possible fraud scenarios, so that effective anti-fraud mechanisms can be continually developed and implemented in advance. This kind of artificial intelligence requires a significant time and monetary investment, in addition to enough data to make the ML models valuable and useful.

Thus far, AI and ML may be the best bet in effectively fighting ad fraud. It’s possible that a blockchain-based public ledger/database will help keep everyone informed and enlightened in the fight against fraud, but its use in such a capacity is still quite nascent and may not ever be proven totally effective.

Drawing The Line

Fighting fraud also involves taking hard lines and potentially unpopular stances. For ad networks, that may mean cutting ties with previously profitable publisher and advertiser partners until they clean up their acts in relation to fraud. It also means both advertisers and publishers need to be diligent about sharing data for fraud-fighting efforts and cutting ties with known fraudulent parties. Everyone in the ecosystem has a role to play.

It’s also not a one and done investment nor is it cheap, as fighting fraud continuously requires constant vigilance and significant resources. But, through these actions, ad networks can better guarantee ROI along with a more trustworthy and effective digital ad ecosystem.

To learn more about InMobi’s efforts to fight fraud and ensure greater trust, visit inmobi.com/trust.

In our latest Whiteboard Wednesday video, Andrew Gerhart, our VP of Publisher Platforms, highlights the limitations of standard waterfall metrics and how unified auctions provide you with a more complete picture of your monetization ecosystem. Not only do unified auctions yield higher CPMs and improve user experience, but they give you a wider and deeper view of your monetization landscape!

Video Transcript:

Welcome to another Whiteboard Wednesday. My name is Andrew Gerhart. I’m the VP of Publisher Platforms at InMobi. Today we're gonna be talking about metrics, the lifeblood of ad monetization. And the importance of transparent metrics versus standard metrics.

So, to start, let's take a look at the standard ad call. You start off, the app makes a call to the SDK, the SDK makes a call to the ad server. Different platforms label this differently. It could be an ad opportunity. It could be an ad request. At InMobi, we call it an auction. So now we have one auction. Depending on the way that the buyer is integrated, where it’s server-to-server, TAG or SDK, where the buyer is called from will vary. But either the ad server or the SDK makes the call to the buyer. So with a standard waterfall model, one ad calls the buyer, and now we have an ad request.

Let's assume, because things don’t always work perfectly, that the buyer doesn't return an ad or something doesn’t happen, and now we don’t have anything there. The waterfall model will go down to the next buyer and make another ad request. So now we now have two ad requests.

Let’s assume that they return an ad. We don’t have anything logged here, so we don’t have another event. The ad is sent back to the SDK, back to the device, we try to serve the ad. Unfortunately, the SDK times out. So then we go back to the waterfall, we go to buyer #3. Again we have an ad request. That ad is sent back to the ad server, back to the SDK, back to the app. We attempt to serve that ad again. Luckily now, we serve that ad, and we have a delivered impression.

Because we have an impression, we can calculate our fill rate, we can calculate our revenue, and we can calculate our eCPM. Unfortunately, most platforms do not highlight the issues that happen with failures and timeouts. We can’t see if there were any other bids, bid prices, wins, win prices, timeouts and failures to show, and because we don’t know who bid within the waterfall of the auction, we can’t calculate our use rate. And so you see, we’re running blind with regards to our monetization stack.

Now, let’s take a look at what transparent metrics look like. Same ad call, so the app makes a call to the SDK, the SDK makes a call to the ad server, and so we have an auction. Now, with InMobi’s unified auction, an ad call is made to all buyers. And so now we have multiple ad requests going out to the buyers in the auction.

Unfortunately, buyer one in the same scenario has a connection error, and so now we have a pre-bid failure. They didn’t get to bid within the auction because they timed out, and so now we know what happened with that particular buyer, so now we can have an informed conversation with that buyer and resolve the issues. So they’re out.

Luckily, buyer 2, 3 and 4 all return a bid. Now we have three bids as a result of this auction. Along with those bids, we know the CPM, we know their bid prices. Now we can see the bid landscape for the buyer’s we’re working with.

But, three buyers or three ads can’t serve, so the ad server needs to do some work to determine the highest paying ad based on the logic that the publisher has set, as well as the ad server has set. And so now we have to choose a buyer, we have to choose a winner. Now we have one win, and now we know the win price. This becomes important in having conversations with your buyers around CPMs, bid pricing, and how to get them to increase their price in serving ads. So, we now have one winner.

Let’s assume that buyer #3 won the auction based on having the highest CPM. That ad is sent back to the device, but unfortunately, similar to scenario #1, it times out. Now, we have a failure to show, what we logged out of that. And, we fail over to the next highest bidding ad. So now we go to buyer #4. Buyer #4 serves the impression, and now we can calculate our fill rate, and we can also calculate our use rate, revenue and CPM.

You’ll see here there’s a distinct difference between the standard metrics that are found in most mediation and ad serving platforms, and the transparent metrics that are found within auctions and InMobi’s unified auction.

Really, really important to dive deeper into complex monetization stacks. At scale, publishers are working with lots of third-party technologies, networks, exchanges, tags, SDKs, and so it’s really important to have great insights into what’s happening so that you can diagnose and grow your revenue.

Thank you for your time, and we’ll see you next week.

Recently, mobile marketing news outlet Lovely Mobile News embarked on an effort to find the very best campaigns from 2017, and to highlight the top players in mobile marketing today to show what mobile marketing done right looks like. We are very honored that two campaigns we were involved with last year won coveted Gold awards, and another was awarded Silver!

Gold: Lovely Use of Location

In one of the Gold campaigns, we were working with Leo Burnett and Starcom to help Samsung Poland deliver highly targeted ads to smartphone enthusiasts. As part of this effort, ads highlighting the waterproof nature of the Samsung Galaxy S7 were displayed whenever it was raining by where the person was, or ads about the device’s battery and charging capabilities were shown when someone’s own smartphone battery was low. Smartphone enthusiasts even received this kind of messaging when taking pictures in low light or when they were running low on available memory.

Through this kind of highly targeted and personalized advertising, the team reached 600,000 smartphone enthusiasts. While average click-through rates (CTRs) for the campaign were around 3.74 percent, they reached over 8 percent at one point. In totals, the ads within the campaign had an interaction rate of 6.67 percent.

Gold: Lovely Use of 360-Degree Content

In our other Gold-level campaign, we worked again with Samsung and Starcom, but this time to promote Samsung’s partnership with the X Games and the capabilities of their Gear VR headset.

During the lead-up to the 2017 X Games, targeted personas (extreme sports fans, VR enthusiasts, and those between 18 and 34 that were interested in sports and technology generally) in the UK saw 360-degree interstitial ads introducing some of the participants. The creatives allowed people to tilt their phones to follow the action on screen.

The second phase featured a similar style of ad and targeted similar demographics, but the creatives this time around featured highlights from the games, giving people a brief look at what videos look like when wearing the Gear VR headset.

The campaign was a resounding success. During the first phase, ad completion rates were 140 percent higher than what we see with our typical in-app ad campaigns. Completion rates were even higher in phase two: 380 percent better than average, in fact. In total, 350,000 people in the UK saw one of the ads.

Want to learn more about all of the winning campaigns from 2017? Go to lovelymobile.news/the-lovely-mobile-report-rankings-awards-2018 to check out videos on and read more about all of the Gold-winning efforts.

Lovely Mobile Leaders 2018

Not only were our campaigns honored by Lovely Mobile News, but so was one of our key staffers. James Farndale, our Creative Director, was one of the 20 people noted by the news source as one of the top movers and shakers in the space.

Specifically, Lovely Mobile News noted that Farndale “helps to push the boundaries of creative and strategic communication on mobile devices.” Considering this list includes CEOs, co-founders, and features people from the world’s biggest companies, having James listed with such luminaries is a big honor!

To learn more about Farndale and the rest of the list, go to: lovelymobile.news/the-lovely-mobile-leaders-of-2018.

While we’re honored to be honored by Lovely Mobile News, we’re committed to continually pushing the boundaries and moving the mobile advertising and marketing industry forward. Stay tuned to Lovely Mobile News’s 2019 awards!

Interested in learning more about what we’re up to in 2018? If you’re attending iCEE.fest next week, be sure to check out the sessions featuring Madeleine Beyer, our European Strategic Sales and Partner Manager, and Lucjan Exner, our Head of Sales CEE & CIS. Lucjan is part of panels on June 15 at 12:30pm on how to generate more sales and at 4:15pm on maximizing publisher revenues, while Madeleine is co-leading a workshop on June 14 with Lucjan on The Mobile World.

KEEP READING

Advertisers

This may seem like a self-explanatory term, but let’s define it just to be sure. The “advertisers” or “brands” are one end of the mobile advertising technology landscape, and more of them are starting to turn to mobile to find and effectively reach their buyers. They’re looking to leverage geolocation, device ID (ADID) and other similar parameters a publisher can pass back to them to find the right user in the right place at the right time.

Media Agencies

Media agencies are companies dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients. They typically decide whether to purchase inventory from one of three providers:

1. Publishers - those hosting app or websites.
2. Ad Networks - this is a company that has exclusive rights to sell the inventory from a specific group of publishers.
3. Ad Exchanges - this is a programmatic buying marketplace where inventory is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The media agency can choose to implement additional layers of reporting and verification tech to their campaigns. For instance, an ad server is a technology platform that can host and serve display ads, along with providing reporting and other important campaign analytics.

Most often, an agency will run their ads through an ad server in order to have an additional party tracking the reporting numbers. Running campaigns this way allows the media agency to have two sets of servers tracking impressions (the first being the publishers metrics) and clicks, which is an additional layer of verification and is safer than simply relying on the publisher’s numbers alone.

Ad Servers

This is a technology platform that hosts and serves display ads while also providing important campaign metrics and analytics. The ad server hosts the creative ad formats and acts as a delivery engine to display the correct ad when a user visits the publishers’ site or mobile app.

The ad server consolidates impressions and clicks (among other important campaign analytics) in one place and separates data by media partners. This allows media agencies to accurately monitor pacing and easily compare the performance of different vendors. There are some ad servers that can provide in-depth campaign analytics like engagement metrics and conversion reporting as well.

DCOs (Dynamic Creative Optimizers)

A Dynamic Creative Optimization company improves an advertiser’s creative performance by enhancing the ad unit’s features. A DCO company will often serve the creative, then layer on rich media-like functionality and allow for dynamic messaging. For example, some DCOs offer solutions to create dynamic ads with layered features like videos, maps and carousel galleries.

Trading Desks

These are specialized media buying groups that most commonly work for (or within) an ad agency. They’ll either use proprietary technology or a Demand Side Platform (DSP) to buy and optimize media campaigns on ad exchanges, ad networks and other available inventory sources they are connected with. For example, XAXIS optimizes media buying for WPP (a very large agency) and Vivaki optimizes media buying for Publicis Groupe.

Interestingly, a trading desk can either use its own tech (and act like a DSP) or leverage multiple DSPs to buy media for a campaign. They could also layer on an ad server to offer an additional layer of tracking and analytics for their campaigns.

Verification Tech

Verification services add an additional layer of tech to each ad campaign. The purpose is to give the advertiser a deeper look into how their campaign is performing.

The additional information an advertiser gains using a verification service would include things like:

• The percent of ads displayed that were viewable to the end user.
• What specific websites/apps the ad ran on.
• If the ad unit was displayed correctly.
• If the ad unit was placed next to questionable content.

Verification services will send a media agency a snippet of code that will be appended to ad units on the ad server. The snippet of code will fire every time the ad unit is displayed. It then sends the verification company the details it collects in the process. Ultimately, the verification company will assemble the data into a report and send it back to the media agency or advertiser. This information allows the agency to make decisions on which publisher, network or exchange is the best fit for their next campaign.

Measurement Tech

These companies provide their clients with additional campaign analytics and insights that go beyond what’s available from the ad server. The data allows advertisers to better predict and understand consumer behavior to make decisions that lead to more revenue.

For example, a company like MetaMarkets can provide real-time analytics and act as a data intelligence layer for advertisers. It can query billions of records per second and plug directly into each campaign’s data stream. It’s also able to highlight key metrics and optimizations in real time from multiple sources with almost no lag time.

Retargeting

Retargeting is an online advertising strategy where an advertisement will be displayed to users based on the actions the user has recently made on the web. Retargeting companies will often sit between multiple ad exchanges, giving them access to use their proprietary software to buy inventory on the exchange and act like a DSP. Retargeting companies can also leverage user activity data collected from client websites to track and retarget a user who has visited a certain page on the site.

A DMP can also be leveraged by a retargeting company to provide additional information like a user’s offline purchase activity. This could allow the retargeting company to serve ads dynamically based on in-store purchase data, for example.

DSPs (Demand Side Platforms)

A DSP is an online platform that gives advertisers the ability to easily buy display ads on ad exchanges, ad networks and other available inventory sources they are connected with.

A DSP is an extremely popular buying platform because it enables advertisers to buy from a wide selection of inventory, optimize their campaign performance and view reporting analytics from a central interface.

From time to time, a DSP can be used for real-time bidding (RTB). This gives advertisers the ability to buy media across multiple ad exchanges. DSPs also often centralize ad bidding and reporting to one interface.

For example, ad exchanges like DoubleClick by Google and OpenX are both marketplaces for advertisers to bid and auction for available ad inventory from publishers. In this case, the DSP would have access to allow users to bid on the inventory available across both exchanges.

Also, a DSP will often allow the advertisers to plug in data collected by a third party (like a DMP). This data can be leveraged to create a target audience and better optimize campaign performance.

DMPs (Data Management Platform)

This technology collects, stores and packages the consumer data it receives from various data suppliers. These companies then make these packages of data available to various ad tech partners. The data is ultimately used to create targeted audience profiles and optimize campaign performance.

Data Suppliers

These companies collect, compile and sell online and offline consumer data. Some data these companies collect include:

• Geographic information
• Household income
• Lifestyle preferences
• Shopping behaviors

These data suppliers will often sell information to DMPs. Then the DMP will package the information and make it readily available for other ad tech companies to use.

Ad Exchanges

This is a technology platform that helps facilitate the programmatic purchase and sale of ad inventory. Simply, an ad exchange is a facilitator that makes buying and selling ad inventory programmatic and more efficient, most often by selling ads across the exchange through RTB.

When a DSP accesses inventory available on the ad exchange, the supply side platform will provide the inventory available on the exchange. Ultimately, an ad exchange can increase the inventory available by either accessing multiple SSPs or multiple ad networks.

From time to time, larger companies with a network of publishers under one umbrella company will create their own ad exchange, allowing inventory from its own network of sites to be available for purchase.

Ad Networks

Ad networks are companies that have exclusive rights to sell inventory from a specific group of publishers. Typically, these are packaged with publishers that have the same demographic of consumers and targeted audience sets. The ad network will often pre-buy this inventory from publishers, package it up and then resell to an advertiser for a profit. This means advertisers won’t bid on inventory, instead purchasing inventory on a fixed CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) basis.

There are two types of networks, a “Vertical Network” and a “Horizontal Network”:

Vertical Networks

This means the vendor is 100% transparent about the inventory being purchased and the sites the advertiser is running on for the campaign. Typically, running a campaign on a vertical network will come at premium price but will be a higher quality and generally offer better performance.

Horizontal Networks

This means the network is less than or not transparent about the inventory being purchased or the sites the advertiser will be running on. It’s a lot like running a blind campaign. These networks will run an advertiser’s campaign on inventory that is both pre-purchased and a mix of demographically targeted sites they’ll bid on from the ad exchange. Performance will vary depending on the quality of sites they have pre-purchased inventory from and the ad exchanges it accesses, as well as the data available to the network via a DMP. While these are less expensive than Vertical Networks, the risk is lower quality campaigns.

SSPs (Supply Side Platforms)

A Supply Side Platform is a technology platform that makes it easier for a publisher to manage and sell its inventory on multiple ad exchanges and ad networks. The SSP is where the publisher would set the price and audience type of its inventory, in an attempt to optimize its revenue yield. The SSP is where a publisher can sell its inventory across multiple ad exchanges and ad networks through ad mediation.

Once the publisher makes inventory available through the SSP, it can set different preferences such as:

• Price floor
• Who it wants the inventory bought by
• The type of ads it wants displayed on the app or site

The SSP’s job is to optimize selling pricing, maintain the quality of advertisements and extend the buyer’s reach.

Publishers (Mobile and Desktop)

In the advertising landscape, a publisher is the one with the eyes and the users. Publishers are websites and mobile apps that earn revenue from advertiser dollars. The more efficient a publisher is with its advertising stack, the more likely it is to earn more revenue.

We hope you found this helpful! Are there any other terms you’d like us to define here? If so, please let us know in the comments below.

Despite the lingering issues and worries, programmatic - when done right - has a lot of advantages in the trust and transparency department. The key point here is, as always, when done right. As programmatic has grown, many unsavory players have entered the market and sullied its once good name. When it comes to programmatic, it pays to do your due diligence. A good partner, however, should offer you these four key reassurances:

1) Trustworthy Data-Led Insights for Advertisers

As the old saying goes, knowledge is power. Even its detractors will admit that programmatic offers a trove of information and insights. While some may dispute some of the data they receive from programmatic partners, legacy advertising options like newspaper print ads, billboards and television spots are fraught with measurement difficulties too. The immediacy and volume of programmatic provides a potential treasure trove of data to analyze, which brands can use to fine tune and perfect their ad offerings - so long as the most impactful metrics are being measured.

The insights that brands can glean through programmatic can help them better talk to - and ultimately reach - their target audience. A recent global poll conducted by Rakuten Marketing found that 83 percent of respondents viewed online advertising as disruptive, and 43 percent of those polled in the United States have had bad online ad experiences. But, despite this, seven out of 10 said online ads can be valuable when they are aligned with individual interests, and one in five said these kinds of ads can be useful for e-commerce buying.

Programmatic, as opposed to more shotgun-style “spray and pray” ad approaches, can help brands be smarter and more thoughtful with how they are talking to their target audiences, which goes a long way towards improving the trustworthiness of online advertising.

2) Independent Measurement Verifications Available

For some brands and publishers, the immediacy of a direct relationship can seem appealing and potentially more trustworthy. But, in such situations, how can you really trust the other party? How do you avoid a “he said, she said” situation, especially when something goes awry?

Many in the programmatic space have been especially proactive in addressing these kinds of concerns, actively pursuing third-party partnerships in the form of deep product integrations to help ensure the veracity and effectiveness of any programmatic-related spend. This provides peace of mind not often present in direct ad buys.

Industry groups have gone one step further here as well, establishing protocols designed to further ensure the trustworthiness of online advertising efforts. In particular, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) have undertaken significant actions in this regard.

• IAB: In May 2017, the IAB officially rolled out its Ads.txt initiative, which they succinctly described as “a public record of Authorized Digital Sellers.” This text file database, which aims to provide greater transparency and oversight, has been rapidly adopted. Between September 2017 and late February 2018, the percentage of the top 5,000 websites using Ads.txt went from less than 9 percent to 51 percent, according to eMarketer.
• TAG: The many industry parties that make up TAG have taken significant steps to reduce fraud and other similar issues across the board. Studies from 2017 showed these efforts beginning to come to fruition. One found that TAG-certified channels had 83 percent less fraud versus industry averages, while another showed that industry efforts had successfully reduced revenues from piracy by as much as 61 percent.

3) Well Suited for Accurate Retargeting

If you own a smartphone, odds are good that you spend the equivalent of more than five hours a day looking at this screen. Mobile device usage increased 6 percent between 2016 and last year, with half of all time spent on a smartphone dedicated to apps.

How do brands reach their target audiences on mobile? In-app mobile advertising is definitely a good start, but it’s important to note the fragmented nature of mobile audiences. After all, adults in the U.S. use 25 apps on average in a given month. How can brands make sure they are talking to their target market in a consistent and unified manner across all apps?

Enter retargeting. When done right, it helps advertisers to more consistently talk to the people they want to be communicating with regardless of the app used. Programmatic, especially when supported through machine learning, provides the technical backbone brands need to trust retargeting.

4) Less Prone to Human Error

Humans make mistakes. Worst of all, many of us don’t learn from our mistakes. While programmatic may not be perfect, neither are humans. Someone could include a crucial error in an ad buying form, place an ad in a bad location, include the wrong text in ad copy - the list goes on. The automation inherent in programmatic goes a long way towards reducing the errors that can and often do plague legacy, manual ad efforts.

Plus, as self-service platforms gain greater steam, in-house teams can more easily manage bids, ad placements, etc. This helps to ensure that any potential errors that can stem from including various middlemen in the mix - no need to play “Telephone” with mobile ad efforts!

Why Programmatic is Inherently Trustworthy (When Done Right)

Thus far, despite the concerns related to programmatic, brands and publishers have embraced the technology and its benefits. Agencies and brands are expected to spend more than $46 billion on programmatic in 2018, according to eMarketer, $10 billion more than what was spent in 2017. Further, over 82 percent of all display ads will be bought and displayed programmatically by the end of this year. So far, nothing else really comes close to the scale and automated efficiency baked into programmatic, which helps to explain why investment in programmatic ad buying and placement is on the rise even with the alarmist headlines.

Concerns haven’t dampered enthusiasm on the publisher side either. A Digiday survey conducted earlier in 2018 found that around 50 percent of publishers didn’t think concerns related to brand safety affected their ability to push ads. Only one in five thought such issues affected their monetization efforts.

CMOs are right to be cautious, especially in today’s environment. But, that caution shouldn’t prevent them from utilizing programmatic and reaping its many benefits. Programmatic is for more than just cheap inventory, and it yields the best results when it’s done as a primary tactic and not as an afterthought. Plus, as new technologies like machine learning and blockchain become more widely utilized, the potential drawbacks of programmatic will further dissipate.

“I believe that very soon marketers and brands will accumulate enough knowledge to solve all transparency issues,” George Levin, GetIntent Co-founder and CEO, wrote recently in MarTech Advisor. “The better we understand the programmatic ecosystem behind the hood, the more questions we have. Sooner or later, all these questions will be answered.”

Here at InMobi, we’re always hard at work building and earning your trust. Be sure to check out inmobi.com/trust to learn more about all the ways we ensure honest advertising and how we can help.

To find out, we recently co-hosted a panel with Leanplum featuring IMVU and SmartNews at The Sequoia in San Francisco. It was a fun and insightful event, bringing together some of the brightest minds in the mobile advertising and marketing space. Here are our top six takeaways from the event:

1) Use data wisely to support user engagement

Lomit Patel, VP of Growth at IMVU and one of the evening’s featured speakers, defines mobile CRM as the “hooks” that ensure people are actually engaged and interested in your product and service. The data you have should help you better understand your customers and what they care about. In addition, extensive A/B testing allows you to fine tune your data and gain an ever deeper understanding of your customer base.

2) Don’t let acquisition distract from retention

Many marketers can get really bogged down in user growth, focusing heavily on acquisition. But what good is that if all the people you acquire aren’t using your app? It was sobering to hear that only around one in four people open an app more than once, and just two percent of everyone who downloads an app will still be using it 90 days later.

3) Be smart about casting a wide net for potential new customers

While the time people spend in apps is growing dramatically, a small handful of apps - think Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. - have come to dominate the market. However, reaching out to people through these big players only is not ideal, noted Beatrice Olivas, InMobi’s VP of North America Sales. Casting a wide net in terms of number of apps included in ad and marketing campaigns ensures you are touching as many potential customers as possible.

Of course, this should be done intelligently, leveraging data to determine precisely where and how to talk to the right people - and then retargeting them when necessary across apps. In fact, Beatrice noted that three out of every four businesses that tap InMobi to help with user acquisition utilize retargeting.

4) Transparency is key to fighting ad fraud

One of the biggest questions of the night from those in the audience was in relation to fraud. A lot of studies have come out in recent months highlighting problems related to ad fraud. All three panelists were in agreement on how to fight ad fraud today though: Be fully transparent with all players in the ecosystem by pooling together available data to more intelligently spot, fight and move past fraud.

5) Think about what humans actually want and need, and then develop journeys and creatives

In the rush to collect and then pour over data, it can be too easy to forget about the people behind the scenes. What do these humans really want and need, and how do you connect with them in a meaningful way? IMVU’s Lomit Patel noted that the data should be used to create meaningful user journeys that guide people to see your products and services in a clear way that makes sense for them.

For example, Lomit said they use data from Leanplum to optimize in-app engagement. But, if push notifications prove ineffective, then they will retarget these former users with help from InMobi. This kind of partnership highlights how publishers can use data to inform their human-centric practices.

This thinking should extend to creatives too, as the visuals and voiceovers are so critical to the customer journey. Beatrice from InMobi commented that 90 percent of the time, creatives developed for a particular kind of person and for specific formats do better than something out of the box.

6) Align KPIs with business goals

Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, Head of Growth Marketing at SmartNews and another speaker on the panel, recommended being more thoughtful about the key performance indicators tracked. To determine the true impact of an in-app advertising and marketing campaign, he especially recommended tracking return on advertising spend (RoAS) and time spent (engaged with the brand).

“We define success by living up to our company vision to provide the world with quality information,” Nicolas said. “In the U.S., this translates by providing our users with ‘news that matters’ to them. The average time per user/month, and percent of medium-heavy users using us between 75-100 percent in a 28-day period, are our key metrics.”

We had an enjoyable evening at The Sequoia, and a big thanks go out to Leanplum and everyone else who attended, asked great questions and learned tons about the future of mobile marketing and advertising.

Have a question you weren’t able to ask us at the event? Please feel free to drop us a line at inmobi.com/company/contact.

To help clarify matters, we’ve developed this handy list of metaphors to clear things up once and for all.

Mediation = Highway

How do you get from point A to point B? For most of us, you get in a car and drive to where you need to go. Roads and highways facilitate our travels.

Mediation platforms operate on a similar premise, connecting ad networks and their advertisers with app publishers. Like a road, mediation platforms enable all sides to be connected. Mediation, like a highway, serves as the infrastructure bringing these companies together.

To understand how mediation platforms work, it’s good to know why they exist. Most publishers - at least those serious about monetization - leverage the services of multiple ad networks (and their associated pool of advertisers). Some apps will use dozens of networks to fill all of their available ad space among all of their various end users. Mediation platforms provide publishers with a single pane of glass for managing all of their ad network partnerships, and getting ads purchased and placed from a wide array of advertisers. Instead of taking multiple small, local roads, mediation platforms are like a superhighway connecting everyone with greater ease.

Waterfalls = Telemarketing

In political campaigns, representatives have a list of specific people to call to solicit donations. They will go one by one through their list until they meet their goals. Most telemarketing works on a similar basis. The caller has a previously identified list of who to call, and will start with who’s likely to be most lucrative and then goes down the list.

In many ways, waterfalls are quite similar to telemarketing in its singular approach. Under a waterfall methodology, once an app has an ad opportunity, the call goes out to a single ad network to bid on that inventory. If the ad network doesn’t fill or respond with an ad, then another ad network is pinged to retrieve an ad. This process continues until an ad is found, all ad networks in the waterfall are exhausted or the user navigates away.

Header Bidding = Sotheby’s

Like telemarketing, waterfalls have become increasingly problematic. Many publishers now want to move away from waterfalls due to concerns related to price, speed and opportunity cost. In light of these issues, header bidding has been proposed as an alternative.

But what is header bidding exactly? Essentially, as soon as the header of a webpage is opened, all of the page’s ad inventory is made available for programmatic ad partners to bid on via a simultaneous call. For apps, this all occurs once it is first launched.

While header bidding definitely has its perks, it’s far from perfect. In particular, it typically involves only a small part of a publisher’s overall ad partners network. Exclusivity is fine for a swanky nightclub, but it can be less than ideal for app monetization - especially if well-paying networks and advertisers are on the outside looking in.

In this way, header bidding is a lot like an auction at an auction house like Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Sure, the highest bidder wins the auction, but who gets to participate? The exclusivity of such an event means that people potentially willing to pay even more for particular items don’t even get their foot in the door.

Unified Auctions = eBay

In comparison to a more exclusive auction, transactions on websites like eBay are far more inclusive. Anyone in the world with internet access can participate in an eBay auction. This is great for anyone looking to sell their wares to the highest bidder, as more inclusive auctions ensure the best price always wins.

This is the core premise behind unified auctions. They are truly open auctions, in which everyone competes for all ad placements all at the same time. This format ensures that the highest price always wins out, and that ad transactions happen in mere milliseconds.

To learn more about unified auctions and how it all works, be sure to check out our latest video on the subject:

To the average publisher, a user is worth around $10. For Facebook, however, the figure is around $296. No wonder less than 0.01 percent of consumer apps are financially successful.

So what’s the solution? How can apps go from zeroes to heroes? For many, the answer to their monetization woes may be Unified Auctions.

What is a Unified Auction?

In a Unified Auction, all ad networks (and their associated advertisers) are given the opportunity to bid on an app’s available inventory all at the same time. No one network gets preferential treatment, and typically the highest bid wins. As soon as an app is opened, all networks are notified of ad placement availability and all of them bid in real time.

Here’s another way to think about it: An auction at an auction house is a closed auction, while one occurring on a site like eBay is an open auction. At Sotheby’s or Christie’s, only a small number of people may know about a particular auction and would likely be invited to participate. In contrast, anyone in the world with internet access can participate in an open auction; there’s no need for invites with eBay.

Why are Unified Auctions Beneficial?

Before we go into the benefits of Unified Auctions, it’s helpful to consider the current state of affairs. For the vast majority of apps today, that means waterfalls.

Waterfalls describe the linear queues many publishers use to fill ad space. In such a system, one ad network is given the opportunity to bid on all available inventory. Anything they don’t take is offered to another ad network. This back and forth continues until all ad network partners have been given a bidding opportunity or until all inventory is accounted for. While it’s up to apps to determine the order for their waterfall, it’s often based on which network historically offered the highest prices.

In comparison to waterfalls, Unified Auctions offer a few key benefits:

• In a Unified Auction, ad placements can be filled in milliseconds. Under a waterfall, while it takes just milliseconds to communicate with one ad network, the time can add up if multiple ad networks are pinged before all inventory is accounted for. As attention spans get shorter, speed is of the essence. Mere milliseconds can mean the difference between a memorable ad experience and a missed opportunity.
• Because the order of most waterfalls is based on historical pricing, ad networks that may be able to offer more in real time can be passed over. For example, a network that offered $3 per CPM yesterday may be able to offer $9 today. But, because they offered $3 yesterday, another network - one that offers $5 per CPM both yesterday and today - will be given first priority. In contrast, however, a Unified Auction ensures that the highest bidder always wins out.
• Unified auctions ensure everyone gets to see all inventory. In a waterfall, while the first few networks in the stack view all or most of it, those towards the middle or bottom only see remnant inventory. A more open system means bids win based on their strength, not on pre-determined stack orders.

Are Unified Auctions Synonymous with Header Bidding?

It’s important to note also how Unified Auctions differ from header bidding - at least in regards to how header bidding has been frequently put in place in app environments. While header bidding offers benefits over a waterfall, it’s often less effective than a truly Unified Auction.

Too often, in-app header bidding only includes a select number of advertisers or ad networks, typically those bidding programmatically. Under these arrangements, while a simultaneous ad call does goes out, its results are then inserted into a waterfall with the non-programmatic players. This kind of header bidding configuration has a few key downsides:

• Apps need to have two SDKs in place: one for header bidding and another for the non-programmatic partners.
• Programmatic participants get a first look at all inventory without having to pay a premium.
• Header bidding, at least how it’s been implemented commonly at the app level, doesn’t eliminate the waterfall, which means the downsides of the waterfall are still there.

Do Unified Auctions Represent the Future of App Monetization?

We think so! Only unified auctions eliminate the concerns that stem from waterfalls related to price, speed and opportunity cost. Common in-app header bidding options are better, but don’t go all the way in solving app monetization problems. By quickly opening up all inventory and ensuring that the highest bidder always wins, Unified Auctions are the ideal option for app developers.

This year, the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for 2018 includes InMobi. Now in its 10th year, InMobi has continued its investment and commitment towards innovation and quality with a mission to deliver next-generation technology to disrupt the mobile advertising and marketing industry.

“We’re honored to be featured on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 List as this further validates InMobi’s mission to disrupt the mobile advertising and marketing industry through innovation,” said Naveen Tewari, Founder & CEO at InMobi. “InMobi is revolutionizing the adtech and martech industry through our initiatives in artificial intelligence and machine learning, which sit at the company’s core. Innovation and transparency isn’t something that can be done once - it constantly evolves over time through advances in technology and we embed this into the heart of everything we do.”

Advertising technology is in a transformative phase right now. InMobi has been disrupting adtech and martech in part through our commitment to trust. We believe in, and facilitate, honest advertising through radical transparency, industry-leading quality and verifiable and trustworthy measurement. As the landscape grows and as consolidation continues apace, our position as one of CNBC’s 50 Most Disruptive Companies in the world puts us in prime position to lead our industry and set lasting trends.

To learn more about CNBC’s methodology and selection process, and to see who else made the list this year, check out CNBC.com/disruptors.

It’s always great to be honored like this, but we’re not spending too much time patting ourselves on the back. As the mobile marketing and advertising space evolves, and as threats emerge and mature, we’re committed to bettering ourselves, our products and our services. Like a superhero, our work is never done.

But, how can you make sure people are actually watching and interacting with your in-app ads?

In particular, ad fraud related to invalid traffic (i.e. non-human traffic, like from bots) is on the rise. Brands lost approximately $6.5 billion from this kind of fraud in 2017 alone.

In light of this, how can advertisers be sure their video ads are seen by their target audience? The answer lies in using the right partners - ones that are committed to fighting fraud and ensuring quality ad views.

This is an area we’ve long been passionate about, and the numbers prove it. Compared to the benchmark figures from trusted third parties like Moat and IAS, we’re well ahead of the curve.

InMobi vs. Moat:

Q2 2018 Valid and Viewable Rate

• Moat: 59.9 percent
• InMobi: 83.37 percent

Q2 2018 IVT Rate

• Moat: 0.5 percent
• InMobi: 0.09 percent

InMobi vs. IAS:

Q2 Viewable Rate

• IAS: 49 percent
• InMobi: 72 percent

And, in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2018, InMobi's valid and viewable rate was, according to Moat, 72.5 percent for display and 89 percent for video.

According to IAS, our viewable rate for was 67 percent for display and 93 percent for video in the U.S. during the same time frame. In Q2 2018, InMobi's total viewable rate globally was 72 percent.

In today’s era of ad fraud and rising brand safety concerns, we know trust is earned and built. That’s why we’re committed to earning it through radical transparency, industry-leading quality and verifiable metrics and measurements. To learn more about our efforts and how they help advertisers see huge ROI from their mobile video investments, check out inmobi.com/trust.

So where does all this leave the industry? For those that have always had a commitment to honest and trustworthy advertising, it means doubling down on the long-standing practices that do right by publishers, advertisers and end users.

The mobile ad players committed to the Right Way of doing things focus on these three tenets:

1) Transparency

It’s hard to trust what you don’t know. Mobile advertising is far more than just point A (advertisers) and point B (apps/websites). The machinations going on behind the scenes connecting brands with publishers can appear opaque, which sometimes breaks down trust. A December 2017 report from AppsFlyer and Forrester found that 15 percent of digital marketers didn’t know about all of the programmatic players involved in getting their ads displayed.

These transparency issues have especially come to the fore over the past 12 months, with advertisers shocked to find their spots on highly political websites or next to objectionable user-created content. According to the Forrester/AppsFlyer study, 33 percent of mobile marketers said they lacked visibility in where their ads ended up online, especially when buying programmatically. And when it comes to addressing issues of brand safety, more than one in three brand marketers surveyed by Digiday put the onus on agencies and/or vendors.

There’s a reason kids are often afraid of the dark: you don’t trust what you can’t see. A good mobile ad partner always remains transparent with its partners regarding how their processes and technology work, and who else is involved in processes.

2) Quality

Advertisers want to be sure their ads are effectively delivered to the right people, while publishers want to be sure only reputable ads appear on their apps. Unfortunately, this is sometimes much easier said than done.

In particular, rising mobile ad fraud prevents advertisers from trusting the results/metrics they receive from publishers and third-party ad tech partners. Juniper Research, in a September 2017 report, predicted advertisers to lose $19 billion to ad fraud in 2018, the equivalent of $51 million a day. Further, another study from eMarketer found that close to half of respondents worried about fraud specifically within video ad networks.

While the specific concerns surrounding quality in mobile ad-related transactions may be new, worries about fraud in advertising are far from it. As long as there’s a system to exploit, nefarious characters will look to exploit it.

But, instead of shying away from this hard truth, a quality ad tech partner tackles these challenges head-on. Mobile marketers and app publishers must be sure to only work with organizations proactively fighting fraud and ensuring better ad quality. Before signing a contract with a potential partner, check to see if they continue to release products and services designed to improve quality, and if they work closely with reputable independent quality assurance organizations like the Trustworthy Accountability Group.

3) Measurement

If a potential partner offered you 5X results, how would you react?

1. That sounds great! I’ll sign up immediately no questions asked!
2. This sounds too good to be true - prove it.

Hopefully, you answered B. Good partners show results with data that is easy to verify and measure. Unfortunately, not every mobile ad player out there today agrees.

"Social networks are notorious for operating as ‘Walled Gardens’ which follow their own rules when it comes to reporting on usage data and makes it very difficult to measure cross platform campaigns that have touchpoints in social,” the Forrester/AppsFlyer report noted. “When visibility is lost, the door is opened for fraudsters to operate in between the cracks of the data as consumers jump from social network to other apps or the app stores."

A good partner not only provides a plethora of data, but also works with trustworthy third parties that can vouch for the accuracy and veracity of the data provided. Verifiable measurements ensure that all sides are on the page and are genuinely committed to transparency and trustworthiness.

Good mobile ad partners are committed to transparency, quality and measurement. To learn more about InMobi’s continued dedication to trustworthy and honest advertising, visit inmobi.com/trust.

Below are seven reasons why the time to pay attention to mobile ad mediation is now:

1. Dealing With All Parties Within A Complex Landscape is a Waste of Time

The ever-changing, overly complex advertising landscape is intense and full of different players, ranging from advertisers, media agencies, trading desks, DSPs, ad networks, SSPs and publishers, just to name a few. Savvy mobile publishers don’t navigate the ad tech landscape alone. Instead, they rely on the expertise of the mediation platform in their tech stack to help them increase revenue and stay focused on building/creating great mobile apps and content. This web shows the real complexity of the industry today:

2. More Bids with Less Work

Mediation is the key to unlocking more bids for your mobile ad inventory. A platform that connects to multiple networks can bring you more buyers in an auction. What’s more, you can further increase your revenue yield by working with partners that offer mobile header bidding solutions to drive incremental revenue to your bottom line.

3. Many Networks, Many Offerings

Each ad network is unique and offers different value to publishers. By leveraging a mediation platform, you can find networks that specialize in countries outside of the U.S. or those that focus purely on video or native ads. Inevitably there will be networks that earn you better fill rates, while others provide higher eCPMs. The right blend of networks can be found on a good mediation platform.

4. Less SDK Bloat

The best mobile mediation platforms help streamline the integration process by removing the need for multiple SDKs from multiple networks. For instance, you can find a platform that offers a bundler to compile one SDK for your mobile app, granting you access to each network you’ve selected, thereby scaling the reach of your inventory.

5. Mediation Optimizes Key Data

Mobile ad mediation platforms help optimize ad network data such as response time, fill rates, eCPMs and CTRs. These metrics are then mapped back to filters such as region, app type and device type in real time, helping mobile app developers find the most relevant and high paying ads for their inventory.

6. Advanced Waterfall Management

Traditional mobile mediation platforms use a “waterfall” to help publishers optimize their ad networks. This system allows publishers to prioritize the networks bidding for the inventory according to their potential revenue yield, or because they have a special relationship with a network granting them “first look” on all bid requests. The issue with a standard waterfall is that all the advertisers don’t get a chance to bid in the auction - as soon as a winner is selected, the bid requests stop. There are advanced ways to manage your waterfall, but many platforms give publishers the ability to take a “hands-off” approach through features that auto optimize the waterfall based on your goals like CPM, fill rate, etc.

7. Centralized Reporting

The great thing about using a mobile ad mediation platform is that all of your networks can be managed in one place. This also means all of your revenue reporting and performance can be seen in one place. The best monetization professionals rely heavily on their dashboards and look for trends to optimize their revenue performance. With a single dashboard, publishers can see how each network is performing and stay on top of their earnings.

What’s Next for Mobile Ad Mediation?

There are so many advanced techniques for managing auctions for mobile inventory available today. For instance, there are specific mediation platforms that give publishers the ability to call all networks simultaneously and give each a chance to pass back dynamic pricing. When all the networks are called simultaneously, the publisher is essentially inviting everyone to the auction at the same time. This increases the chances for the publisher to earn more revenue and gives the advertisers a fair shot at the inventory.

But first, let’s be sure you have a clear understanding of mediation.

What is mobile ad mediation?

We define mobile ad mediation as: “A mediation platform allows app owners to connect, manage and optimize multiple ad networks from a central location through one integration to their app.”

Sounds simple, right? That’s because (shameless plug) with our platform, it is. All you need to do is add your app to our platform, select which of the 44+ networks you want to be integrated to your app, and download a pre-packaged integration kit. From there, you’ll be backed with world-class support and documentation (something the other guys don’t offer) and be on your way to more revenue.

But, that’s enough about us.

Here is a list of 16 mediation questions you need to answer before getting started.

1. What partners are available?
2. Can we control our waterfall/auction?
3. Do I have to maintain a waterfall?
4. How does the integration process work?
5. Do you maintain the integration for each partner or do you update adapter or integrations each time an ad network updates their SDK?
6. Do your partners offer all the ad formats and geographies?
7. Will adding mediation partners increase the size of my apps?
8. Does adding more partners increase latency in my apps?
9. What differentiates this platform from other mediation platforms available?
10. How does payment work for all the partners I work with?
11. How many partners should I work with?
12. Do you offer managed mediation services?
13. Do I have to update CPMs frequently (similar to other mediation platforms)?
14. Which networks are good for my geographies and ad formats? Which are performance vs. brand ads?
15. Do S2S connections work with Mobile Web and Desktop?
16. Is your mediation platform for in-app only?

Do you know the answers to all of these questions? No worries if the answer is no - if you’re in that camp, you’re not alone. There’s a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to mediation and what it takes to get started.

Don’t start your mediation journey alone. Contact one of our mediation experts today to learn more about its capabilities and to have all of your questions answers.

As the app monetization space matures, it pays to know about the latest and greatest. To help you understand the core terms and technologies, we’ve created Everything You Need to Know About Header Bidding and Mediation: Separating Fact from Fiction. This handy guide will walk you through everything you need to know about mediation, waterfalls, header bidding and unified auctions, including what in-app header bidding is and why you should know about it.

Be sure to download the “Everything You Need to Know About Header Bidding: Separating Fact from Fiction” ebook today!

#1 Master Mobile-first Marketing

As smartphones become the primary screen for consumers, mobile is no longer just a part of the marketing strategy. MOBILE IS THE STRATEGY. If you are a marketing decision maker in your organisation, Impressions is your platform to understand and master mobile-first marketing. Request for your invite by clicking here.

#2 Learn from Industry Experts

Impressions brings the most influential minds in mobile, marketing and media in India under one roof. Hear from leaders across brands, agencies and technology companies about the role of mobile in today’s marketing mix and their secret sauce of maximising ROI. The who’s who of digital marketing will be there, so should you!

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Be witness to the latest insights on the top trends in mobile marketing. Deep-dive into the most pressing topics such as data, trust and programmatic in the mobile marketing landscape, and how to make the most of your investment on mobile.

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Impressions 2017 in Jakarta had some unforgettable moments - be it the InMobi experience zone to interact with the most innovative Ad Tech products from InMobi, a robot to emcee the night away or the Impressions swag and memorabilia - we always have surprises stringed up for you. It is only going to get better and bigger as you will witness Impressions across the Delhi and Mumbai chapters. Wanna be a part of the experience? Request for your invite right away!

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Request for your invite now!

It can, so long as it’s done right. The problem is, how in-app header bidding is done by so many players today leaves a lot to be desired. As Chuck D once said, “Don’t believe the hype.”

To help you get to the bottom of the matter, Andrew Gerhart, our VP of Publisher Platforms, walks you through the ins and outs of the options available to publishers today. In this video, Andrew explains the downsides of both waterfalls, the most common monetization approach today, and the current standard approach to in-app header bidding, while also highlighting the myriad benefits of unified ad auctions.

This is our first Whiteboard Wednesday video. Once a month, we’ll be whiteboarding the biggest trends, misnomers, technologies and approaches that publishers should know about. Be sure to stay tuned for the next edition of Whiteboard Wednesday soon!

Instead of relying on old mediation approaches not fit for today’s app publisher realities, go with the best option out there: OpenAuction. Watch the video below to learn more about what OpenAuction is and how it can help you.

Raymund Bautista and a panel of industry experts set the facts straight on fraud

A highlight session of the two-day conference was in a panel on Combating Fraud in 2018 with our very own Raymund Bautista, our Head of Strategic Partnerships, joined by experts from Smule, PLAYSTUDIOS, Digital Turbine and moderated by GSN Games. The panel covered the state of affairs today and discussed how all ecosystem players can help play a part in reducing and fighting fraud.

Raymund’s main takeaway? Collaboration is key. "Put your data sets together to get that complete holistic view of what fraud is," he said.

Great conversations with advertisers and publishers

As one of the biggest mobile marketing events of the year, MAU gave us an opportunity to chat one-on-one with both advertisers and publishers across the industry to discuss their unique needs and challenges. These conversations gave us a lot to think about and we’ll be continuing them throughout the year.

InMobi’s MAU party hosted in the MGM SkyLOFT

InMobi hosted a cocktail party at the MGM Grand SkyLOFT Suites (Fact: it was Barbara Streisand’s suite!) after the main events of the first day. Everyone was chatting, schmoozing and having lots of fun which allowed us all to let our hair down a little. It was great being able to chat in depth with so many people. A big thanks to everyone who came out and for making the event a success!

Lots of learning about how apps are the future

When you have so many smart people in one place, like you do at MAU, you get an amazing opportunity to learn from the best and brightest in the mobile marketing space. Usage of apps is growing, surpassing mobile browser usage, but unfortunately too many brands aren’t taking full advantage of today’s user habits because their customer experiences are too siloed.

Women in Tech Lunch

This year, Irene Herranz, InMobi’s North America Marketing Director, was fortunate enough to be invited to Leanplum’s Women In Tech lunch. We have a great partnership with Leanplum, and it was fantastic being able to attend their event. It was a great opportunity to meet like-minded professionals and to network in a more casual setting. She met with representatives from companies big and small, and heard about many unique technologies.

Dates for MAU 2019 are yet to be confirmed, but we’re already looking forward to it! If you attended MAU 2018, what were your highlights of the event?

• Consumer sentiment is strong but marketers still need to be focused

The buzz around Ramadan shopping is positive this year, with 46% of Indonesians planning to do more Ramadan shopping this year than last! However, 35% of users, are planning to spend less than last year. One of the top reasons for lower spending, cited by these users, was a lack of discounts and offers. Marketers must seize the opportunity to induce these users to spend by driving awareness, at scale, about the discounts and offers that are available this Ramadan season.

• Induce the unsure with impulse buying options

19% of users are still unsure about their shopping plans - marketers have a golden opportunity to tempt these users with impulse buying options. The way to engage these impulse buyers on mobile, is with m-coupons, gamified ads and chatbots.

• Know your top spenders!

Homemakers and millennials are all set to be the top spenders this Ramadan, being conservative shoppers and flamboyant purchasers respectively. It’s important, therefore for advertisers to tailor their mobile strategies to the unique needs of these segments as they behave differently and are therefore, influenced differently, to purchase. Contrary to popular thinking, homemakers are prone to make impulsive and last minute purchases. Homemakers are also highly price sensitive, with 49% citing discounts as the main driver of purchase. Millennials on the other hand intend to make more of larger purchases, spending upwards of IDR 1 million. The demographic, however, is very ad sensitive - with 23% stating that attractive advertising is a key driver of purchase.

• Focus on upstream brand building

When asked about what influences shopping decisions during Ramadan, 43% of users cited brand-related reasons - attractive advertising and having a trusted brand/product is important to them. Marketers should, therefore, ensure that their marketing strategy ensures focus on brand-led advertising and innovative creatives to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of this key chunk of Ramadan shoppers.

• Capitalize on app seasonality

During the season of observance and bonding with family, 37% of Indonesians spend most of their Ramadan time on Ramadan-related apps, pertaining to lifestyle, books and charity. This app category stands neck-to-neck with shopping apps, which 38% of users spend time on.

While the pull from the shoppers this Ramadan is definitely strong, it’s imperative for marketers to have hyper-targeted mobile strategies in place before the Ramadan Rush begins on May 12th, 2018!

While the event is only days away, there’s still time to sign up to attend if you haven’t done so already. If you’re still on the fence, here are the main reasons why we think you should come.

1) It’s the biggest mobile app conference of the year

Few events come close to MAU. This year’s event is expected to have more than 1,700 attendees - 18 percent of whom are CEOs, CMOs and/or founders. The bulk of attendees are marketers too and not just vendors, as MAU ensures there are no more than one vendor-related attendee for every marketer. Representatives from some of the biggest mobile players will be in attendance, and folks from gaming, retail/e-commerce, media and entertainment, travel and many more industries will be on hand.

2) Our own Raymund Bautista will tell you how to combat fraud

On Thursday April 26, Raymund Bautista, our Head of Strategic Partnerships, will be joining four other industry experts from 10:40am to 11:10am to discuss Combating Fraud in 2018. If you’re interested in the growth track this year at MAU, then this chat is tailor-made for you.

To call this a hot topic would be an understatement. One recent report found that mobile ad fraud was potentially as high as $800 million during the first three months of this year, 30 percent greater than the same period last year. With these kinds of numbers front of mind for many marketers and advertisers, the insights from this session in particular will be especially invaluable.

3) You could win a free Nintendo Switch

Be sure to stop by Booth #410 in the Marquee Ballroom to learn more about our mobile growth and app monetization solutions, pick up great free swag and enter our raffle for your chance to nab a Nintendo Switch.

4) You’ll have the opportunity to schedule one-on-one conversations with our top mobile ad experts

If you’re looking for a more personal conversation about all things mobile ads, then know that you’re in luck. We’ll have some of our top experts, on both the performance and publisher sides, on hand to take your questions. Performance experts on user acquisition and remarketing will be available, as will publisher experts on mediation and monetization solutions to grow your app business.

If you’re interested in scheduling a meeting, then be sure to use this link: http://go.inmobi.net/mau2018. There are still some slots available, sign up before it’s too late!

5) You’ll get free drinks on us!

At the end of the first day, we’ll be hosting a happy hour after the conference at InMobi’s SkyLOFT Suite. Whether you want to chat with one of our experts or you just want a celebratory drink after MAU Day 1, get in touch with your InMobi contact or swing by our booth for more details.

MAU is always one of our top events for the year, as we always come away from the conference full of great ideas and interesting tidbits. We hope to see you there!

InMobi’s exclusive partnership with Airtel TV brings premium OTT audiences to Indian brands during cricket season and beyond. With 350+ TV channels, 10000+ Movies, TV shows and originals, in addition to integrations with Hotstar, Amazon Prime, ErosNow, Hooq, Fastfilmz, Alt Balaji and more, Airtel TV was India’s most downloaded Video OTT app in the first two months of 2018.

With a well-distributed user base, high-ARPU users and great reach across segments, Airtel TV counts sports and regional content as it’s most watched content categories. To take things up a notch, this cricket season, Airtel TV users will have unlimited free access to all live matches of IPL via Hotstar.

And with InMobi’s exclusive partnership, brand advertisers can leverage high-reach and high-impact advertising opportunities on Airtel TV during IPL, accessing up to 35 million+ user sessions on every match day, across 48 highly viewed matches, guaranteeing their brands the attention that they want and deserve.

Own primetime video ad slots on mobile TV now! Reach out to: wynk.team@inmobi.com

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the InMobi InDecode workshop held on “Maximising ROI on Mobile” in Bengaluru, India.

India has become the second largest app downloads market in the world, and continues to have a huge growth potential. However, increasing fraudulent installs and user uninstalls are major impediments to Maximising ROI on Mobile. The Bengaluru edition of InMobi InDecode hosted growth marketing leaders who intended to build an advanced understanding of ad fraud and in-app remarketing.

Kicking off the event, Vasuta Agarwal, VP & GM at India, introduced the audience to the top trends shaping growth marketing in 2018 and the biggest challenges faced by advertisers. Other speakers for the day included Prajwal B S from InMobi, Anand Bhaskaran from BigBasket, Mahip Dwivedi from Flipkart, Abhiruchi Bhushan from Myntra and Raghav Singhal from PhonePe.

The Fallacy of Downstream Metrics

With an estimated loss of $350 million being accounted to mobile ad fraud, it was time to address the elephant in the room. Prajwal B S, Director - Product, took an absorbing session on the various types of fraud, the dilapidated state of the anti-fraud crusade and the advanced techniques advertisers should adopt to #FightFraud.

85% of all fraud happens way upstream in the ad lifecycle - before the app install. As sophisticated and complex fraud mechanisms take over, marketers are reliant solely on downstream metrics to tackle fraud.

How can Advertisers #FightFraud?

In a highly engaging and insightful panel discussion hosted by Ankit Grover, Business Head, South India, leading growth marketers shared a leaf from their playbook on fighting fraud. Asked about the trade-off between high-quality and scale,

Raghav Singhal from PhonePe called the prevalence of fraud a harsh reality and that performance marketers had to live with it. Marketers need to invest in premium networks for acquiring high-quality users while being wary of fraud as scale becomes the primary objective. Abhiruchi from Myntra stressed upon the need for advertisers to have an awareness of the evolving nature of fraud.

Expressing concern over the limited capabilities of advertisers in building anti-fraud tools, Anand Bhaskaran from BigBasket called for a combined effort between advertisers and networks to drive fraud analytics and prevention. Mahip Dwivedi shed light on Flipkart’s efforts in curbing fraud by deploying measures outside of MTTI such as sub-publisher level checks.

Building your 2018 Anti-Fraud Strategy

Most advertisers or networks today implement anti-fraud measures as an afterthought, merely reacting to the threat with a goal to minimise impact. Marketers should aim to invest in identifying fraud through a combination of upstream and downstream indicators, thereby preventing fraudsters from getting deeply entrenched into campaigns. Marketers can build their 2018 Anti-Fraud strategy by adopting the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework.

To know more about the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework and how you can make the most out of it, write to rajesh.pantina@inmobi.com or sign-up below.

InMobi InDecode is a series of workshops that brings together technology and industry experts to share, debate and discuss the latest trends in the mobile industry.

Stream, the much-anticipated 3-day WPP conference, was held between the 28th February and the 3rd of March in the scenic pink city of Jaipur. What set Stream apart from other conferences was its agenda, or more precisely, its lack of an agenda. Hosted by Scott Spirit, Chief Strategy Officer, WPP and CVL Srinivas, Country Manager - India, WPP Stream brought together the brightest minds across technology, marketing and innovation under one roof.

The event was set to offer participants relief from the typical conference format with rigid agendas and limited scope for meaningful conversations. Instead, Stream offered participants the chance to connect, discuss and debate with their peers across industries

Vasuta Agarwal, GM and VP - India, and Nikhil Kumar, Head - Brand Strategy and Solutions, attended the unconference of the year on behalf of team InMobi. They participated in a series of free-flowing discussions across the conference where topics ranged from what makes millennials tick to the seemingly omnipresent topic of our times - cryptocurrency. That’s not all, Vasuta and Nikhil also went on to hold their own discussions catering to both the analytical and creative lines of thought. Vasuta hosted a compelling discussion on envisioning the pros and cons of a future of complete data dominance, while Nikhil conducted an interesting discussion on the consumer need for brand experiences rather than regular ads, mobile.

Attendees also participated in a host of activities including trekking, yoga, muay thai, movie screenings, and Holi celebrations, adding to the overall fun and relaxed vibe of the conference. With a balanced mix of both meaningful conversations and ample fun, Vasuta and Nikhil were left with an enriching experience like no other. Team InMobi looks forward to participating in the next edition of WPP Stream Asia!

To start off the discussion, the panelists all agreed that it’s apparent to marketers around the world that mobile is where the audience is. The target audiences that brands have been chasing since the inception of advertising have chosen mobile as the primary screen for entertainment. Users today are definitely mobile-first and their ‘down time’ usage is a great opportunity for brands to engage in a meaningful conversation with potential consumers. This is because they are in the best frame of mind to receive engaging content during their down time. And when it comes to marketers, mobile can easily become the unique, unifying component to enables them to go offline to online, on account of the rich data signals that mobile provides, especially on location and user behavior.

Despite the clear advantage, however, all panelists thought that marketers in Australia are not yet mobile-first; they lag behind in the time and media budgets allocated to both mobile and mobile programmatic, with the latter still considered to be in the too- hard basket.

Having touched upon what the barriers to being mobile-first were, the discussion was directed towards the main topic of the day - the 3 As of mobile programmatic. With a focus on these important components, the panelists agreed that marketers can quickly ensure success on programmatically-run mobile campaigns. So what were the 3 A’s that were discussed? Let’s take a look:

Ad

The mobile channel offers brands a unique opportunity to engage with every potential customer, one-on-one, in the most creative and innovative ways yet – through mobile-first formats that maximise the native features of the device, such as the front camera or gyroscope. Jayesh shared that a fantastic example of such a format was vertical video - a blockbuster ad format that doesn’t force users to tilt their screen. Couple these mobile-first formats with interactive elements and programmatic buy and what you get is an explosion of meaningful, efficient and high-ROI brand engagement. And when it comes to delivering dynamic, personalized creative at scale, mobile programmatic is the way to go.

Audience

Audiences on mobile are the most deterministic we’ve seen yet, thanks to a single source of truth, the device ID. The ability to measure a multitude of data touch points and user

behaviours ensures that mobile is an indispensable part of the path to purchase. Importantly, the ability to find and reach highly granular audiences, lies largely with companies that have an extensive in-app SDK footprint, as well as great data partnerships. This allows brands to access rich audiences, formed by merging first, second and third-party data.

Attribution

So far, cookies have dominated the Australian advertising ecosystem and despite the sunk cost in cookie data, marketers still want to extract some value from their investment, ignoring the fact that the world has moved towards device-ID led attribution. Whether advertising in-app or on m-site, the best ways to track audience engagement and conversions is using the device ID. The panelists also shared that while attribution is a large, all-encompassing term, certain hygiene factors have emerged - brand safety, viewability and anti-fraud capabilities.

Having touched upon the interactive elements of ads, brand vs direct response mobile campaigns, how to find audiences and measuring success on mobile, the panel ended with all participants sharing their excitement over the consumer-oriented campaigns and mobile-first innovation that they were sure the next 12 months would bring about, in Australia!
To watch a video of the panel, please click here

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the InMobi webinar on “Being Mobile-best in a Mobile-first India”.

2018 is slated to be the year of big transformation in India as mobile comprises 52.7% of all digital ad spend, up from 38% in 2017. India has emerged as the second largest app ecosystem in the world with users spending more than 50 billion hours on apps, amounting to 90% of their time on mobile.

Clearly, in these changing times, the biggest challenge is to Be Mobile-best in a Mobile-first India. The InMobi webinar, thus, was focused on helping marketers

• Understand the top 7 trends for 2018 in mobile marketing;
• Gain awareness of the top 5 challenges every marketer is bound to face;
• And prepare for a mobile-first 2018

Mobile marketing is the next big thing

While the consumer obsession with smartphones rises, marketers are not far behind. According to InMobi research, 75% of Indian companies plan to increase their mobile spend in 2018 and 67% companies are streamlining their mobile marketing efforts more than before. In addition, 7 out of 10 organisations claim that mobile will become a key part of their marketing and commerce strategy. No wonder then that mobile is the next big thing for marketers.

Ad viewability and fraud remain major challenges

While there are several challenges faced by mobile marketers today, ad viewability and fraud feature on the top. 2018 will be witness to the global standardisation of viewability and anti-fraud measurement, as they evolve further.

AI & ML will transform mobile advertising

AI & ML have been constant buzzwords over the past few months. Mobile advertising, with its voluminous data and high dimensionality, is the perfect industry for the application of machine learning and data sciences. As a playing field for rapid experimentation and fast-learning, mobile advertisers can drive immediate business impact by leveraging AI & ML techniques.

Want to find out more about the changing mobile landscape in India? View the webinar below:

Or, download the complete India Yearbook by clicking here.

Poised to be a key market in the South East Asia region, Thailand is seeing mobile explode like never before. Mobile ad spend in the country is all set to increase by 48% to reach $249 million in 2018, and is predicted to constitute over 54% of total digital ad spend* - making mobile a key focus area in the market.

As a global mobile-first and mobile-only advertising platform, the experts at InMobi showcased the importance of mobile video and how to do it right at the event, garnering active engagement from media planners and buyers from across various product categories such as hair care, skin care, home care, ice cream and food products.

With the audience showing great interest in InMobi’s creative solutions, Unilever Content Day- Bangkok ensured that 2018 began with a bang for InMobi in Thailand!

*Source: IAB

Buyers who are using DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM) and DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) can now track and buy against Active View metrics on InMobi Exchange for in-app mobile video campaigns including vertical video.

InMobi remains fully committed to the IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement SDK initiative, and plans to be an early adopter when it is released in 2018. Due to the importance of viewability for in-app mobile programmatic buying, InMobi and Google product teams have worked to create this immediate solution for supporting Active View for current 2018 campaigns. This solution will remain in effect until the launch of the IAB Tech Lab’s Open Measurement SDK initiative.

“We’re excited to be supporting Google’s Active View viewability product. DCM and DBM customers can now measure buffer-free, high definition in-app VAST video on InMobi Exchange, verified by Active View, at scale globally,” said Sergio Serra, Product Manager Brand & Programmatic at InMobi.

For more information, please contact Kayla Wilson at kayla.wilson@inmobi.com

However, with mobile growing at a blinding pace, it can be challenging for global marketers to keep up and know what to expect from the coming year. So, in order, to help marketers plan their mobile strategy more effectively, Jayesh Easwaramony, SVP & GM - Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa- InMobi presented “The Ultimate Survival Kit for Mobile Marketers in 2018”.

Moderated by Rohit Dadwal of MMA, the webinar touched upon a plethora of topics including the mobile marketer’s hierarchy of needs, key areas of mobile investment for 2018, APAC industry challenges and highlights, success stories and what it means to build the third front of mobile advertising. With hundreds of registrations, Jayesh was peppered with interesting questions from the highly engaged audience. To ensure that the event was interactive, the audience was also asked to answer a series of live polls during the course of the webinar.

After helping the audience understand how they could solve and lay to rest the marketing problems of last year in order to focus on 2018, Jayesh concluded the event with a self-assessment toolkit that helped marketers understand their readiness for transformative change and growth in 2018!

To download the webinar deck, please click here .

InMobi was thrilled to return to this year’s Casual Connect USA and join some of the best and brightest in the mobile gaming industry. This year’s event was hosted at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California which proved to be a perfect setting to discuss all things casual gaming.

This event was a special one for us in that Casual Connect happened the week after we made our exciting announcement regarding InMobi’s acquisition of AerServ. If the timing of the event wasn’t perfect enough, the AerServ office is located in Irvine, CA which is just a few miles away from Anaheim. This allowed us to work closely with our new AerServ colleagues, many of which we were meeting for the very first time! The booth design promoted the new joint offering and everyone was a huge fan of the free socks we distributed, with a tag that read “InMobi + AerServ: A Perfect Pair.”

One of the highlights of the conference was certainly the panel we hosted on Day 1 entitled, "Getting in the Game: How Publishers Can Help Brands Reach Their Players" which included publishers (Jam City and MobilityWare), Ad Platforms (InMobi and AerServ) as well as a brand advertiser (Lionsgate Films). The lively discussion was given to a packed room that proved to be a total hit with the audience - many of whom rarely have the opportunity to hear directly from the brands who advertise within their mobile gaming apps. Some of the topics discussed during the panel included:

What type of media are brands are buying on mobile?

A: It’s almost ALL video these days.

What are the advantages of of advertising in mobile gaming?

A: Users are more receptive to an ad since they are in a state of mind to be entertained, plus mobile games present a unique opportunity for interactivity within videos

What are the strengths of rewarded video?

A: A user who engages in mobile video are much more likely to convert. For the publisher, 25-30% of revenue can come from rewarded video!

When you demand more than two options when making important decisions as a consumer, why settle for less as a marketer? That’s just plain wrong. While the mobile ad-tech space today is highly diverse, for most marketers, the default option when choosing mobile marketing partners is either Google or Facebook, which together, account for more than half of global mobile ad spend. This kind of dominance in mobile ad tech, as with any industry, creates a state of collective unconsciousness. The result? An acceptance of the status quo instead of a demand for growth, accountability and customer-oriented innovation.

It’s high time for marketers to think about whether they are really getting enough from the duopoly or not. It’s time for a more conscious marketer to emerge, who can think beyond the default options in order to ask the really tough questions that will help deliver the right mobile marketing outcomes.

Here are 4 questions that marketers can ask when creating their marketing strategy and ultimately, choosing their ideal mobile marketing partner:

1. How can I get transparent metrics and consistent reporting quality?

Ask for it, upfront, consistently and with an independent partner in tow! It’s important for marketers to be directly involved in mobile execution and call out any malicious reporting or self-attribution, which adversely affects the industry at large. Also, until recently, with differing global standards of viewability and a lack of independent third-party verification, marketers had been hard-pressed to find a single source of truth to measure campaign effectiveness. Now, with MRC viewability standards being well defined, marketers should push their partners to ensure compliance with these standards at the bare minimum. To further ensure consistency and trust in reporting, working with an independent third-party is imperative.

2. How can I get more from my marketing spend?

There is a significant carry over from the traditional media mindset when it comes to digital and more specifically, mobile advertising. It’s important for marketers to move beyond reach and frequency maximisation and evaluation of first-action metrics respectively. After a point, chasing after these top-of-funnel goals only delivers diminishing returns. Also, when it comes to ad formats in environments where users are scrolling or just waiting for a video of their choice to start playing, marketers may not have the user attention that they are seeking. It’s important, therefore, to look beyond just the advantages of scale and seek out more meaningful audience attention that can deliver engagement and action across multiple stages of the user funnel with just one impactful ad, drastically altering ROI.

3. How can I improve the quality of user engagement on mobile?

Think beyond top-funnel metrics and be mobile-first! When innovation in mobile advertising involves multi-sensory interaction, why remain stuck in aiming for just reach and frequency maximisation? Start thinking mobile-first and push to create campaigns that are designed to maximise the native features of mobile devices. Based on the user profile you want to engage, you can enjoy almost endless creative options using the multi-format, multi-sensory interactions that mobile can provide. Want to showcase how fresh your breath can be? Get your users to blow on their phones! Want to deliver an experiential message to your fashionista users? Get them to take selfies via ads, with their favourite stars. You can also combine video ads with interactive end cards or even make interactive “hotspot” video ads. When marketers start thinking engagement-out and mobile-first, the opportunity to drive meaningful user interaction is virtually limitless on mobile, especially when working with partners who are true mobile experts.

4. How can I build a complete picture of my consumer’s mobile journey?

Be present across the complete user journey on mobile.What the duopoly offers you is a snapshot of the user in one or two contexts only - social and search, restricting marketers’ user understanding to their behavior in one or two apps only. However, the average smartphone consumer today unlocks their phone over 100 times/ day and uses over 20 apps actively, across a broad spectrum covering shopping, entertainment, information, travel, food, gaming and many more categories. And in order to understand your users across all these diverse contexts, you need to be present across all the apps that they have on their phones. This is only possible when working with unbiased, neutral mobile advertising platforms who have access to users outside of just search and social.

This article was originally published by CampaignAsia on Tuesday, 2nd January 2018.

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at our recent participation in Harbolnas, a series of events organized by top e-commerce players in Indonesia.

Hari Belanja Online Nasional, commonly known as Harbolnas, is the largest online shopping festival held in Indonesia. Organized annually on Doubles Day (12.12) by a group of leading e-commerce players including Lazada, Zalora and Berrybenka, the event has only grown in magnitude with each passing year.

InMobi was the official Ad Tech partner in the 6th year of this landmark event of Harbolnas 2017. The initiative comprised of 4 successive events where partners were invited to come together, and share their thoughts and observations on the trends shaping the mobile commerce industry in Indonesia. InMobi shared top insights gained from its network and best practices on how marketers could make the most of mobile marketing during Harbolnas.

Harbolnas 2017 presented advertisers with the unique opportunity of leveraging InMobi’s expertise in supporting mobile shopping festivals across the globe including Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the USA and the Great Online Shopping Festival in India. Partnering with InMobi also meant access to its world-class video and mobile CRM platforms. With the ability to reach over 90 million users, InMobi helped e-tailers reach online shoppers across top apps in Indonesia.

As the official ad tech partner, InMobi helped advertisers reach more than 23 million users between Dec 11 and 12 with the use of compelling ad formats such as video and carousel. The most effective ad format was the interactive carousel which showcased multiple products and offers within a single ad unit and delivered 3 times higher conversions when compared to static ad formats. The top-selling categories included electronics, fashion and home (including kitchen and furniture).

Fig. 1: Top categories by sales during Harbolnas 2017

The 2017 edition of Harbolnas was its biggest ever, ringing in USD 250 million in Gross Merchandising Value (GMV). This record outperformed the one set last year by 2X and its singles day record of 123 million from the previous month. InMobi looks forward to participating in the upcoming editions of Harbolnas, helping deliver maximum ROI to advertisers.

The poster child of blockchain is Bitcoin which, as we have seen, has grabbed headlines across the globe. The Winklevoss twins, famous for claiming stake to the Facebook concept, last week might have become the first Bitcoin billionaires. In 2013, it became known they had invested $11 million of their settlement payout into Bitcoin. Today, this investment is worth over $ one billion, in just four years. And, according to sources, they are yet to sell any, highlighting their continued belief.

Another aspect of the blockchain has also been steadily getting attention: the notion that a blockchain can serve as a global asset registry. It allows counterparties in a transaction to maintain records in a tamper-proof way that does not involve third parties. This has big implications for every business participating in a marketplace and doing transactions. Advertising, as well as digital advertising, stand to change significantly if this becomes a new paradigm.

Digital advertising is characterised by three types of transactions:

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1. Advertisers paying for an opportunity to present a value proposition or, better still, drive a transaction from a user;
2. Users trading their personal data in exchange for personalised ads;
3. Publishers being paid for access to the ‘real estate’ they control.

This article lays out the challenges associated with each type of transaction and outlines how blockchain technology could be used to address them.

Advertiser use cases

'Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half’ - John Wanamaker (1838-1922)

Almost a hundred years since this quote is still partly true even in digital advertising. It is because advertisers grapple with three-fold issues: measurement, attribution and straight-out fraud. An ecosystem of companies has blossomed to help advertisers address these issues. It has helped in parts, but it has also exasperated trust issues in other places.

For example, trackers help advertisers count conversions (measurement and attribution). However, they are typically paid by the advertiser and so are incentivised to be harsh on publishers, and their representatives. Towards a fairer system, an exciting use case is where conversions could be directly written into the blockchain limiting the role of trackers.

Blockchains are about using cryptography to do away with middlemen. Each transaction in a blockchain has the previous one embedded in it. If any record is tampered with, it becomes immediately obvious from examining the blockchain. The other benefit of blockchains is that multiple parties can write to the same blockchain.

The two main kinds of blockchains are public blockchains (e.g., Bitcoin) and permissioned blockchains (e.g., Ripple).

As the name suggests, public blockchains are suitable when the data does not need to be private, and when it makes sense that no one has single control of the blockchain software. Further, public blockchains tend to have slow transaction speeds because of theproof-of-work requirement(explained later). In the advertiser use-case, the requirements include the need for multiple parties (different publishers, networks, affiliates and the advertiser) to be able to update the blockchain.

In the case of tackling fraud, the proof-of-work could potentially be verification activities. Different parties are typically bound by legal contract which creates the right environment for a permissioned blockchain. While not fully decentralised, permissioned blockchains allow for data to be private while maintaining control of the codebase. In a similar application, AdEx is contemplating the use of an ADX token to facilitate execution of a contract between an advertiser and a publisher.

User value exchange

Users are becoming increasingly comfortable with sharing data but they are also increasingly aware of who is using their data and what value is provided in return. An important use case for users is to control at a fine granularity how specific attributes of their data are being used, such as location or browsing behaviour. This is where the Ethereum blockchain can come in.

Public blockchains are designed such that all transactions are visible to miners. The role of the miners is to verify transactions, combine them in a block, and append the block to the blockchain. Many miners could be working on pulling together the same set of transactions but only one of them can add the new block to the blockchain. Depending on the blockchain, the decision on which miner gets to add the block is made either by proof-of-work or by proof-of-stake.

In the proof-of-work method, each miner is assigned a computation such as verifying a transaction or generating a random hash with a certain number of zeros up front. Upon furnishing proof that they are the first to complete the task, the miner is allowed to add on the block. In the proof-of-stake, the largest stakeholder has the sole right to add the block.

Ethereum is built to be able to harness this computational effort in its broadest generalisation. Each transaction on Ethereum can contain a ‘smart contract’. A smart contract is nothing but a program that the miner has to execute in order to collect his payout in Ethereum money (called ethers). The Ethereum blockchain can be thought of as a distributed computing platform that has embedded in it code that cannot be altered. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for delivering digital content or handling digital information such as user information. For example, we can imagine an application for managing user privacy that only allows advertisers or ad networks with the necessary permissions to unlock and utilise a particular user’s information in order to display a relevant advertisement.

Publisher applications

Programmatic selling of digital media has become mainstream. Inventory on most major publishers is readily available on major exchanges. Annoyingly for legitimate publishers, there is significant fake inventory sucking away advertiser dollars via domain spoofing. WPP has estimated that $16 billion-plus of advertising dollars have been spent in 2017 on fraudulent sites masquerading as premium publications, such as theNew York TimesandForbesmagazine.

The industry has responded to this with the Ads.txt effort. However, adoption still needs to pick up. Furthermore, other measures are also needed to combat increasingly sophisticated forms of fraud which are always emerging.

Blockchains could help by providing secure ways to sign certificates allowing resellers such as Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) to mark their inventory as legit. The adChain registry - a smart contract built on Ethereum - is one-such publisher certification mechanism where token holders collectively accredit new publishers. However, most buyers on exchanges have highly-tuned, sophisticated setups and incorporating complex blockchain flows might not be straightforward.

In summary, blockchains are here to stay and could be set to transform all marketplaces. Digital advertising could be one of the first major successful commercial applications of Ethereum-based smart contracts. The specifics of different advertising use cases will determine the blockchain variants that are deployed. It is quite likely that, in advertising, we will see the emergence of a combined ecosystem of both public and permissioned blockchain environments.

This article was originally published by YourStory on Wednesday, 27th December 2017

With mobile accounting for the second largest spend across ad channels, it is vital to consider the crucial role it can play in a campaign. In this 3 part blog series, we discuss how marketers can make the most of this pervasive medium in the new year.

Make the most of mobile first features and technologies.

As the capabilities of mobile continue to advance, it is important that marketers make most of these features. Be it through the use of Augmented Reality, Vertical Video or Gyroscopic Technologies, mobile enables marketers to reach audiences in an exciting and brand new manner.

By leveraging the extensive features mobile has to offer, a marketer can effectively break away from the clutter and ensure that their campaign outperforms pre-set key performance indicators.

Below are two examples of award-winning campaigns which made the effective use of mobile first features.

Coke Break

1. APAC Smarties: Bronze, Native.

Coke desired to differentiate themselves in the overcrowded teas and juice-based drinks market in Cambodia.Through the use bespoke targetting capabilities, Coke reached the youth at “slump times” - times when people were tired and low on energy. They reached audiences near universities, offices and cafes with an innovative ad unit that simulated a video call from a popular youth icon, who nudged users to take a break and get refreshed with a Coke. Thus through the innovative use of mobile, Coke was able to connect with their intended target audience in a brand new way.

Lipton Fitcart:

1. EMEA Smarties: Silver, Internet of Things.
2. MENA Smarties: Gold, Cross Media.
3. MENA Smarties: Gold, Innovation.
4. MENA Smarties: Gold, Internet of Things.

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Lipton, the iconic tea brand, introduced “Fit Carts” at leading supermarkets to raise brand awareness for its green tea. Lipton, partnered with InMobi to leverage the powerful medium of mobile to reach their intended audience anytime, anywhere.

The rich media creative was one amongst the first mobile ad units to devise a scientific formula to calculate the number of steps based on the average calories burnt per step in real-time. By leveraging this specially designed formula, Lipton was able to fully exploit the power of mobile, bring the virtual Fitcart to the palms of the users, and successfully convey its message that each step matters in one’s journey of healthy living through the compelling use of technology.

Here are five trends that will be dominating forces come 2018.

1. Industry Consolidation: Can't Stop, Won't Stop

History has shown that industry consolidation is a natural process and that systemic market forces make it possible to predict its evolution.

In 2017, we saw consolidation of many ad tech players, with merger and acquisition deals reaching record levels. But it's not over yet. What has been most apparent in 2017 is that the ad tech industry is not for the fainthearted.

We'll continue to see companies with a unique offering and position in the market being bought by the big players, while a lack of investment will dissolve others and rid the industry of dead weight.

2. The Innovating Dragon of China

The (not so) best-kept secret in the ad tech industry is China. It's the world's largest smartphone market and it has become an innovating dragon in the emerging world. Innovations in China far exceed those in the West, and the technology industry continues to attract attention, talent, and investment from the rest of the world

In the ad tech industry, there have been multiple acquisitions by top Chinese investors of U.S. ad tech and media companies, which is a trend that is only going to continue and gain momentum.

As a mobile-first market, China has the potential to sweep other players aside. Unlike other markets, it doesn't have the usual dominant players, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, or the risk of walled gardens. Many of the local and homegrown players, such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, have thrived, and the tech industry, particularly mobile-related businesses, have accelerated ahead of the U.S.

In China, more people use their mobile devices to watch videos, pay bills, and order services such as taxis, retail, and food than anywhere else in the world, which suggests that China will have a greater say in the global tech industry than we think.

3. Brace Yourselves for Transparency and Accountability

Mobile video, programmatic, and ad fraud have all been hot topics this year. In 2018, mobile video ad spend is expected to grow 49%, to nearly $18 billion, and people around the world will watch 25% more video on phones and tablets, according to toZenith. By 2019, nearly80% of programmatic ad spend will go to mobile ads rather than desktop, while advertisers are slated to lose $19 billion to fraudulent activities—equivalent to $51 million per day.

But are advertisers ready to handle this level of complexity around control, transparency, and accountability? CMOs are put in the driving seat, and should brace themselves for a bumpy ride as technology partners are kept accountable for their actions and business models start to come under question.

4. Year of the Laggards and Late Majority

2018 will be the year of the laggards, and we'll see those players in the "late majority" segment of their business lifecycle come into the picture. The late majority tend to move last in the industry, after others have been bold enough to make the first move, and they base their move on industry experience.

Although first-mover advantage is beneficial to some, the laggards will succeed in the end by unlocking the core assets they have been holding on to and have "perfected" based on technologies that have emerged and have been tried and tested.

5. AI and Machine-Learning Will Push the Boundaries of Possibilities

For the ad tech industry, making money revolves around a user's clicking on an ad; predicting ad clicks using AI, machine-learning, or deep-learning techniques can be highly beneficial to improve efficiencies and increase revenue. We've only scratched the surface of the importance of predicting user interest behavior and its benefits, but those who can make accurate estimates will forever change how companies interact and engage with consumers.

So, What Now?

2018 will be a rough ride for most, and it will end with fewer players than we had in 2017. As Darwin's theory suggests, the ad tech industry is about survival of the fittest. In the struggle for survival, the fittest will win at the expense of their rivals; but to survive they must adapt and have the ability to turn investments into innovations.

Ad tech trends seldom mature overnight; and, as the industry figures out how it can improve user experience as well as to increase revenue, there is bound to be a whole lot of debate until the industry matures. However, it's clear that there has been explosive progress over the past few years in improving mobile advertising. At the heart of it all has been innovation, so it's now more important than ever to not stop innovating.

This article was originally published by MarketingProfs on Wednesday, 13th December 2017

Introducing The InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework

As a trusted partner of leading brands across the globe, InMobi has taken the initiative with its Anti-Fraud Framework to protect and enhance value for advertisers. Most fraud checks today are downstream (post-click) and account for only 15-20% of all fraud. InMobi scrutinizes fraudulent activity at each point upstream, right from the time of publisher onboarding, to the install event.

The InMobi Anti-fraud Framework includes:

• Authentication of Publisher Properties - InMobi implements strict policies and processes such as ownership verification, brand safety checks among others to authenticate the media that advertisers are buying. These measures arrest malpractices such as site subletting and duplicate accounts.
• Ad Serving Checks - InMobi employs several run-time diagnostics and analysis on render and on click. InMobi’s fraud detection algorithms ensure that each view, interaction and action on a served ad is by humans and not automated traffic.
• Third-party Install Validation - InMobi has partnered with leading third-party measurement and attribution platforms including Kochava, Tune, AppsFlyer and Adjust that validate and analyze the quality of installs and complement InMobi’s efforts on identifying invalid data.

With the Anti-fraud Framework, InMobi identifies and rejects suspicious ad requests to the tune of 10% of all traffic, bins 15% of all served ads, and discards 4% of all registered clicks in a campaign. The InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework gives advertisers unparalleled real time access to their campaign hygiene as a no-cost value-added service, something no other mobile solutions provider currently offers.

Adopting the Right Metrics for Fraud Prevention

Mobile users are exposed to a multitude of ads on a daily basis and are prone to become ad blind beyond 15-30 ads. Additionally, a network driving an install every 200-300 clicks is without a doubt ‘suspicious.’ Hence, upstream touch points such as impressions and clicks are the strongest directional indicators of fraud. Measured as Mean Clicks to Install (MCTI), MCTI is defined as the number of clicks required by an ad network to drive an install from a specific user. InMobi boasts of an MCTI as low as 5. In addition, for downstream (reactive) metrics such as Mean Time Taken to Install (MTTI), the percentage installs driven by a network should be less than 10% for an MTTI of 10s.

While most advertisers or networks today implement anti-fraud measures as an afterthought, merely reacting to the threat with a goal to minimize impact, the InMobi anti-fraud framework has been built to weed out fraud by disincentivizing fraudsters across the mobile ad lifecycle.

Industry Collaboration

InMobi has committed to joining several anti-fraud industry initiatives and industry groups, including:

• Coalition Against Ad Fraud (CAAF) - To collaborate with other players in the industry on fighting and preventing mobile ad fraud, InMobi was proud this year to have joined the Coalition Against Ad Fraud (CAAF) led by Adjust. It includes key members of the mobile marketing ecosystem, all with a shared commitment to fighting performance ad fraud. Members have collaborated on an agreed set of guidelines to attack mobile ad fraud such as establishing what constitutes performance fraud and agreeing who the responsible parties are for dealing with fraud, and the responsibilities of the members.
• Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) - InMobi became a member of TAG in mid 2017 and is working with an independent auditor to achieve TAG Certified Against Fraud Seal (TAG CAF). TAG CAF ensures that participants follow industry best practice is combating IVT (invalid traffic) and ensures that payments made in the digital ad ecosystem are going to legitimate companies.
• Ads.cert - InMobi is currently exploring ways to get involved with Ads.cert, which is a new process for cryptographically-signed bid requests that show the actual path of inventory. It was created as a digital signature so that buyers can verify a specific site's inventory. This is especially important for high-value inventory such as video - similar to DRM for the ad supply chain. It includes higher security than it has today, however, it is not yet available on either mobile web or mobile in-app. With more security, more dollars can move to programmatic.
• Ads.txt - InMobi is working with the industry to find a way for ads.txt to be applied to mobile in-app since it is currently only supported by mobile web.
• Third Party Prevention Tools - This year, InMobi has integrated with many of the top third-party fraud solutions in an effort to make our anti-fraud framework even more robust. These solutions include AppsFlyer Protect360, TUNE Fraud Prevention Solution, Kochava Fraud Console and many more fraud abatement tools are currently being explored and tested for integration.

Education Efforts

As part of our efforts to bring the ecosystem together and collectively discuss steps to understand and minimize fraud, InMobi has also launched a series of interactive workshops titled InMobi InDecode: Decoding Mobile Fraud. The most recent workshop took place in November 2017 in Jakarta, Indonesia where InMobi’s Krishnendu Majumdar, SVP & Global Head, Products, Performance Advertising and Praveen Rajaretnam, Product Marketing Manager presented insights from InMobi’s research on fraud to an audience of leading performance marketers. Haikal Bekti Anggoro, Head, Online Marketing at Lazada Indonesia, stressed upon the need for frameworks which can help advertisers analyze tons of data across platforms to identify fraudulent activity, during a fireside chat at the workshop.

As a thought leader in the ad tech space, InMobi has been at the front line in tackling ad fraud. InMobi has joined forces with a number of industry partners and utilized their fraud abatement tools to combat bad actors/fraudsters and develop new solutions for the best interest of our shared clients and the ecosystem.

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the E4M South Conclave 2017.

On Friday, December 1, InMobi participated in a first-of-its-kind event designed to draw the best in media and marketing in South India - the Exchange4Media South Conclave. Held in the heart of Bangalore, the event saw enthusiastic attendance from leading players in the advertising and marketing industries, who were all looking to share insights and learn more about “Making brands purposeful”.

The grand finale of the event saw Vasuta Agarwal, VP&GM - InMobi India in conversation with Lenovo’s Rahul Agarwal, CEO & MD - Lenovo India. Discussing how to infuse brand purpose into both internal and external communication, Vasuta and Rahul kept the audience highly interested. The two leaders shared thoughts on how consumer behavior and customer expectations have evolved since the advent of mobile.

“How much easier or harder has it become for brands to continue engaging with rapidly changing consumer behavior ?” and “What role has mobile played in this journey to drive deeper engagement ?” were a few of the topics that saw intense discussion . With wit and good humor becoming a unifying pattern in the discussion , Vasuta and Rahul drew ample laughter and high engagement from the audience.

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the Mobile Marketing Association India Forum 2017.

It’s no secret that India is fast becoming a mobile-first country. With a sizable chunk of the populace using mobile as their first point of internet access, marketers across the country are placing big bets on the channel.

And one of the most highly anticipated mobile events in India is the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Forum. Held at the Leela Ambience, Gurugram, in late October 2017, the MMA Forum saw some of the best mobile marketing minds in India come together. As a gold partner of the event, InMobi made its presence felt in multiple ways.

The day began with InMobi’s Vasuta Agarwal, VP & GM - India conducting a bespoke mobile workshop for one of the leading beverage brands in India. She interacted with a select group of 30 brand managers and kept the audience highly engaged while updating them about the latest trends in mobile, in India. Demonstrating examples of how to marketers can leverage the best that mobile has to offer, Vasuta took the audience through multiple sample campaign ideas that were tailored to their brand, an initiative that drew even more interest from the gathering.

While the workshop was in progress, the InMobi booth proved to be a strong draw for curious marketers who were eager to learn more about the cutting-edge video and targeting solutions that were being displayed. With a showcase of InMobi’s award winning campaigns, detailed whitepapers on mobile video and viewability, as well as interactive campaign experiences, the InMobi booth was a hive of constant activity and lively discussion.

Soon after the opening keynote at the Forum, Vasuta took the stage to discuss “Doing Mobile Video Right”. She shared insights on the key challenges that mobile marketers face, both in India and globally, and outlined a 4-point checklist to overcome them. Showcasing stunning, high immersive creatives that cater to a multitude of industries, Vasuta’s informative session helped shed light on how mobile video is all set to be a game-changer for Indian marketers, with the audience exuding positivity and interest as they learned more about how to do mobile video right!

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meet-ups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from “Data Hack Summit 2017,” an event organized by Analytics Vidhya in Bangalore, India.

In this edition of the InMobi event diary, we cover our presence at the Analytics Vidhya-hosted event “Data Hack Summit 2017.” Aimed at bringing together the finest data scientists across India and the globe, the Data Hack Summit covered the latest trends in analytics, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).As the ‘AI’ and ‘ML’ buzzwords make their way into corporate boardrooms, data scientists at the conference were busy delving into the real science behind the hype. InMobi was part of one such session on “The need to rethink Deep Learning.” The session was focused on discussing the current applications across industries, the challenges in getting impact, and the evolution of deep learning as a tool in the data scientist’s armoury.

The Need to Re-think Deep LearningAvi Patchava, VP, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, India at InMobi was part of the panel discussion on “The need to rethink Deep Learning.” Moderated by Kunal Jain, Founder & CEO of Analytics Vidhya, the panel also featured an eclectic mix of other researchers and practitioners - including Dr. Kirk Borne, Principal Data Scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, Dr. Srinivasan Parthiban, CEO of Vingyani, Vijay Gabale from Huew and Mukesh Jain, CTO of VFS Global.

Here are three interesting themes that the panel explored.

Deep Learning - Why is it Different?

The success of Deep Learning to date has been in specific use cases such as image recognition using ‘convolutional neural networks.’ A few panelists held the view that Deep Learning has been a small step forward in our journey of more sophisticated statistical learning techniques - a journey we have been on for many decades. Other panelists felt strongly that it has really pushed the abilities for solving certain types of classification problems, which would not have been possible without the unique structure and design of neural networks like the deep layers of multiple neurons. The panel, however, agreed that there remains much potential for greater application of Deep Learning in sectors such as Pharma, Manufacturing, IT services and AdTech.

New frontiers for Deep Learning Application

Dr. Srinivasan opined that Deep Learning will become more and more relevant in the pharma industry. There is an abundance of disparate information in the field of drug discovery and Deep Learning will be vital in connecting these distant pieces of medical research from around the world. Avi talked about InMobi’s application of Deep Learning to understand the effectiveness of different mobile ad creative - the piece of art that is used to convey messaging in an advertisement. These techniques leverage convolutional neural networks - a deep learning application that trains well on an image as a grid of pixels. The possibility of Deep Learning being applied to predict human behaviours at scale - such as click-through and app-download behaviours is an exciting prospect for both the industry and InMobi.

Challenges in Driving Impact through Deep Learning

Driving real business impact through Deep Learning has often had challenges such as insufficient data, privacy concerns on data usage and organizational readiness to apply Deep Learning models. Additionally, the size of big data that is needed to effectively train a Deep Learning algorithm is often underestimated. With the big data needs in Deep Learning, there are challenges and sensitivities of using more and more individual-level data in solving problems. If the data is not sufficiently big, a simpler Machine Learning algorithm is more effective. There are other self-created challenges such as undue pressure to apply the ‘latest and greatest in Deep Learning’ when it is not necessarily the most suitable choice of algorithmic approach. Lastly, Avi emphasised that getting impact from a Deep Learning model is as much about the change management process as it is about building an accurate model. The change management process involves: understanding the model use and designing it accordingly; introducing stakeholders to the basis and approach for the model; and integrating a model into the business process, or even resdesigning the business process around the model.

Commenting on the future of Deep Learning, the panelists exuded optimism around the opportunity but believed that the hype is still ahead of the achieved impact for Deep Learning in a wider set of industries.

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meet-ups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at our recent visit to one of India’s top business schools - the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, where we addressed students of the Big Data and Analytics Certificate Program.

In this edition of the InMobi event diary, we cover our visit to the well-known Indian Institute of Management of Bangalore where we addressed 60 students of the Big Data Analytics Certificate Program. Speaking on Machine Learning in the Wild, the event was a great opportunity to interact with a student group comprising experienced professionals looking to move to the field of Big Data and Analytics, and address their concerns and thoughts.

InMobi was invited to address the 2017-18 batch given the on-ground experience in applying Big Data and Machine Learning technologies in the mobile advertising industry. InMobi has been applying these technologies for several years and their relevance has only grown as the industry and company have evolved. Avi Patchava, VP, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, at InMobi addressed the batch. He was introduced by Dr. Shankar Venkatagiri - Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

Avi led the discussion with 8 Essential Tips to consider when designing, building and deploying a Machine Learning model towards a business problem:

Tip #1:Be clear about the business problem you seek to solve. Use a problem statement worksheet to align on the problem definition, solution intent, problem scope, hypotheses to guide the model, the data that you need, the value at stake and the team skills required.

Tip #2:Think carefully on what your model needs to achieve. Is your model descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, or prescriptive use case? Be wary of trying to do everything with one model. Ask yourself: what is the business really asking for?

Tip #3: Ensure feature availability in the production environment. Having lots of data and features is often a positive sign. But you need to ensure that all features are available in the production environment at the time of use - whether for exploration, training, evaluation or deployment.

Tip #4: Apply Occam’s razor for the choice of algorithms. Zero in on to the algorithm that will do the job - answer the problem that you set out to solve. You do not need the most glamourous algorithms, when a more modest algorithm can do the trick.

Tip #5: Be aware of the training time in production environments. If you need to train models multiple times per day, and a model takes several hours to train (because of its complexity), then your model will not be effective (regardless of its complexity!).

Tip #6: Think of data science beyond research. You need to support the drive for impact by considering what is needed to make your code ready for the production environment. For example, lighter size of files, logging and storing of key variables is something to ensure for easy evaluation of models.

Tip #7: Fortify the model with support elements. Achieving lasting business impact from a model, requires more than excellent accuracy. Many other elements are needed to ensure model impact whether UI-UX design, data infrastructure, training model users, design of the business process, or the overall change management as a model transforms a business.

Tip #8: 'De-jargonize' Data Sciences. There is a lot of jargon surrounding the field of data sciences, machine learning and especially artificial intelligence. One of your roles as a data scientist is to help your colleagues and team members cut through the jargon. Take the opportunity to clarify key terms, and even define their usage in your organization with relevant examples.

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from “TechNEXT,” an event organized by GE research at their offices in Bangalore, India.

In this edition of the InMobi event diary, we cover our presence at the GE Research hosted event “TechNEXT.” TechNEXT is a forum at GE that familiarizes a deep technologist audience with what’s next and what’s cool in technology by bringing them face to face with industry leaders and their insights. InMobi was among the few invited to participate in GE’s inaugural TechNEXT event. The panel aimed to unravel the process of building a digital DNA through the age of digital-industrial transformation by leveraging Artificial Intelligence & data insights in particular.

Delivering a Digital transformationAvi Patchava, VP, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, at InMobi was part of the panel discussion that was moderated by Vinay Jammu, Technology Leader for Physical-Digital Analytics at GE Global research, and featured Dr. Shankar Venkatagiri - Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore - and Sameer Dhanrajani - Chief Strategy Officer at Fractal Analytics.

Digital transformation - Setting Up for Success

The panel noted that a digital transformation is a narrowly focused initiative around one or two technologies that can deliver the most value for the business given its maturity, and not an ‘all over the place’ measure. Given there are a large set of disruptive digital technologies such as IoT, Blockchain, Cloud technology, 3D printing and Artificial Intelligence, a digital transformation can mean many things. Speaking on leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Avi emphasized the need to stay laser-focused on the ‘use case.’ A use case is the sole unit of measuring the impact of AI transformation. Leaders need to have clarity on what the specific near-term use cases are, and how they will be delivered. Citing InMobi’s Machine Learning Accelerator programs to bolster platforms such as algorithm deployment, data strategy, talent acquisition and talent development, Avi highlighted the need for strengthening enablers to become an A.I.-led company.

‘De-jargoning’ Artificial Intelligence

Avi shared the formulaic four questions that can help evaluate any opportunity or validate a success story, and help distinguish between what’s real and what’s hype. There is a lot of jargon and buzzwords used in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and one needs to break through it. One should always ask:

1. What is the specific use case that A.I. is being used for?
2. What is edge or advantage provided by the data being used in delivering the use case?
3. Is there clarity on what algorithmic techniques will be used and why are they suitable?
4. And, does the business have clarity on the derived value for a targeted use case? While, for a completed use-case, has the exact financial impact been measured?

The Role of Humans in an AI Dominated World

For an audience largely from an engineering background, Vinay wanted the panelists’ to opine upon the growth prospects for individuals and the relevant roles. Avi explained that in a world driven by Machine Learning and A.I., the role of the model-builder becomes critical in addition to several supporting roles that help model-builders succeed. The supporting roles include: the Big-Data engineer who sets up the data flows or plumbing to ensure big data sets are available and accessible when a model-builder needs them; the Production engineer who writes and sets up the algorithm code for deployment in large scale environments; and the analytics-savvy Product Manager who applies the understanding of modelling techniques to ensure models are addressing relevant problems and can also effectively evaluate models.

Managing data privacy

“How will companies manage concerns of data privacy when data is so valuable and therefore seductive?” was one of the burning questions from the audience. Dr. Shankar introduced the audience to the role of the ‘Algorithm auditor’ and its growing relevance. An algorithm auditor is an external party that ensures algorithms across businesses are really doing what they claim to be doing and do not indulge inappropriate data usage. Avi, reinforcing Dr. Shankar’s view, talked about the need for companies to have legal teams that check on modelling activities and approve of the data-usage guidelines being followed. The panel also discussed how a world with greater personalization initiate a loop of clear benefits for users. For instance, in the field of personalized medicine, successful treatments for users leads to users becoming more and more comfortable with data-sharing, thereby driving tangible benefits through better personalization and so on.

InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the InMobi InDecode workshop held on “Decoding Mobile Fraud” in Jakarta, Indonesia.

While marketers are aware of the threat that ad fraud poses, building an advanced understanding of fraud and PREVENTING it, is quite the road less taken. Decoding Mobile fraud aimed to help advertisers understand the evolving nature of mobile ad fraud, safeguard and protect valuable budgets, and more importantly, be the guiding light for marketers to ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!

Presenting insights from InMobi’s research on fraud were Krishnendu Majumdar, SVP & Global Head, Products - Performance Advertising and Praveen Rajaretnam, Product Marketing Manager at InMobi. Following it up, Rishi Bedi, Head - Performance Advertising, APAC hosted Haikal Bekti Anggoro, Head, Online Marketing at Lazada, Indonesia for a fireside chat on the role of advertisers and the future of the anti-fraud crusade.

Advancements in Mobile = Advancements in Ad Fraud

As mobile technology evolves to create value for advertisers with advanced targeting capabilities, high customization and precise measurement, the mobile ecosystem continues to be threatened by an ever-expanding and evolving web of ad fraud. The fraudsters of yore have evolved to be able to mimic post-install user behavior than merely simulate click-behavior. App-install campaigns are largely affected by two types of fraud:

1. Stolen Organics: Fraud where the advertiser’s organic installs are stolen through means of click spamming or ad stacking, and
2. Misattribution: Fraud where a network’s installs/events are stolen through click injection or click sniping

The Fallacy of Detection

85% of all fraud happens way upstream in the ad lifecycle - before the app install. As sophisticated and complex fraud mechanisms take over, marketers are still reliant on downstream metrics and associated reactive measures to tackle fraud. Even worse, downstream metrics such as Mean Time Taken to Install (MTTI) are inconsistent and can vary according to app size, app category and the country. A 10 MB app would have a lower MTTI than a 100 MB app, MTTI for a retail app would be very different from that of a gaming app and the network speeds in Singapore and Indonesia will definitely affect the download time of an app.

Driving Prevention - Adopting Upstream Indicators

Measuring full-funnel metrics that identify fraud at each touchpoint in the ad lifecycle - from the time a publisher is on-boarded to app install, is the need of the hour. Mobile users are exposed to a multitude of ads on a daily basis, and are prone to become ad blind beyond 15-30 ads. Similarly, a network driving an install every 200-300 clicks is without doubt ‘suspicious.’ Hence, upstream touch points such as IMPRESSIONS and CLICKS are the strongest combinative indicators of fraud.

Measured as Mean Clicks to Install (MCTI), MCTI is defined as the number of clicks required by an ad network to drive an install from a specific user. Similarly, Mean Impressions to Install (MMTI) is defined as the number of impressions required to drive an install from a specific user. As part of the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework, each point upstream - right from the time of publisher onboarding to the install event, is scrutinized for fraudulent activity.

Haikal, guest speaker for the day, stressed upon the need for such frameworks to analyze tons of data across platforms. As an advertiser, Haikal quipped, the way forward is to build such frameworks and leverage it across the ecosystem.

Building your 2018 Anti-Fraud Strategy

Most advertisers or networks today implement anti-fraud measures as an afterthought, merely reacting to the threat with a goal to minimise impact. Marketers should aim to invest in identifying fraud through a combination of upstream and downstream indicators, thereby preventing fraudsters from getting deeply entrenched into campaigns. Marketers can build their 2018 Anti-Fraud strategy by adopting the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework.

To know more about the InMobi Anti-Fraud Framework and how you can make the most out of it, write to praveen.rajaretnam@inmobi.com or sign-up below.

InMobi InDecode is a series of workshops that brings together technology and industry experts to share, debate and discuss the latest trends in the mobile industry.

InMobi’s interactive booth that exhibited cutting-edge creative and targeting solutions including facial recognition, location solutions, rich media formats and the entire array of mobile video ad formats was a big draw at the event, attracting visitors who were keen to know more about the latest innovations in mobile ad tech.

As per a recent study, 77% Vietnamese watch videos on their smartphones making it the number 1 market in SEA for video, with almost a third (36%) watching them daily.* Vietnam is home to 90 million people with half of them owning a smartphone, a strong indication of the huge untapped potential of the market.

And to showcase the power of mobile ads in developing mobile-first markets, InMobi created a highly immersive experience for visitors; a set of mobile devices were preloaded with ‘The Cube’ ,a showcase of InMobi’s most creative work in the region. Several award-winning case studies from SEA were also presented. Visitors took special interest in Unilever campaigns that InMobi delivered in the region.

To keep the fun going, all visitors were given fidget spinners to take home - a gift that delighted everyone and added to the excitement.

With the number of people that gathered around the InMobi booth and the lively, informative discussions that followed, it was clear that InMobi’s presence was strongly felt.

*Source: Google Barometer

If you are a marketer, you probably already understand the pressing challenge of retaining quality users for your business. And if you are a retailer, the challenge is even more acute, as 60% of your online consumers now use mobile for shopping and researching. With consumers spending 90% of their time on mobile inside apps, retailers continue to struggle to retain their hard-earned app users.

Thankfully, we have a time-tested solution for you that is known to deliver 10x higher CTRs, 150% higher conversion rates, amongst other unbelievable returns. Find out how you can achieve the same for your brand this holiday season.

Download the full infographic

And with more and more Chinese firms investing in the burgeoning digital economies of South East Asia (SEA), Singles Day sales are rapidly gaining in popularity in the region, with 2017 set to be the biggest year yet, especially in mobile-first markets such as Indonesia. 50% of survey respondents in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand reported that they made purchases using smartphones.This clearly demonstrates that SEA consumers are getting more comfortable using their smart devices to research, browse and purchase products, thus strengthening this channel of engagement between consumers and retailers

With Single’s Day around the corner, here are five tips that marketers can leverage when planning their mobile strategy in SEA:

1. Be savvy with mobile video:

Shoppers in SEA are increasingly relying on mobile video, with November 7th being the peak for mobile video ad views and engagement in the run up to Singles Day. Also, in the region, users begin their weekends early with some quality mobile video ad indulgence, consuming the most ad content on Thursday, followed by Saturday and Wednesday.

2. Know where your users are and go programmatic:

It’s intuitive for marketers to focus their advertising spends on shopping/m-commerce sites and social media. However, it’s also imperative to take advantage of other important inventory sources when planning for Singles Day. Ahead of the event, 42% of downloaded apps are gaming apps while travel and entertainment account for 23% and 19% respectively. For mobile marketers looking to optimize their spends for Singles Day, it’s key to not ignore these three heavily downloaded app categories. To ensure even more precision in delivering advertising messages, marketers must go the programmatic route to ensure that they are reaching premium and relevant audiences.

3. Focus on fashion:

In most other regions, electronics sales dominate online sales. In SEA, however, the story is very different, with fashion leading the way, contributing a whopping 85% of total sales. The beauty category tops the chart at 54% with apparel, shoes and handbags following at 31%.

4. Capitalize on late decision makers:

While retailers and brands focus on enabling users to make early purchase decisions 1-2 weeks prior to the sale, they often miss out on influencing users closer to the day of the sale. 23% of users make purchase decisions in the crucial 5 days before the day of the sale.

5. Invest in retargeting:

To drive increased sales, it’s important for retailers to leverage technologies such as dynamic retargeting and exact matching in order to deliver personalised and seamless consumer engagement across multiple platforms. With the right retargeting mechanism in place, advertisers can ensure increased sales not only from active users but also from first-time users and dormant users.

In this video series, Karam Malhotra, Co-CEO and Founder of Fastfilmz talks about their OTT platform, the potential offered by the app and the value FastFilmz finds in partnering with InMobi.

Episode 1: Riding the InMobi Wave

Listen to Karam Malhotra share the top reasons for choosing InMobi as FastFilmz’ exclusive monetization partner

Episode 2: Netflix of the South

InMobi is glad to partner with FastFilmz, India’s first regional movie video app

Episode 3: The Holy Trifecta: Advertisers, Mobile, South Indian Audiences

Find out about the unique opportunities the FastFilmz-InMobi partnership offers to advertisers.

Since the advent of smartphones and apps, app marketers have been consistently chasing app installs. This made sense when apps did not have any users and acquiring them was the only goal. However, since then, we have come a long way and today there are millions of apps who boast of a substantial user base. What reason do you have now, when your app has a respectable user base, to continue to solely focus on acquiring more and more users?

Find out why focusing on user acquisition alone is far from healthy for your app marketing efforts.

Download the full infographic to find out how an app install focused strategy is incomplete for the growth of your app.

InMobi has forged strategic partnerships with various global and local apps across categories such as social, entertainment, gaming, utilities and content. InMobi’s app monetization partners from India include the likes of Wynk, TrulyMadly, Nextwave Multimedia, and Fastfilmz.

“The InMobi network is currently the largest third-party app ecosystem on mobile in India, with unparalleled reach beyond the walled gardens. By partnering with InMobi, advertisers not only access premium publishers but also access premium audiences built on rich user-intelligence,” said Vasuta Agarwal, VP and GM, InMobi India.

“Advertisers, who are looking to spend on mobile during the festive season, can maximize engagement, transactions and revenues through the InMobi network,” she added.

This article was originally published on ET Brand Equity on Wednesday, 6th September 2017

If you haven't had a chance to read this comprehensive report yet, download it now to learn what 800+ app marketers had to say about their strategy, priorities and innovative solutions to the biggest app marketing challenges.

Acquiring new users is undoubtedly important for app marketers, and we wanted to better understand how they approach it. We surveyed app marketers across industries to discover the what tactics being used to drive new users, channels that deliver the strongest performance, how budgets are being allocated, and what marketers think about ad networks for running UA campaigns.

User Acquisition Budget

• On the investment side, there is naturally a small range of monthly marketing support levels for apps. More than half of app marketers allocate less than $50K a month towards user acquisition campaigns.

CPI Still Rules Mobile App Media Buying

• In regards to user acquisition campaigns, CPI is still used by more than half of marketers as a preferred pricing model.
• 22% of respondents use CPA model as it offers advertisers more opportunities to increase their revenues while minimizing expenses. Since an advertiser pays only for a specific action in contrast to Cost-per-Click pricing models, ad fraud is much less likely to occur.

Video Ads Key To Acquiring High-Quality Users

• Acquiring high-quality users is always a welcome prospect for any app developer or owner. By high-quality, these are users that are guaranteed to become long-term patrons. One of the most powerful tools that app marketers have at their disposal is mobile video ads. 36% of them plan to invest in video over the next 12 months.

Criteria in Selecting Ad Network for Running UA campaigns

• User Quality, Transparency & Trust, and Account Management are the top three criteria that app marketers evaluate when selecting an ad network for user acquisition campaigns.

These are just a few of the many insights unearthed through the analysis of our survey. The report offers an eye-opening look at the challenges in 2017, and what lies ahead for the industry.

Download this special guide and see what challenges and opportunities may be in store for your app business!

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from “Cypher 2017” an event organized by Analytics India Magazine in Bangalore, India

InMobi was excited to attend the Cypher Analytics 2017 conference in Bangalore. There has been a visibly growing data science and machine learning ecosystem in Bangalore, which Analytics India Magazine and the Cypher conference have played an important role in developing. We wanted to share our personal stories and perspectives on the future of this thrilling frontier.

Rajiv Bhat, SVP, Data science, InMobi and myself, Avi Patchava - leading InMobi’s Data Science and AI strategy based here in Bangalore, spoke on the future of Artificial Intelligence and AdTech.

Our belief is that AdTech - which has already been playing a major role in the development of artificial intelligence technologies driven by major tech giants - has growing potential to catalyze the growth of AI systems. This is primarily due to five reasons:

1. The growing volume of data with more and more connected smartphones globally, and the consequent diversity of data fields;
2. The large and capable engineering teams already present in AdTech - highly critical for operationalising AI systems to be productive;
3. Ability to attract top data science talent;
4. Ability to run rapid test-learn experiments in a fast-paced environment - mobile ads are displayed every second of the day across the globe;
5. The business necessity - algorithmic breakthroughs hit the bottom line immediately, and the business knows this. This is no sideshow for the sector.

To bring this to life, we shared a few examples that constantly pique our own interest:

1. The Ad fraud arms-race, with improved attribution of genuine Ad impact, eventually tracing offline as well as digital paths to conversion;
2. New age audience targeting searching for transient personas - likely many per individual!;
3. Solving for relevance of a consumer giving better understanding of context - ideally, the ad should never be an annoyance;
4. The selection of ad creatives by predicting effectiveness, and eventually customer ad creative development directly by the machine.

Heading into 2018, InMobi is positive about welcoming the next wave of data science and analytics in the ad tech world. The innovations and opportunities at InMobi, only continue to bubble our energy.

We are growing our data science and machine learning team in Bangalore, at all levels of experience. We are looking for a passion to learn about the world from data; and an appetite to learn new tools. We are open to diverse academic backgrounds, providing an intent to think and problem-solve like a data scientist.If you are interested, connect with avi@inmobi.com.

We asked ourselves the same question while building our latest SDK. What would it take to deeply engage with users while keeping our promise to advertisers and publishers?

That’s why we decided to build a platform that establishes a dialogue with the users by allowing them to interact using native mobile capabilities such as zoom, tilt, tap and pan.

Six months (and several beers) later...

We are pleased to announce InMobi’s iOS 11 and Android O-compliant SDK 700 which offers the most comprehensive programmatic video suite in the industry.

The latest SDK from InMobi brings new and improved ad formats coupled with several under-the-hood changes improving the efficiency of internal APIs, simplifying integration and optimizing ad caching.

So what’s new?

[Industry’s First] Instant, Interactive Video Ads

With the InMobi SDK 700, advertisers can now leverage the native mobile capabilities such as zoom, tilt, tap and pan to elicit user response. These Interactive Videos are VAST 4.0 compliant, instant experiences delivered via WebGL or HTML5/CSS3.0/JS.

Playable Ads to Supercharge Video Monetization

Increase your video monetization by adding InMobi Playables to the mix! InMobi Playables are lightweight, experiential ads which allow users to test drive an app before downloading it. At InMobi, we have seen Playable Ads boost user engagement by 2.5X.

[Industry’s First] 1080p - True HD Video Experience

With several under-the-hood enhancements, InMobi SDK 700 brings a true HD video viewing experience to users at full 1080p resolution. Our SDK-powered buffer-free true HD ads load faster and use 70-80% lesser bandwidth while taking 40% less space on devices.

A Video for Every App Environment

Full-Screen | Rewarded | In-Feed | In-Stream | Out-Stream | Splash Video

The InMobi SDK 700 maximizes mobile opportunities with video ad placements tailored to every app’s unique environment. InMobi video ads guarantee high value for your inventory with static ads available via publisher controls as a fallback to always ensure a high ad fill rate.

Revamped Native Ads Integration

We have re-written the beginning, middle and end of the native advertising experience at InMobi. These revamped native ads give publishers complete control over the look and feel of the ad while maintaining the sanctity of the advertiser’s image or video. For more details, please refer to these guidelines: iOS, Android.

Once a Year Upgrade Cycle

Keeping up our promise of minimal SDK releases, the InMobi SDK upgrade will occur only once a year in tandem with the annual OS releases.

Plus, upgrading your InMobi SDK has never been easier! Please refer to our Migrating to SDK 700 support page to get started and download the InMobi SDK today!

Download SDK 700

Video consumption on mobile devices, specifically smartphones, has exploded over recent years. Nowadays, adults are spending 1.5 times more media time on mobile devices than on their desktops. Specifically, 90 percent of the time spent on smartphones occurs within apps, not on the mobile browser.

While industry spend still lingers heavily in mobile browser-based ads, brands are quickly shifting focus to meet users where they are with in-app video advertisements.

By embracing video that is built for the mobile device and also the behavior of a mobile user, advertisers can achieve superior performance that only video can deliver.

But measuring beyond a viewable impression is crucial to know if your ad is being seen, heard, and completed by a human. You must understand how these metrics combine to tell a complete story on your overall mobile video performance.

Read more: Learn how an MRC-accredited solution such as an SDK integration allows for greater in-app measurement and better mobile performance.

Traditional industry metrics that matter for mobile ads have included:

• View-through rate
• Completion rate
• Quartile completion rates
• Cost per mille (CPM)

But new standards allow us to take a deeper dive into the performance of our ad campaigns. So in this post, we’ll show you an expanded set of mobile app viewability metrics to ensure human engagement with your ad investments.

An expanded set of mobile app metrics

Moat, the third-party verification partner for mobile ads, recently released H2 benchmarks for video viewability. They can point us to a standard to measure campaigns against — however, with the right mobile-first practices, you can double many of these metrics, as we’ll discuss.

The “new” metrics that matter include:

• Human and viewable rate: Is your ad visible and seen by a human? Viewability is fundamental to ad efficacy. For video analytics, Moat follows the IAB guidelines to track video viewable impressions, requiring that at least 50 percent of the pixels of the player must be visible on-screen, and the ad must be playing for at least two continuous seconds.
  
  Benchmark: While the industry average for human and viewable rate for in-app mobile video is 47.4 percent, InMobi's is nearly double that at over 90 percent.

• Audible and visible on complete (AVOC): Often, ads are seen but not heard. AVOC is a measurement of the percentage of impressions where the ad was visible and audible on completion and delivered to a human.
  
  Benchmark: According to Moat, the AVOC industry average is 22.5 percent, yet with the right ad standards in place, the benchmark for ads run with InMobi reaches 37.8 percent AVOC.

• Invalid traffic (IVT): IVT is the percentage of total unfiltered impressions delivered to a non-human endpoint. This may include General IVT (Spiders, Excessive Activity, and/or Data Center Traffic categories) and Sophisticated IVT (Invalid Proxy, Automated Browser, and/or Incongruous Browser Traffic categories).
  
  Benchmark: The industry average for IVT is 0.5 percent, and InMobi sees less invalid traffic at only 0.18 percent.

• Video completion quality score: This metric describes the percentage of video completions that were both visible and audible. It can be calculated as Audible and Visible on Complete Rate divided by Reached Complete Rate.
  
  Benchmark: While the quality completion score for the industry is 46.1 percent, InMobi's is 56.8 percent.

• Moat video score: Moat video score, or MVS, is a video ad score ranging from 0 to 100. It benchmarks the sound, motion and sight aspects of a video. The score is based on the average percentage of the video that was audible and/or visible, amplified by the screen real estate. It assesses the quality of different video ad exposures on mobile and desktop devices.
  
  Benchmark: The average Moat score for the industry is 49.3 percent, while InMobi's was 58.4 percent. Furthermore, the average MVS for in-app video is 3x that of mobile web video, proving the quality of in-app mobile video investments.

By utilizing the right metrics, and the right analytic capabilities to measure them, brands and media buyers can determine how to improve their mobile in-app video ads and ensure they reach their audiences on the small screen. Therefore, invest in an ad network that allows you to activate viewability metrics on in-app advertisement campaigns at scale.

Read More: InMobi partners with The Trade Desk to deliver more transparent and reliable in-app metrics — read the press release.

Check out our latest vlog below:

Fraudsters use device emulation software in virtualized environments (on server hardware) to fake installs in an effort to claim advertising revenue to great effect. Fake installs defraud everyone along the advertising chain - taking money away from advertisers, publishers and networks. On a traffic flow sample of over 400M installs over 17 days, we estimated that $1.7M¹ worth of installs were being paid to fraudsters faking installs.

How Fraudsters Take Advantage of Data Centers

Fraudsters use commonly available device emulations software to affect data centers, programming scripts that make the emulator create a new random device with a fresh Device ID.

On that device, they then create a user and have that user engage with adverts. The emulated device will download the target app from an app store (or from local storage to cut down on traffic cost), triggering an install. Finally, the emulated device opens the installed app (to trigger an install event, which is then transmitted to the attribution provider).

Sophisticated fraudsters might even go as far as storing the session for later use, in order to create third or seventh day retention by opening another session at the desired time.

How Fake Installs Impact App Businesses

The principal effect of fake installs on an advertiser is that it introduces fake or misleading data into the marketing funnel. This issue goes beyond the lost spend which affects everyone.

This can cause the advertiser significant problems. Fake installs will, for example, register as users who have immediately gone inactive after they’ve completed the install (or reached the post-install quality goal). If these installs are attributed but not identified as fake installs, then such behavior can begin to damage metrics, such as retention rates. This can then begin to drag down other metrics, such as lifetime value, and cause a rippling effect that damages numbers across the entire funnel. The extraneous installs can also inflate the click-to-install conversion rates, potentially making certain channels appear to deliver more value than they truly do.

This can either lead the advertiser to conclude that channels that include some degree of fraudulent conversions have more positive ROI than other channels where all the users are legitimate. However, marketers could recognize that something strange is happening and instead discard the channel altogether, potentially losing out on the value of the legitimate users from that source.

Solving the Problem

When it comes to a solution, we can rely on one key insight: fraudsters will run these emulators in a data center, and typically they’ll either route the traffic through Tor or a VPN to “place” the conversion in high-value markets.

In most instances, when a user downloads a mobile advert their smartphone’s IP should be drawn from a pool of IPs associated with a carrier (if they’re on mobile data) or with an IP associated with an internet provider (of wifi). So, when a user’s IP is associated with a data center or an identity-masking server, such as a proxy, VPN or Tor, it is likely that there is an attempt to deliberately defraud the campaign.

IPs belonging to this type of locations, known as “anonymous IPs”, can be filtered from attribution to paid sources, preventing them from polluting data sources. This will prevent the majority of fraud associated with simulators before it begins and reduces the impact of one datacenter manipulation tactic significantly.

If you’d like to know more about the sources of mobile ad fraud, click here to be taken to Adjust's ebook download page, and get the full guide for an entire overview of the mobile fraud ecosystem.

¹ Adjust's Internal Data

The event was witness to an industry-first, CXO-exclusive Mobile Ad Lib session. Hosted by Arun Pattabhiraman, Vice President & Global Head of Marketing at InMobi, Mobile Ad Lib was a free flowing, interactive panel where the audience and speakers merged. The session saw key opinion leaders from organizations such as McKinsey, Nielsen, Mindshare, Unilever and BBM, come together and share their insights. The topics of discussion included the transformation of the Indonesian landscape with the advent of mobile, the evolution of consumer behaviour, and the growth which the nation’s mobile advertising ecosystem has been enjoying. The leaders were joined by a digital artist, who helped visualize the conversations in real time, adding a fascinating element to the setting.

The event showcased a curated collection of InMobi’s award-winning creative ads and case studies at the Experience Zone. At this zone, guests could interact first-hand with InMobi’s ads, helping them experience the endless possibilities that only the medium of mobile can offer. The zone included some of the most popular and award winning ads that InMobi had created in the past year, featuring the innovative use of cutting-edge technologies such as face detection, augmented reality, virtual reality and 360-degree video. Additionally, a special guest awaited the attendees at the Experience Zone - NAO the robot. NAO interacted with attendees, talked to them about the power of video on mobile, took selfies and even did a little jig for them!

The afternoon session was kicked-off by Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, InMobi. Naveen took the stage to deliver the Keynote Address and surprised attendees with a welcome message in Bahasa. As a part of his keynote, he discussed the crucial need to tackle the emerging duopoly with a strong third front and the importance of building open spaces as opposed to walled gardens. Post Naveen’s session, Jayesh Easwaramony, SVP & MD, APAC, InMobi, addressed the gathering with insights into the art and science of Doing Mobile Right. He shared with the audience how it eventually boiled down to 4 key factors - connecting, engaging, converting and consistency! The big announcement, however, was InMobi’s launch of a Mobile Innovation Suite, specifically tailored to Indonesia! This industry-first offering comprises:

1. Real-time user insights portal
2. Mobile video plus suite
3. Path to purchase optimization for both offline and online
4. Fraud-free, fully verifiable mobile media platform

It was then time for the first power chat, Indonesia Untuk Dunia, featuring Piotr Jakubowski, CMO-Go-Jek and Peter VN, CEO - Jenius -two definitive forces in the Indonesian mobile ecosystem. Talking to Prashant Choudhary, Sales Head - SEA, the panelists discussed the big wins from the world of Indonesian mobile marketing, and in what ways have Indonesians pushed the boundaries of mobile innovation forward.

The second panel saw its participants discuss a pressing issue, Delivering Accountability in Mobile Advertising. Moderated by Rishi Bedi, Head - Performance Advertising, APAC, the power packed panel featured leaders from Integral AdScience, L’Oreal, Appsflyer, Adjust, Zalora and Mainspring who shared insights on tackling the looming threats to transparency, ad safety and ad fraud.

Post this session, Eka Sugiarto, Head of Media-Unilever Indonesia, Anwesh Bosh, CEO- Havas Indonesia, and Peeyush Shekhar, Mobile Practice Lead-Mindshare Indonesia came together on a panel where they discussed Can Brands Go Mobile Only? They shared their thoughts on the fundamental changes brands have had to make in the last 5 years in order to truly embrace and make the most of mobile marketing. Additionally, they shared their personal views on what they thought it takes for a brand to go mobile only.

As Indonesia becomes the largest app economy in the Asia Pacific region, Matthew Talbot, CEO at BBM, Varun Mehta, Country Manager at Vuclip Indonesia and Ongki Kurniawan, MD at LINE Indonesia discussed the untapped opportunities that lie outside of walled apps on the panel titled Apps are the new Mobile Media: Life Outside the Walled Gardens. The panelists delved into nuances of ad monetisation in Indonesia in conversation with Ashish Thomas, VP, Business Development, APMEA at InMobi.

The closing keynote at InMobi Impressions was presided over by Piyush Shah, Chief Product Officer at InMobi, who shed light on the future of mobile advertising. Talking about the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in mobile advertising, Piyush shared a sneak-peek into the applications of AI for enhancing creative experiences by solving for high dimensionality and unstructured data.

InMobi’s first mobile conference in Indonesia was met with much fanfare, and the InMobi team could not be more thrilled with the response!

This blog is the first of a five-part series outlining some of the key insights from this survey, and what it might mean for the app world. This first post will highlight the insights from marketers’ self-assessments, perspectives on their teams, their goals/objectives, as well as key marketing & advertising challenges they face.

If you haven't had a chance to read this comprehensive report yet, download it now to learn what 800+ app marketers had to say about their strategy, priorities and innovative solutions to the biggest app marketing challenges.

Marketer Profile: Pioneers in a Dynamic Environment

• While app marketing is a relatively new discipline, its challenges are unique. 65% of those surveyed opined that they have 4 years or less of mobile app experience and are successful. This is a testament to the strength and passion of app business leaders. App marketers do not tend to define themselves as experts. In a constantly evolving industry with new strategies and tactics to learn every day, only a handful of marketers call themselves app marketing experts (14%).

Big Goals – Lean Teams

• 65% of the survey respondent’s teams comprised of five people or less. App marketing teams tend to be quite compact, and typically compete in an increasingly crowded market. This despite the growing share of revenue that apps contribute in the overall revenue mix for many companies.

Mobile App Marketing Goals: User Acquisition Tops the List

• User acquisition is vital for the success of any new mobile app. In fact, 70% of app marketers consider it to be the most important app marketing goal
• Next in line is user engagement & retention. This involves building a relationship with the users you have acquired such that in moments of their need, your app is what they recall and turn towards.

User Retention & Engagement a Major Marketing Challenge for App Developers

• 55% of the respondents stated that User retention & engagement is the biggest marketing challenge they face. User retention rates decline with time, thus reducing the impact of app monetization efforts.
• App discoverability is the second toughest problem, with nearly half the survey respondents facing trouble raising awareness for the app.

Attribution, Ad Block & Ad Fraud Are Key Issues/Concerns Facing In-app Advertising

• When asked about the key issues/concerns facing in-app advertising, the top three were: Attribution (48%), Ad Fraud (41%) & Ad blocking (36%)

These are just a few of the many insights unearthed through the analysis of our survey. The report offers an eye-opening look at the challenges in 2017, and what lies ahead.

Download this special guide and see what challenges and opportunities may be in store for your app business!

Stay tuned for the next part of this series, to be posted next week.

Commenting on the partnership with InMobi, Kartik Sheth, CEO, Airtel Wynk Music said, " Wynk is one of India's most popular entertainment apps and our goal was to work with the right display ad monetization partner who with the right platform could bring the balance of user experience and monetization capability to us and hence, chose InMobi. We are excited to leverage the InMobi SDK and their long standing advertiser relationships to power some really interesting and engaging ads to our users from their favourite brands.”

Wynk crossed 50 million downloads in March 2017. Ranked consistently as the top music app across play-stores in India, Wynk sees an average user spend 75 mins every day on the app. Airtel Wynk music commands a highly engaged user base across India with its strong content pull of 3 million songs across 12 regional languages.

Partnering with Airtel Wynk, InMobi will enable advertisers to target and engage premium smartphone users across India. “Brands have a great opportunity to launch new products or drive brand awareness through the InMobi-Wynk partnership amongst diverse audiences, especially young music enthusiasts,” said Navin Madhavan, Head, Publisher Partnerships at InMobi. “InMobi’s in-app SDK, with its superior ad caching technology, powers high-quality experiences for Wynk Music and its users. Advertisers can leverage high-impact ad placements such as full-screen interstitials during natural breaks in the user interaction and masthead banners on the homescreen of the app.”

Full-screen Interstitial and Masthead banner ad placements in the Airtel Wynk Music app

About Airtel Wynk Music:

Airtel Wynk Music is the India’s favourite on-the-go music destination on mobile. Available on Android and iOS, Airtel Wynk is a free app that provides unlimited streaming and free unlimited song downloads across Bollywood, regional and international music. Users can search for music by mood, by artist or simply tune into live radio.

Moreover, when consumers are on their mobile devices, they are spending 90% of their time in-apps.

This is why media planners are buying up mobile video advertising, especially in-app. Over the last year, U.S. brand advertisers increased their mobile video advertising spends by 56%.

But if videos are not properly optimized for in-app play, media planners are wasting their advertising dollars.

If you are looking to buy interactive video ads in-app, keep these guidelines in mind.

• Make sure your video format matches mobile usage. Heed how your consumers are holding their phones: vertically. So design creatives in a vertical format, and don’t make users turn their phones to watch your video ad.
• 15 seconds is the new max. Opt to shorten your commercial spot and get to your message right up front — ideally, in 15 seconds or less. In fact, 70% of consumers will not watch an ad that is longer than 10 to 15 seconds.
• Non-optimized assets are a waste of screen space. Make sure all assets are clickable, readable, engaging and serve a purpose for a mobile device. Take full advantage of interactive ad formats that utilize that device’s unique features, like the camera, GPS, and gyroscope sensor.
• Create additional engagement by adding interactive end cards. Interactive end cards provide a templated yet customizable rich-media experience for greater engagement, once the video has been completed. This ensures highly viewable and high performing video campaigns are the first priority but still enables the viewer to interact with desired brand actions in the post the video view. Click here to write the perfect end cards.
• Invest in technology that delivers buffer-free video. A buffer-free (0.06-second) experience with the VAST standard gains higher performance than waiting for 2.6 seconds with VPAID, because your users drop off before several seconds. A shorter video creative ensures higher completes and better mobile ad viewability. Learn more: Read the “Doing Mobile Video Right” White Paper.
• Videos can auto-play, but without sound. Audio is seen to be intrusive to the users. They should have the power to turn it on and off. That is why it’s important to make your ad engaging is from the top. It’ll encourage users to turn on the sound and listen to your message. Additionally, utilize a call-to-action with text included at the front of the video play to ensure users can see your narrative, even if they can’t hear it.
• Create only high-quality ads for mobile. Users expect videos that are clear, well produced and conform to their mobile devices. You cannot use desktop technology or parameters for your in-app mobile video ad.
• Use an MRC-accredited solution for in-app viewability. Measuring the impact of your interactive advertisements is crucial. An MRC-accredited solution — like an SDK such as the IAS or Moat integratration into the InMobi SDK — can accurately measure your in-app video performance.

Investing in in-app mobile video ads is going to help you reach a majority of consumers across connected devices. When you allocate your advertising resources to in-app video planning, just make sure you follow the core principles we outlined.

As part of our continuing efforts to contribute to the growth of the mobile app space, InMobi conducted a Mobile App Performance Marketing Survey to explore the current and future trends in the world of mobile app marketing. The survey results bring to light what’s working and what’s not in the industry, thus equipping app marketers with a deeper understanding of the responsibilities, activities, and challenges facing them.

The State of App Performance Marketing 2017 Report presents insights drawn from the responses of 825 participants across 155 countries. The report explores trends in app marketing, user acquisition strategies, user engagement and retention strategies, measurement & attribution, mobile ad fraud and KPIs used to measure campaign success.

To find out what over 800 app developers had to say about the future of app performance marketing, download the infographic from the links below.

Learn more about how data can impact your business, please reach out to our InMobi Insights team at insights@inmobi.com.

According to eMarketer, in 2016, mobile advertisers spent $46 billion on ads. More than half of that money, $24 billion, was allocated to unseen browser ads. Consumers are spending 90% of their time on their mobile devices in apps, which means that browser-based campaigns are going unnoticed. In addition, mobile video has been proven to deliver more than 10 times the engagement of banner ads.

To get the most return out of their mobile video ad campaigns, retailers and brands should be adding "end cards" into their video experiences that capture consumers’ attention and persuades them to take action. The following are ideas for getting the most out of mobile video ads with end cards.

Why are end cards important?

End cards give the viewer something to do after seeing an advertisement. From an advertiser’s perspective, end cards provide a templated yet customizable rich-media experience for greater engagement. In fact, according to InMobi data, interactive end cards following a 15-second video drive up to 9x engagement over static banner ads. End cards are a way to increase engagement and keep viewers attentive until the very last second.

If you’re considering using this advertising method, the following are ideas for getting the most out of mobile video ads with end cards.

Write engaging copy and include special access element

Your end card copy may include enticing language and a special offer only for mobile ad viewers. For example, you could provide a limited-time discount code or access to behind-the-scenes video of how your product is manufactured. Make it clear that the offer is going to expire soon to encourage consumers to take action.

Choose two-to-three calls to action max

You do not want to overwhelm the viewer, especially because he or she cannot do too much on a mobile device. The call-to-action should be distinct and easy to take advantage of via a mobile phone, tablet or watch. Do not complicate your offering with too many possible outcomes.

Make sure button and copy match device behavior

Your call-to-action button needs to be big and clickable, and your copy should be easy to read on a mobile device. Don’t replicate your desktop call-to-action if it cannot be completed on the go. Instead, choose something that is mobile-friendly like, “Find your nearest restaurant/ATM/store/deal.” When users click, they should be taken to another link within the mobile app experience or to a mobile-responsive website.

Capture a mobile lead on the move

Since you’re trying to gain information from a mobile lead, make it simple for him or her to provide data and fill out a form. Place a maximum of two fields on your form and only ask for easy information like name and email or name and phone number. Additionally, take advantage of a mobile device’s unique features: the camera, the gyroscope, etc. A

You can further extend engagement with a series of videos: If users have shown interest, give them more of the content they love! Adding additional video clips can maximize your media performance and extend your 15-second spot into minutes of users’ attention.

Understand the Key Performance Indicator you want to track

Once you’ve created your end cards and integrated them into your mobile video advertisements, track how well they are working and whether or not you are reaching your KPI goals. For instance, you could look at how often users are clicking the deep links within your ad and the links that take them out of the app. You could measure how many leads you capture with your forms and if people are watching your entire video ads as well.

Getting started with engaging mobile video ad end cards

Are you interested in creating attention-grabbing end cards? Find out more about InMobi’s Ad Formats services today.

According to Google, YouTube reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds in the United States than any cable network . More than half of the traffic is from mobile devices. The average number of video views per day on the site is one billion, and people watch videos for about 40 minutes during every viewing session.

Mobile is not only overtaking television. It is also catching up to desktop video viewing as well. According to Adobe, 36% of smartphone users watch long-form videos on their devices every single day, and 58% will watch short-term videos daily. Additionally, Google research revealed that mobile ad video viewability on smartphones was higher (83%) than on desktop (53%) or tablet devices (81%).

Mobile video and mobile video ads will only continue to grow as people become increasingly reliant on their on-the-go devices. If you have produced a TV commercial for your brand, it is wise to transform it into a mobile video advertisement as well.

Tips for repurposing your TV commercial into a mobile video ad

It can be costly and time-consuming to make your TV commercial into a mobile video advertisement, but it is well worth it. You are going to reach more consumers as well as that key 18- to 49-year-old demographic that is going to purchase your goods and services.

When repurposing your ad, focus on the following aspects:

• Length. The best length for your repurposed TV commercial is 15 seconds maximum.
• Speed. People have no patience for slow-loading video ads. According to one study, viewers will abandon a buffering video after only two seconds. It is crucial to invest in technology that will ensure a speedy loading time and eliminate the dreaded buffering symbol.
• Engagement. If you don’t draw your viewers in right away, you are less likely to have a high click-through rate. According to Ad Age, you need to grab viewers’ attention within the first 10 seconds. After that, you will lose 33% of people by the 30-second mark, 45% by the one-minute mark and 60% by the time the video hits the two-minute mark. Invest in ad formats that have an interactive element: end cards with calls-to-action, for example, or interactive elements that rely on the mobile device’s camera, barometer, or gyroscope.

Technical specifications for your video ad

To ensure that your repurposed TV commercial is suitable for a mobile video, utilize VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) over VPAID (Video Player Ad Interface Definition) technology. VPAID has up to a 2.6 second loading time in a web-view video player, which will discourage mobile users from sticking around to view your ad. On the other hand, VAST provides an in-app mobile video viewing experience that boasts a load time of only 0.6 seconds. Viewers will quickly see your ad in this format.

During the repurposing process, you also need to use a software development kit (SDK) integration. An SDK will collect unique anonymous device insights, which may include user behavior metrics, geographic location and other key details you can utilize in future ad campaigns.

In summary

TV commercials are rapidly becoming outdated. It is crucial for you and your brand to invest in mobile video advertisements that load quickly and offer an excellent viewing experience for consumers.

For the uninitiated, VAST - launched in 2008 - is used for structuring ad tags that serve ads to video players. ¹

The key mobile in-app video challenges addressed by VAST 4.0 include the following:

High Latency Infused by Interactivity

VAST 4.0 has addressed the challenge of latency by separating the video file and the interactive file.The separation of the video file from the interactive API file assures a seamless video experience even when the interactive element can’t load.VAST 4.0 also removes the reliance on VPAID, which was originally introduced to overcome VAST’s shortcomings on interactivity in pre-roll ads.

A VPAID tag being non-native to the mobile OS can’t be cached and often causes long video load time. The high video load time results in a poor user experience, weak render and fill-rates for publishers, and low viewability and completion rates for advertisers.

Reliance on VPAID for Ad Verification and Measurement

In the absence of measurement provisions on VAST, VPAID has been primarily used for measuring viewability instead of ad interaction. VAST 4.0 has introduced support for inserting ad verification APIs into the XML. In addition, VAST 4.0 includes a secondary impression element, the <ViewableImpression> element, to track viewability.

Device and Video Quality Mismatch

With VAST 4.0, advertisers can now have three ready-to-serve files, each at a different quality level, ensuring the video is always delivered irrespective of the device type.

Advertisers spend time, money and energy on creating a narrative for their ads, but often fail in translating their message effectively across devices. Sometimes this occurs because advertisers share a single resolution video asset which might be too high-quality for mobile or too low-quality for the big screens. VAST 4.0 enables video delivery customized to the device type.

Other notable improvements which VAST 4.0 brings to the table include:

Server-side Support

VAST 4.0 introduces support for the “ad-stitching” method for server-side video ad stitching into the main content stream and sending it to the players. Though client-side stitching is recommended, this server-side ad stitching helps in delivering video to players with limited capability to execute and track ads.

Support for Categories

The ad category support introduced in VAST 4.0 can help publishers to filter out the ads from competing brands. The category identification can potentially act as an agent for brand-safety measures too.

For more details and a full list of features, please refer to the IAB’s VAST 4.0 Guidelines.

Although we still have to wait for a wide adoption of the VAST 4.0 standard in the ecosystem, we at InMobi are busy enabling publishers to become future programmatic ready with VAST 4.0 compliance in the upcoming SDK 700.

Stay tuned!

¹https://www.iab.com/guidelines/digital-video-ad-se...

In 2012, U.S. adults spent twice the amount of digital media time on desktop devices over mobile ones, according to eMarketer. Now, in 2017, adults are spending 1.5 times more media time on their mobile devices than desktops.

Mobile usage, especially mobile video usage, will only continue to grow as more consumers embrace the medium. It is estimated that between 2016 and 2020, the number of digital video viewers will reach 235.9 million, which is a 10% increase, according to Statista.

Now is the time for brands and retailers to invest in mobile video advertising to capture consumers’ attention and accurately target them with products and services.

The rise of mobile video advertising in the U.S.

U.S. based brands are heavily capitalizing on mobile video advertising in an attempt to reach consumers. According to IAB, U.S. brand advertisers increased mobile video advertising spends by 56% over last year. In the first half of 2017, North America represented 52% of global mobile video ad spend, which was a 50% increase from the first half of 2016, according to Statista.

Measuring viewability metrics

Viewability is a big barrier for brands and retailers. If consumers cannot speedily view videos, advertising campaigns are going to suffer. Studies from InMobi revealed that with the right technologies, advertisers can experience up to two times the industry standard for video viewability.

In nine brand advertiser categories including travel, technology, retail and entertainment, InMobi’s viewability rate was at least 90%. While the Media Rating Council’s standard for acceptable invalid traffic levels is around 0.6%, InMobi’s audience verification and viewability suite results in IVT levels that are at 0.2%.

Learn more about how an SDK can improve measurability without slowing performance.

How to increase viewability with VAST and End Cards

InMobi utilizes VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) to ensure videos are delivered in a seamless and quick manner. VAST-tagged mobile video ads have the ability to foster an immersive and native user experience that includes end cards and social sharing in-app.

When advertisers take advantage of VAST through InMobi, they will experience an average human and viewable rate of 92% on their ads. The viewable and human rate is so high because load time is only 0.6 seconds, compared to VPAID’s 2.6 seconds, according to data from the InMobi network.

The future of mobile video advertising

Programmatic video ad buying is sweeping every industry. According to IAB, this year programmatic video ad spending is predicted to climb to $8.66 million, and programmatic represents 69% of the total video ad spend in 2017. According to findings from InMobi, there is a 36% year-over-year growth in programmatic buying.

In 2017 and beyond, it is crucial for brands and retailers to invest in mobile video advertising. They should utilize programmatic buys to increase their video opportunity, use VAST-tagged mobile video to boost speed and eliminate buffering time, look into third-party verification partners to guarantee brand safety and team up with a partner that doesn’t compromise media performance and viewability.

To better understand the complexity of retargeting on mobile, one should draw parallels between retargeting in the desktop and the mobile worlds. Let’s examine it using the below example:A user goes online with the intent of shopping and spends some time browsing through the latest collection of shirts, but leaves without making a purchase. This user action makes for a clear retargeting use case. So, how would retargeting work on both the desktop and mobile?

Desktop vs Mobile

Whenever a new user visits a website on the desktop, a cookie is dropped to track the user’s activity across the browser and to follow them across the web. The user in this case hence is continuously served ads about the latest collection of shirts based on their footprint - wherever they go. This means that advertisers can “retarget” users by merely embedding a javascript on their website.

Sequence of actions

Pretty simple, right! How different can it be on mobile? To answer that, let’s explore the kind of information one needs, to retarget.

Device/OS based: Tracking and Attribution IDs (IDFA for iOS, Google Advertising Identifier for Android)

Advertiser owned: in-app/web events, product ID, offer details, deep-links

Network facilitated: in-app/web ad inventory, budget optimizations

The biggest challenge in mobile remarketing is the ability to track users across apps and the mobile web, given the lack of cookies in the mobile ecosystem. To solve for this, mobile app store players - Google and Apple, have enabled their operating systems to allow ad networks to identify and track individual devices for the purposes of mobile advertising. Apple with its IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) and Google with its “Advertising ID” allows the ad network SDK sitting in an app on a device, send along this identifier with an ad request while requesting an ad. Of course, user privacy being paramount here, Google and Apple allow the user who owns the device, the option to “Limit Ad Tracking” or “Opt-out of interest-based ads”, which is meant to prevent ad networks from profiling the user.

Now, retargeting becomes possible on mobile as advertisers can integrate with ad networks to share the user-base in real-time for retargeting. Third-party tracking and attribution players help facilitate and bridge this requirement between advertisers and ad networks across Android and iOS. Additionally, third party trackers also relay in-app events such as gaming level-ups, shopping add-to-carts, travel package views to the ad networks which then can better optimize and contextually retarget users.

So, just to revisit the retail example we were referring to earlier, we find that mobile retargeting can happen in 2 ways - App-to-App and Web to App.

App to App

With the availability of unique identifiers, app to app retargeting leads to highly accurate targeting and attribution. Below is a sequence of events that would happen in the retail example.

Sequence of actions

Web to App

In the web to app scenario, given the lack of SDK-based information, a combination of probabilistic/deterministic methods such as cross-device profiling and fingerprinting are used for tracking and attribution respectively. Cross-device tracking is an incredibly complex process that relies on huge amounts of data to identify user patterns across devices and attribute it to a user. Fingerprinting redirects a user through a measurement URL that collects publicly available HTTP headers about the device and creates a unique fingerprint. A 97% accurate method, device fingerprinting, is the most common method used in web to app retargeting attribution.

Sequence of actions

Remarketing vs Retargeting

While the terms retargeting and remarketing are often used interchangeably, ‘Remarketing’ is a an umbrella term that can be used to encompass broader aspects of marketing such as creative innovations, dynamic pricing whereas retargeting is more restrictive and refers largely to "targeting" capabilities.

To make remarketing cost-effective, bidding for the user on his/her propensity to convert as well as showing a personalized proposition via dynamic creatives becomes paramount. At InMobi, we recently launched our remarketing platform that solves for these challenges and has delivered some compelling results for our clients. The InMobi Remarketing Platform is an app-to-app remarketing platform that is designed and optimized for mobile. Built for mobile-first businesses, InMobi Remarketing is a comprehensive solution to fulfill performance marketing goals at each step of the user lifecycle post-acquisition that allows activating users by nudging them to (first) purchase, retargeting users to drive repeat purchases, and reactivating dormant users to engage and purchase.

Whom is Mobile Remarketing for?

Mobile remarketing is an important lever in building customer loyalty and lifetime value for a wide range of performance marketers and app developers including, but not limited to - retail, gaming, on-demand services such as taxi, entertainment and travel verticals. Below are a few examples of how advertisers can leverage remarketing:

• First Purchases or Incremental Sales - e.g. A retail app can target users who have recently installed their app with custom offers to drive the first purchase;
• Subscriptions - e.g. Music apps can showcase a carousel of trending bestseller tracks, encouraging existing users to sign up for more subscriptions;
• Incremental Rides - e.g. A cab hailing app can retarget existing users during peak office hours and promote ride discounts to maximize bookings;
• Level-ups - e.g. Gaming apps can re-engage users stuck at a particular level by incentivizing them with level-up sweeteners to maximize retention.

Here is a short informative video on the InMobi Remarketing Platform. You can check out our solution at http://www.inmobi.com/advertisers/remarketing and read more about our recent launch at http://www.inmobi.com/company/press/inmobi-launches-industrys-first-remarketing-platform-optimized-for-mobile/

Time and again Hair Force One - Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior VP of Software Engineering has made it to headlines. During WWDC 2016, Federighi created a musical controversy by rejecting a Facebook friend request from Taylor Swift. For the uninitiated, there was even a fake Twitter account impersonating him during WWDC 2014.

Although 2017 has been somber on the controversy front, Craig Federighi has promised a series of noteworthy updates to iOS 11. Our top five picks for developers in the upcoming iOS 11 release are:

Apple Pulls the Plug on 32-bit Apps

Yes, you heard it right - with iOS 11 release - Apple’s mobile devices will only support 64-bit applications. 32-bit apps will stop working. Even the app store search will not surface existing 32-bit apps. Also, the users won’t be able to access the previously downloaded 32-bit apps from the “Purchased” tab.

[Source: MacRumors]

Apple Promises Faster Approvals

Developers can rejoice that Apple will review newly submitted apps much faster than before. Phased releases will also be supported.

Goodbye Custom Rating Prompts

Apple has always excelled at keeping things user-first and 2017 is no different. In addition to enforcing a cap of three rating prompts per year, developers can no longer request a user to rate its app through in-app pop-ups if the user has already rated the app. A user can also disable the in-app rating prompt by turning it off under the "In-App Ratings & Reviews." The good news is that if the developer opts in, the star ratings will be retained across updates to give an aggregate view of the app rating.

[Source: 9To5Mac]

Blue Bar of Shame for Apps with “Always” Location Setting

iOS 11 brings in stringent measures for apps which collect the location in “Always” mode.

The user will be able to opt for location setting: “While Using the App,” even if the developer didn’t surface it earlier. In iOS 10, if an app was set to use location “Only While Using the App,” a blue bar would appear indicating the app’s location usage while transitioning from the app to the Home screen. In iOS 11, this functionality is extended to the apps with location usage set to “Always.”

Apple Brings Discovery to the Forefront

iOS 11 has a completely overhauled app store experience. To aid better discovery, “Apps” and “Games” will be separate menu tabs coupled with a tidy “Today” tab showcasing featured apps. Another noteworthy change is on the app store page design, where the app’s rank within its category will be listed for users.

[Source: Apple]

Although there were many more updates announced at the WWDC 2017, this blog covers the updates most relevant to app monetization. As always, acting upon these pointers at the earliest will help attract more valuable users and create more value for them.

We at InMobi too are preparing for the iOS 11 readiness with SDK 700, available in September 2017.

The scope of the back-to-school market

Shoppers are opening up their wallets and spending big on back-to-school necessities in 2017. According to Statista, the average U.S. family plan to allocate $687 for their items, which is the highest that back-to-school spending has been since 2013. Families with children going to college will earmark $970 for school supplies, according to National Retail Federation. Overall, U.S. back-to-school retail sales are going to climb to $857 billion, which is a 4% uptick from last year, according to eMarketer.

If retailers and brands want to reach parents and students and encourage them to purchase, they need to advertise to them through the relevant channels. It's not too late: In fact, 21% of back-to-school parents are planning on doing their shopping a week before school starts.

How do you reach them? This year, it’s all about mobile.

Utilizing mobile advertising for back-to-school

More than half of retailers are going to change their marketing approach to parents this back-to-school season by focusing on mobile. In addition, 89% of marketers plan to boost their investment in mobile advertising, according to Retailmenot.com.

Though most parents and students already know where they are going to spend their money, 20% of shoppers are unsure whether they will buy online or in-store, according to Deloitte. This means that $5.4 billion of spend is currently undecided, and that retailers still have a chance to capture consumers’ attention.

Reaching back-to-school shoppers with mobile video advertising

One effective method for connecting with these ambivalent shoppers is through mobile video advertising. In a time when more than half of video content is viewed on mobile devices, according to WordStream, retailers and brands are placing more emphasis on mobile video advertising.

One survey by IAB revealed that 62% of advertising decision makers are going to boost their mobile video spend. To keep up with the competition, companies in the back-to-school space need to be doing the same.

What to promote through mobile video advertising

When it comes to mobile video advertising, retailers and brands will likely focus on showcasing three different offers: In-app promotions, single use promotion codes and free shipping.

This is because 65% of marketers will advertise in-app back-to-school promotions and 60% will offer one-time use promotion codes to increase purchases, according to Retailmenot. More than 90% of shoppers will plan on taking advantage of free shipping, according to National Retail Federation.

Getting started with mobile video advertising this season

Mobile video advertising is going to enable retailers and brands to sync up with consumers this year and sell more goods than ever before. By connecting with consumers on their level, retailers have the opportunity to promote their back-to-school products and boost their bottom line.

Sharing her thoughts, Vasuta Agarwal, VP & GM, InMobi (India) said, “For advertisers who are constantly hunting for innovative ways to reach out to their users, TrulyMadly is the perfect app. With a huge urban active user base in the age group of 18–34 years across male and female audiences, TrulyMadly provides inroads for brands who aim to target mobile-first audiences such as millennials. Leveraging a combination of TrulyMadly’s highly engaged audience data and InMobi's powerful ad serving technology, advertisers can deliver high-performance creative to the right audiences.”

Talking about the partnership, Rahul Kumar, Co-Founder, TrulyMadly said, “After evaluating multiple partners for monetization, we decided to go ahead with InMobi. While we were aware of the benefits that the InMobi SDK offers across ad experiences and yield optimization, we were also surprised at the ease and rapid go-live of the integration. As a mobile-first player for almost a decade, InMobi has always been at the forefront of delivering great ad experiences to users. InMobi continues to be a collaborative and strategic partner for TrulyMadly.”

Explaining this partnership, Navin Madhavan, Head of Supply & Partnerships, InMobi (India) said, “In this tie-up, we will be adding an SDK code to their app. This will help in blending the exclusive ad slots created by us with the app. This in-turn will help in engaging people in a non-intrusive user experience.”

This article was originally published on exchange4media on Friday, Aug 4 2017.

About Truly Madly: Truly Madly is India's most loved dating app. It focuses on creating a reliable and exciting environment for young millennials to meet new people. With over 3 Million profiles and each profile verified by a TrulyMadly expert, it's one of the most genuine and safe dating apps on the internet.

To know how InMobi can help you drive better engagement through ads on your app, write to us at sales@InMobi.com

In 2017, U.S. adults are expected to spend 1.5 times more media time on connected devices than on desktop computers, and on average, people are on their mobile phones over four hours a day. During much of this time, consumers are interacting with mobile advertisements.

But how can advertisers be sure that consumers are actually engaging? Follow these top takeaways to ensure that consumers are actually watching ads, and that marketing messages are getting through.

Invest in in-app advertising

About 90% of the time on smartphones is spent in-app, and in-app is the next phase of digital ad viewing. To ensure you’re doing right by the consumers, you need to use advertising technology designed specifically for apps. Too often, advertisers these days are relying on outdated desktop ad technology. Instead, they must switch to ad technologies that are compatible with the native viewing environment.

Hone in on visual content and queues

More and more advertising is image and video-based. In fact, 37% of marketers say that visual marketing is the most critical form of content for their business.

Advertisers must figure out ways to identify content by using image recognition and artificial intelligence. If they do this, they can provide more and more automated data signals to help out on brand safety metrics and invalid traffic. Using AI and automated data signals will help the industry identify bad actors in the space doing click fraud and help them eliminate this kind of behavior.

Focus on video load time

Consumers are constantly complaining about the “wheel of death,” also known as the buffering signal. If an advertisement or piece of content takes too long to load, consumers are going to get frustrated and exit right away.

Video ads should take about 6/100th of a second to load. There should never be a trade off between advertisers collecting the metrics they need for measurement and angering consumers while they wait for an ad to load.

Read more: How to Measure Mobile Video Viewability (Without Slowing Performance)

Measure different forms of video

Advertisers must determine what forms of video they are going to create. For example, they can put out portrait vertical videos or horizontal ones.

People are holding their phones vertical. These ads take up 100% of the screen, so it is a more user-friendly viewing experience.

It has been found that only 13% of users are going to turn their device horizontally to watch a video. However, that doesn’t mean horizontal videos and ads are always the worse option. Advertisers need to measure which form works best before making a final decision.

Determine the times when you will auto-play sound

Consumers understand that in order to receive free content, they are going to have to sit through advertisements.

It is up to advertisers whether or not they are going to auto-play sound or let users control the sound experience. While many web browsers allow users to block ads from auto-playing, this is not a concern in the in-app environment. Advertisers can measure KPIs and see if users are not watching auto-play videos, and then determine where to go from there.

By following these ad viewability trends, advertisements will better connect with consumers and ensure they are going to watch their content from beginning to end.

Check out our latest vlog below:

However, measuring mobile viewability is still extremely limited. Many brand marketers wonder how to measure viewable impressions on mobile without sacrificing media performance.

On one hand, you can utilize the Video Player Ad Interface Definition (VPAID) to host your videos, which lets you track information on your users’ behavior thanks to browser-based cookies. But then your load time is slow, as a user’s mobile phone must dredge up an advertisement from the user’s mobile browser.

(In fact, InMobi found in a study that VPAID browser-based ads have a load time of up to 2.6 seconds. Of course, most users will abandon the ad after two seconds.) With a slow load time, viewability and completion rates are both severely lessened.

On the other hand, you could use the Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) to ensure a quick load time — since this method loads video using the device’s native video player. In fact, VAST ads load within 0.06 seconds, according to InMobi data. But, unfortunately, many advertisers feel limited by the insights they can gather with VAST, since they can no longer rely on browser-based cookies.

As a result, many advertisers feel that they must make a hard choice: independent measurement for mobile video, or high-performance ads?

Thankfully, you can have the best of both worlds, if you implement the right technologies for your mobile video advertisements.

Let’s dive in:

Use VAST, not VPAID, with an SDK integration

Media performance is key to your mobile video campaigns. After all, it’s 2017, and your users expect immersive, quick-loading video content.

With VAST technology, you pull up video content from the device’s native video player. This allows you to also pre-cache a video on the device and provide a buffer-free video experience, so your viewability metrics can reflect the ad itself — not its load time.

And if you use the device’s media player, you lose your ability to track users with browser-based cookies. Thankfully, there is a solution to integrate analytics into your VAST advertisements.

Gain Unique User Insights With an SDK Integration

In order to gain audience insights when using a device’s video player, it’s vital to incorporate a software development kit (SDK) integration. An SDK can gather unique anonymous device insights, much like cookies would in a browser-based setting on desktop. Insights might include metrics on a user’s behavior as well as their geographic location and other details.

As you assess ad network partners to host your in-app videos, invest with partner that implements third-party verification within its SDK. (Third-party verification might include Moat, IAS, or another similar company.)

An SDK-integrated ad network can deliver higher-than-industry benchmarks when it comes to viewability. This allows you to measure the ROI of your marketing spend — specifically with video metrics like viewable impressions and audio-upon-completion.

InMobi, for example, offers a third-party verification built into its SDK, and can deliver unique device insights on video completions, interactivity, and viewability metrics. That means you get both fast-loading ads and invaluable device data.

How to Measure Viewable Impressions – Conclusion

When you consider VPAID and VAST for your mobile videos, it’s important to know the pros and cons of each method. VPAID offers you some great browser-based insights. But you can’t ignore the slow load time of browser-based ads, and too much buffering will drive your users away, which skews your viewability metrics. VPAID technology hinders media performance through limited viewability measurement and lower completion rates. As a brand marketer with viewability goals to meet, that all leads to a significant loss in ROI.

In order to focus on what matters — a great video experience for your audience — use the VAST method, and partner with an industry leader to get insights from a software development kit, such as geographic insights and engagement data.

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While Jayesh touched upon the global mobile trends and challenges with mobile video, Vinay went on to do a deep dive into what mobile video viewability really means. The engaging and anecdotal conversation between the two facilitators drew active participation from the audience, with questions pouring in about how to identify the right partners to work with, how interactivity influences viewability and much more.

In addition to answering these questions, Jayesh and Vinay also gave the audience a few tips on how to think about mobile video viewability:

• Include in-app video in your media mix to maximize your video opportunity
• Adopt the VAST video standard in order to future-proof your investment
• Invest in third-party measurement in order to ensure brand safety

With the issue of mobile video viewability being the most hotly-debated one in the advertising industry, what are you doing to ensure that users are able to see and engage with your mobile video ads? We’d love to hear more!

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InMobi was proud to be the premier sponsor of this year's IAB Mobile Symposium. Amongst those who attended included leading agency holding groups, DSP partners and leaders from the mobile app marketing space. The intention was to discuss the latest trends in mobile and engage in a frank discussion on the path forward in mobile.

InMobi kicked off the first town hall of the day moderated by Anne Frisbie, Senior Vice President, Global Brand and Programmatic at InMobi and Chris Kuist, Senior Vice President of Research and Impact at IAB.

InMobi’s Anne Frisbie delivered an insightful speech about the need to improve industry standards. She also spoke about the increased popularity of video-based ads on mobile, and InMobi's approach to "Doing Mobile Video Right" so as to provide a superior experience to consumers. This strategy underlined the need to provide complete transparency in the buying process, through programmatic buying, with 3rd party verification at an impression level.

Anne also talked about the importance of brands to align with the right technology stack deliberately built for connected devices, to ensure the consumer video experience is buffer free and that there is no trade-off between viewability and media effectiveness. She then elaborated on how to measure mobile brand safety metrics such as AVOC (Audible and Visible on Completion) and IVT (Invalid Traffic) as well as new benchmarks in the market such as the Moat Video Score.

During this open town hall conversation, Anne addressed some of the concerns brought up by the audience regarding measurement of their cross-platform buys. Source of such concerns stemmed from not being able to gain clear data signals around in-app campaigns using browser-based VPAID technology. These limitations had resulted in the buyers deciding to eliminate mobile apps from their buy, due to a lack of independent in-app viewability measurement metrics.

Anne went into great detail on how InMobi was focusing on a VAST-based solution to provide a buffer-free video experience for consumers. The VAST based solution would enable InMobi to provide an interactive experience to users without suffering a drop in completion rates. InMobi's innovative mobile video ad solution could also be verified independently by IAS and Moat as well as traded programmatically, across platforms such as Adobe and The Trade Desk.

All attendees were given gifts of clip-on fisheye lenses to take incredible wide-angle smartphone photos to highlight InMobi’s industry leading in-app viewability suite with IAS and Moat.

The InMobi team had a great time talking to attendees and managed to get some great photos from behind the scenes. Multiple agency buyers joined the InMobi team after the session to discuss how they could improve their in-app video metrics, as in-app video buying is becoming a larger part of their overall marketing mix. Industry feedback from the approach adopted by InMobi was in agreement that VAST technology is the optimal buffer free experience for consumers on connected devices.

There is now starting to be industry alignment that VAST technology can not only provide the best consumer experience but also provide an optimal measurement platform for brands to maximize their media effectiveness, without a trade off in interactivity and in-app viewability.

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the Zee Melt Conference, India’s biggest festival for disruptive marketing and communications.

The end of May saw a passionate group of InMobians in Mumbai, India for the annual MELT conference - a two-day showcase of the best creativity and innovation in marketing and communications. With 4 interactive sessions spread over the two days of the conference, InMobi joined a host of other marketing leaders in driving awareness about the hottest marketing trends, especially in mobile advertising. Arun Pattabhiraman, Vasuta Agarwal, Sahil Mathur and Shantesh Gogi of InMobi led sessions on mobile video, ad fraud and mobile creative innovation respectively. Here’s a brief overview.

Doing Mobile Video Right

Speaker: Arun Pattabhiraman, VP & Global Head of Marketing

The morning of day 1 saw Arun Pattabhiraman taking the stage to educate the audience about the importance of doing mobile video right. With outdated and desktop-based ad technology being prevalent in the mobile advertising industry today, mobile video ads load slowly and buffer endlessly, leading to a poor end-consumer experience and ineffective media for advertisers. With proven results from the InMobi network, Arun was able to drive awareness about the reasons behind the less-than-ideal performance of video ads and how to turn it around.

Accountability in mobile advertising

Speaker: Vasuta Agarwal, VP & GM - India

Global mobile ad spend is growing at a phenomenal rate and the Indian market is no different, exhibiting strong traction and sustained interest in mobile advertising. However, as Vasuta explained at MELT, all is not well, with 10% of all digital ad spend in India being suspect. In order to combat the menace of ad fraud and improve accountability, Vasuta helped advertisers understand the importance of buying brand-safe, viewable media and demanding transparency from partners.

Access the whitepaper on fighting fraud in mobile advertising

Unveiling innovating mobile creative that deliver impact

Facilitators: Sahil Mathur and Shantesh Gogi

The world of mobile advertising has moved light years beyond the simple banner and interstitial ads! During their in-depth 2 hour workshops on both days of the conference, Sahil and Shantesh worked with a highly engaged group of participants to showcase the latest in mobile creative innovations including augmented reality-based ad units, drone-based advertising experiences, interactive virtual reality advertising and more.

To discuss how mobile innovation can help your campaign reach out to brand@inmobi.com

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the InMobi-hosted event titled “Programmatic Trading in the Mobile World”.

InMobi, in partnership with Rubicon, recently hosted an event in our Sydney office to discuss programmatic trading in the real world. As part of the event, we invited 5 industry leading speakers to share their rich and diverse experience with the audience. From insightful research to impactful measurement, the speakers touched upon a broad range of topics that kept the audience deeply engaged.

Here’s a quick video of the event!

As one attendee said, “What a fantastic evening at the Mobile Programmatic event in Sydney. We were privileged to have 5 industry leading speakers that delivered whole-heartedly on the promise of providing insight on the multiple functions of mobile advertising and how these work together, challenging the current status quo and opening up conversations to define the path to better programmatically-driven advertising, with a key focus on user experiences and data''.

Here’s a brief look at the key takeaways from each speaker:

Stuart Bartram, InMobi

Our very own Stuart Bartram took the stage to unveil InMobi’s specially curated mobile audiences available on the InMobi Exchange in Australia. A powerful in-app exchange built on rich mobile first-party data, multiple ad formats, audiences at scale and brand safety, the InMobi Exchange, as Stuart affirmed, offers a comprehensive viewability verification suite with leading independent providers to increase transparency on ad viewability.

Sej Patel, YouGov

Sej Patel of YouGov, led the group through an independent mobile consumption study, driving home that an average user spends 60% of their digital time on mobile, of which 87% is in-app. While retail and video entertainment were popular categories, gaming and music were the top categories engaged with.

Simone Krakowiak, Rubicon

Simone’s session on growing programmatic spend into mobile provided insight into what media buyers want from their mobile advertising investments and what advertising practices consumers will respond most positively towards. She encouraged the digital industry to continue to create ad experiences with the end consumer in mind.

Richard Knott, Celtra

A very charismatic Richard Knott took a captivated audience through the significant role that creative plays in mobile advertising. He reminded the assembly that for a successful mobile programmatic campaign, media planners must deliver across all pillars of digital advertising – media, data and creative.

David Goodfellow, MOAT

In his session, David stressed on the decrease of the average human attention span in the last 15 years. As a result, the human species’ attention span is now in competition with goldfish! And in such a scenario, it becomes increasingly important to provide measurability and viewability for all digital platforms and to champion quality sources of traffic that are a balance of great UX and effective advertising.

InMobi regularly participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from “K-Start: Let the Games Begin” an event organized by Kalaari Capital in Bangalore, India.

In this edition of the InMobi event diary, we cover our presence at the Kalaari Capital-hosted event “K-Start: Let the Games Begin.” As playground for a discussion on the disruption in mobile gaming and where the Indian gaming industry is headed, the event aimed to provide indie game developers and startups access to workshops, networking sessions and guest lectures.

The Indian gaming ecosystem is likely to become the 3rd largest app economy riding on increased penetration of smartphones, reliable and fast internet connectivity, as well as enablement of micropayments. With over 250 startups in the indie gaming realm, there is headroom for disruption and enormous growth.

Mobile Monetization: Keep The $$ Flowing

Navin Madhavan, Head - Business Development and Strategic Partnerships, India at InMobi was the designated moderator for the first panel of the day on mobile monetization. The panelists included Manish Agarwal from Nazara Technologies, Rohit Bhat from 99 Games and Vaibhav Gupta from Octro Inc. The panel talked about the trends that are shaping mobile gaming in India.

• Jio and demonetization are catalyzing gaming adoption in India
  The panelists commented on the changing psyche and habits of Indian gaming consumers. Indian consumers are not only discovering and engaging with a large number of gaming apps but are also becoming comfortable with the idea of in-app purchases. This has been catalyzed by the growing internet penetration with Reliance Jio’s launch and the government’s demonetization initiative.

• Being consumer-first is the answer to your monetization model
  There is a false perception that Indian consumers cannot be monetized in the gaming ecosystem. Game developers should understand what best suits the game and its audiences when building a monetization strategy - be it paid, freemium, IAP or ads. Additionally, if monetizing through ads, game developers should delve deep into user behavior when implementing ad placements.

• Rewarded Videos: Powerful for acquiring or retaining users
  The panel delved into the impact of rewarded video as a user acquisition and retention mechanism. With a user opt-in, rewarded videos drive high-intent installs as users are incentivized for the video view and not the install, simultaneously boosting user retention with in-app rewards.

Marketing to Mobile Gaming Audiences

Speaking on the “Evolving mobile marketing trends in the gaming industry,” Vasuta Agarwal, VP & GM, India shared a few tips on mastering paid user acquisition.

• Building your marketing strategy
  When it comes to paid user acquisition, game developers should build their marketing strategy to cater to the different phases of launch, scaling and user retention (Download the InMobi Apponomics to know more about building your marketing strategy for these stages). Closely optimizing on targeting, creative and tracking and attribution are mandates for driving successful marketing campaigns.

• Riding the videowave for user acquisition
  Video ad spend is growing exponentially and is undoubtedly a must for acquiring high-quality users. Game developers should especially leverage rewarded video and consider building mobile-first, vertical videos for maximizing conversions. (Read more about what video ads mean for performance advertisers).

• Analyzing metrics with tracking and attribution
  The bedrock of a successful marketing campaign on mobile is data. Tracking and attribution help not only analyze the success of a campaign but also provides insights into user behavior by capturing valuable in-app events such as leveling up. View-through attribution is a must for marketers looking to invest in video ads.

InMobi was also invited to a set of roundtable mentoring sessions at the event. Rajesh Pantina and Richard Barretto from InMobi guided indie developers on various aspects of mobile marketing and monetization to wrap up the day.

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InMobi proudly kicked off its Video Soiree event series with Moat as the first official partner of this year’s New York event on May 10th, 2017. Amongst those who attended included leading agency holding groups, DSP partners and leaders in the mobile app marketing space, to discuss the latest trends and metrics in mobile viewability today.

We were excited to hear from Moat’s Aaron Lombardi in regards to quality mobile metrics which marketers need to consider while evaluating their mobile ad spend.These parameters such as In-view time, AVOC- Audible and visible on completion, IVT- invalid traffic, video quality now constitute a new standard in industry measurement called the Moat Video score.

InMobi’s Anne Frisbie delivered an insightful speech addressing the need to improve industry standards and highlighting InMobi's approach to Doing Mobile Video Right. Anne talked about the importance of brands to align with the right technology stack purposely built for connected devices, to ensure the consumer video experience is buffer free and that there is no trade-off between viewability and media effectiveness.

A projector showcased a customized vertical video for the audience, which was projected off a mobile device itself. This video showcased InMobi’s approach to Doing Mobile Video Right, especially its focus on building the best consumer experience while ensuring that viewability, interactivity and overall media effectiveness are top of the line. The video introduced Moat’s new metrics which comprise the Moat video score. It also showcased our co-marketing approach with Moat, demonstrating how this partnership has allowed InMobi to have a Moat video score of 2x the industry average.

The InMobi team had a blast talking to attendees and managed to snap some great photos in front of our step and repeat sign with many customers and our partner Moat. Most people who came along were interested in in-app video metrics, as in-app video buying is becoming a larger part of the overall marketing mix. They displayed a great deal of interest in how viewability and verification work across connected devices.

InMobi was proud to be an official partner of this year’s MAU Vegas event, organized by Grow.co, joining many of the world’s top minds in the mobile app marketing space to discuss the latest trends and technologies in the market today.

The InMobi team had a blast talking to various attendees at our InMobi booth during the Meet & Greet Happy Hour event on Day One of the two-day conference, including many existing customers and partners. Most people who came to the booth were curious to hear more about InMobi’s User Acquisition and Remarketing solutions for performance advertising and also our solutions for publishers to monetize their app with the suite of InMobi Video Ads. However, ALL the people who visited the booth seemed interested in entering for a chance to win a free Nintendo Switch!

The evening of the second and final day of the conference, InMobi co-sponsored the MAU Vegas 2017 Official After-Party to support Women in Wireless, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping connect, inspire and empower female leaders in the mobile and digital space with over 12,000 members in 10 chapters across the world. The party was a wonderful opportunity for conference attendees to get together and unwind after an intense couple of days of conference learnings and networking.

While MAU Vegas 2017 was certainly a great opportunity to network and connect with fellow members of the mobile growth industry, it is first and foremost an educational forum where the top minds in the mobile app marketing space discussed the top trends, technologies and best practices surrounding user acquisition, retention/engagement through remarketing and methods to effectively monetize app users.

Here are three key themes discussed during the conference:

1. App Install ≠ Customer: The Importance of Remarketing

Throughout the two-day conference, a clear theme emerged that user acquisition is only half the battle to any mobile growth strategy. What good is paying for countless new installs when over 75% of users never use an app again after 72 hours of downloading? If your user hasn’t been to your app in over two weeks, how can you reactivate these lapsed users and bring them back? The answer is remarketing.

Remarketing technology has come quite a long way in the recent years. What started as something very desktop oriented and cookie-dependant, using only static ads creatives and vendor-controlled attribution has now greatly evolved for the current mobile-first landscape. Today, app marketers can retarget on mobile using technology equal to, and even exceeding, what is available on the desktop. Remarketing campaigns today can utilize the latest technologies such as serving dynamic ad creatives, support for deep linking, cross-device targeting and integration with a variety of attribution partners.

Combined with user acquisition, remarketing is a crucial component to any mobile strategy to acquire, convert and retain those hard-earned users.

2. A/B Testing is Key

Something that was discussed again and again throughout the conference during a wide variety of session topics, is that marketers need to always be A/B testing. This applies to almost everything in the mobile app world including testing minor changes made to an app for impact on user experience as well as testing ad creatives and strategies for effectiveness. In regards to A/B testing mobile performance campaigns, some things which should be tested include conversion rates, conversion velocity, average order value, and lifetime value (LTV).

During the panel titled, “Grow and Engage Your Active Users Through Precise Audience Targeting,” Christian Gladwell, President of Client Services at MachineZone discussed how his company is constantly testing ad creatives. He broke it down further in that 90% of their campaigns are testing new creatives while only 10% of campaigns are using pre-existing tried and true creatives. By building a strategy around constant A/B testing, MachineZone has found that simple changes can have a profound and positive impact on conversion.

3. It’s time to think beyond Facebook and Google.

The quality and scale of users from Facebook and Google are strong, but extremely expensive. At the current price of Facebook and Google installs, performance growth marketers struggle to meet their LTV needs. Mobile marketers are now turning to alternative ad networks and new media sources to achieve similar high quality installs at more reasonable pricing than these two giants are currently offering.

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Deciding to aggressively double down on acquiring quality users and to grow its engaged user base in India, here is how OLX leveraged InMobi to acquire and activate high-quality users.

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WPP, Stream Indonesia, is one of the world's leading technology conferences that brings together 200 leaders to discuss and debate what sets Indonesia apart, why the conditions are so attractive for brand-building, and what the future holds for one of the world’s most rapidly advancing economies.

InMobi’s Indonesia team had the opportunity to share our findings on mobile becoming a primary screen of choice, the rise of mobile video advertising, and best practices for creating mobile-first video ads. Here were the 4 key takeaways from the discussion:

1. TV is slowly becoming obsolete

The rise of video streaming players such as Netflix and Hotstar is changing the way people, especially millennials, are consuming video content. By empowering users to consume content on their own time in their own way, video streaming is slowly making TV redundant.

2. Mobile is becoming the new TV

In Indonesia, one of the top 5 uses of smartphones is watching videos. Additionally, online video streaming, mainly accessed by millennials, contributes the biggest portion of mobile data usage.

It is clear mobile devices are fast becoming the first screens of choice for millennials - mobile’s always-on capability coupled with its ability to provide an immersive experience, truly makes it a millennial’s best friend. The portability of mobile, access to 4G & falling data prices are also making mobile a powerful medium of consumption.

3. Think beyond gaming for mobile advertising

Publishers across categories such as entertainment, social, retail are adopting video advertising as it provides a huge opportunity to improve engagement, unlock scale and drive conversion. With streaming content grabbing the most eyeballs, video ads blend seamlessly with the content giving users a consistent user experience.

4. Mobile-first videos are the way to go

Tailoring video content for mobile is key to fully leveraging the mobile video ad platform. Making your mobile video ad interactive, short and most importantly mobile-first is the way to capture the attention of your mobile obsessed millennial audience

While there can never be a one-size fit all approach to mobile, InMobi network data points to interesting universally-applicable insights into user behavior that will help drive increased ROI for brands.

Here are 3 ways brand marketers can plan their IPL mobile strategy better:

1. Embrace video

Across ad formats, while there is an increase in user engagement in May, it is video that emerges as a clear winner. Video ads drive a disproportionate lift in engagement, especially during IPL, delivering a whopping increase of 107%* when compared to pre-IPL and 43%* when compared to the first half of IPL.

Here’s an example of an award-winning mobile video ad.

2. Think beyond sports content

While it is a no-brainer that sports content would be a major draw for users, with all the on-field drama, celebrity attendance and intense emotions around matches, entertainment content pips sports to emerge as a winner in terms of user traffic, with sports and games coming in second and third respectively*. However, when it comes to surge in user traffic as compared to pre-IPL months, news and sports content emerge winners*.

3. Focus on the second half of IPL:

In May, with the end of the season in sight and high-profile matches taking place, user engagement increases by 33%*, making this time of the season the most valuable for marketers, especially for finance, food & drink and retail advertisers, who saw the highest increases in engagement.

*InMobi network data

A mobile native video is a perfect combination served within the user’s context in her favorite medium on her preferred device. To drive the best results out of the mobile native video, the MMA native committee members inclusive of InMobi, Adxcel LLC, Electronic Arts Inc, Flipboard, Jun Group, Nativo, PubNative, Triad Retail Media, and VEVO have come together to craft native video best practices based on their past experiences of running similar campaigns.

To summarize, marketers should heed the following to improve the efficacy of their native video ad campaigns:

• Grab user’s attention within the first 2-3 seconds of the video with a compelling narrative.
• Become truly native to the user’s experience by making sound secondary. Tailor the video in a fashion that storytelling comes through even when on mute.
• Keep the video length as short as necessary to be able to convey the message and align it with the objective.
• Identify environments and publisher contexts that are most relevant to the campaign and customize messaging accordingly.
• Consider gaming environments to reach the target audience as the same user sits across multiple gaming and non-gaming apps.
• Make the ad experience seamless for the user by aligning sound, auto-play, and skip as per the user’s environment.
• Measure viewability to ensure that the message was indeed delivered to the user.
• Identify direct response metrics and end conversion metrics that impact the business and optimize the ad campaigns to achieve them.

While it will be some time before the ecosystem matures enough to a gold standard on native video, the committee's work is an early attempt at throwing some light on the topic. Putting these best practices into execution can convert an indifferent scroll into a thoughtful click.

You can deep dive into MMA - Mobile Native Video Guidance Report here.

¹ HubSpot

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What’s interesting about the rise of mobile app usage is that globally, users’ mobile consumption patterns are not consistent - they vary through the day based on factors such as time of day, app category, user demographic and much more. InMobi conducted a research study on how Australian users engage with their mobile devices throughout the day. This research study goes to show how crucial it is for marketers to build an adaptive in-app programmatic strategy, enabling them to tailor their brand messages to changing user moments throughout the day.

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India has emerged as one of the top 5 mobile gaming markets in the world with gaming apps accounting for a major share of the app downloads across the country in 2016. Despite commanding a large user base of highly engrossed gamers, monetization still remains a challenge for game developers. But, with the right monetization strategy and an in-depth understanding of in-app advertising, gaming apps can grab a share of the ever growing pie of app publisher revenues in India.

In a fireside chat with P R Rajendran (Raj), CEO of Nextwave Multimedia, we discussed the major trends in Gaming App Monetization in 2017 and delved into:

• Building the right monetization strategy
• Unlocking revenues with Video and other in-app ad placements
• Leveraging learnings from global game developers

Hosting the session was Navin Madhavan, Head of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships in India.

With a brief introduction of Nextwave Multimedia’s foray into mobile gaming and their journey to the top of the app store rankings with World Cricket Championship, Raj touched upon the key pillars for building a successful game. Cutting across individual aspects of game development, user acquisition and metrics for success, Raj provided valuable insights into what can comprise a formula for success. “Developers should not be flustered by the number of gaming apps in the market or look to copy a successful game. Good games are differentiated and can swing audiences based on a unique user insight,” quipped Raj on the approach to building games.

InMobi’s monetization success stories with Nextwave Multimedia and other global game developers addressed the various facets of monetization, including video’s rapid growth. “India is definitely going to have several successful games in the next one to two years and video is going to be the prime lever in their monetization strategy,” concluded Raj.

For more insights, watch the webinar video on InMobi TV or access the detailed presentation on InMobi Slideshare.

Ad:Tech is undoubtedly amongst the biggest events that the Indian advertising ecosystem looks forward to every year. On the eve of ad:tech, TUNE, a leading mobile tracking and measurement platform, organized an interesting evening, titled Winning the Mobile Moments. The evening brought together the best in the mobile industry in India to share insights on leveraging data and to highlight the latest trends for winning every mobile moment.

Vasuta Agarwal from InMobi joined a few other esteemed panelists - Arun Jayaraman from BigBasket, Daman Soni from Mobikwik, Sarchana from Wadi and Anant Patel from MakeMyTrip - to discuss and debate on ‘How to be mobile best.’ Below are the 3 big talking points from the panel discussion:

Understanding mobile moments

Mobile is an integral part of people’s daily lives and is creating various opportunities for businesses to engage their users with mobile moments. A mobile moment can be defined as delivering the right product/ service when the user needs it the most. For instance, frequent travellers can be prompted with a cab booking offer right when they step out of the airport. And, grocery shoppers can be reminded of their emptying kitchen cabinets based on their purchase frequency & history. Advertisers should look to understand and seize these mobile moments.

Creating a Mobile Winning Strategy

Creating a mobile winning strategy comprises 3 important aspects - targeting the right audience, showcasing impactful creatives, and tracking engagement across the user funnel and measuring vital metrics beyond installs such as cost per quality user. Advertisers, today, are delving deep into designing, optimizing and investing in creatives for the mobile medium.

Focusing on User Retention

Re-engagement features as an important lever for online businesses in 2017. The goal for advertisers is to retain and maximize value from hard-earned users through retargeting for which they are engaging users with personalized offers. As users continue to discover, engage and transact on multiple devices, advertisers are keen to reach their valuable users across both mobile web and in-app.

The future of the online world in India will be driven by mobile. Advertisers, who capitalize on mobile moments by building the right mobile strategy and engaging their user base, will win the popular vote of millions of Indian mobile users.

Mastercard’s challenge was to reach out to the right audience and effectively convey why Singapore was not only an exciting family destination but also how Mastercard could enrich their overall holiday experience!

With mobile devices fast becoming the first screens of choice for Indian users by virtue of their always-on’ capability, Mastercard wanted to use mobile as their primary marketing channel in order to instantly capture the attention of affluent Indian travelers and leverage the highly personalized environment offered by a mobile device.

Therefore, Mastercard decided to partner with InMobi, to leverage their superior audience technologies and personalized creative capabilities for mobile to drive Mastercard’s key business objective. By utilizing InMobi’s unique technological capabilities, Mastercard was certain that they would be able to ensure scale and deep user engagement.

A Sneak Peek into the Mastercard mobile creatives:

Find out how InMobi enabled Mastercard to reach the right set of users and engage them with contextual ads powered by InMobi’s rich data signals.

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About InMobi

InMobi enables consumers to discover new products and services by providing contextual and personalized ad experiences on mobile devices. Through its revolutionary advertising and discovery platform, app developers, merchants and brands can engage mobile consumers globally. Recognized by Fast Company as one amongst the Most Innovative Companies in the world for 2016, InMobi reaches over 1.5+ billion unique mobile devices worldwide.

About Nextwave Multimedia

With blockbuster app store games such as World Cricket Championship 2 (WCC2) and Beach cricket under its belt, Nextwave Multimedia is one of the largest app developers in India. Winner of the Nasscom Gaming Forum Awards’ “People’s Choice Game of the Year” in 2015 for WCC2, Nextwave Multimedia develops games, digital content and digital creation tools.

Seize the moment

Leveraging the true power of mobile advertising via precise targeting and interactive ad formats is of significant benefit to anyone trying to amplify their brand message or app installs amongst users. With a large percentage of our undivided attention on mobile devices, advertisers can no longer continue to ignore this medium. But what we do realise is that not all advertisers have tapped into the benefits that the device has to offer. Clearly, the opportunity to bring them on board the mobile revolution is huge and wide open.

Ride the mobile wave. Together.

On this note, we would like to welcome marketing partners - who bring a high level of expertise and market knowledge - to work with us in our effort to grow the mobile advertising ecosystem across the globe.

If you are a digital marketing agency, marketing expert or a mobile ­solution provider who is looking for inventory to run some of your campaigns and acquire users OR seeking help to reach new users on various apps in a device (which contributes to 60% of the user mindshare in addition to the time spent on social media and search), then please feel free to sign up for the InMobi Marketing Partners program on our website.

Be a mobile expert. Leap ahead.

As a Marketing Partner, you will be trained on the best practices to secure additional budgets for your mobile advertising campaigns using targeting nuances, powerful InMobi dashboards, analytics and reporting systems. Of course, all this is in addition to the exponential growth in business and revenue that you stand to make by working with us.

Our unmatched global scale and proven experience in mobile advertising, combined with your market understanding are bound to result in a successful association!

Please join us as we try to grow the mobile advertising market and help brands scale their businesses via mobile.

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Mobile, in short, has become a catalyst for transformation in the way we live our lives.

As mobile technology and innovation continue to drive the way forward, here are the key mobile marketing research insights of 2017 in Indonesia based on InMobi’s network data.

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As we move towards the end of the year with holiday campaigns in full swing, and financial planning for the next year underway, it’s time to think about how the industry is going to change in 2017 and how marketers can prepare accordingly. Here are some trends that marketers need to watch out for in 2017:

Mobile Video Capability Set To Increase And Will Be A Real Game Change

Mobile video, set to comprise two-thirds of all mobile traffic and more than half of online ad spend, is a highly valuable investment for advertisers. Besides increasing smartphone usage and adoption of 4G technology, wide distribution, booming consumption, continuous innovation, low entry barriers and standardization of video templates will continue to fuel the growth of mobile video. The mobile video market is expected to reach over $13 billion by 2020, primarily powered by programmatic video, projected to be more than 60% of total digital video spending in the U.S by 2019. Video ad formats such as vertical, 360 degree and virtual reality (VR) videos are the next frontier and will bring an immersive and interactive experience to users on the go. Industries such as travel, fashion and entertainment can guide customers through virtual holiday tours, product trials, movie trailers and encourage transactions. With the development of ad viewability standards and proven results with shorter formats (30 seconds or less), mobile video will become the most effective, efficient and widely accepted medium for advertisers.

Mobile Remarketing As The New CRM

Retaining users and keeping them engaged is more important than driving just app downloads. According to recent studies, after 30 days only 6% of people who installed an app were still using it. This is a big problem in the app ecosystem. Retention rate continues to trend downward each year, going from 42% to 37% this year, while cost of acquiring new users rose 117% year over year.

Two years ago, advertisers were only concerned with acquiring as many new users as possible but when the data started coming in, it showed that 23% of users were abandoning the app after opening it just once. In such a fiercely competitive environment where smartphone users and app downloads continue to increase but aren’t keeping pace with the number of apps being continuously used, a shift in marketing strategy with the target of retaining users is key to success. Mobile remarketing has become a central strategy for businesses today and is emerging as the new age CRM platform to customize value propositions for users across the lifecycle. Through app remarketing, brands can reach out to lapsed and new users to ensure they keep using the apps they downloaded.

Mobile Programmatic Will Become Even More Essential

Programmatic ad spend has been on the rise and shows no signs of letting up. According to eMarketer, mobile will represent nearly 75% of all programmatic ad spending while desktop will account for about 25% by 2017. The use of programmatic ads is not only growing on the video side but is now representing a larger portion of the overall advertising market. With economic uncertainty looming and with recent ad blocking apps, marketers are looking to maximise every opportunity to engage with customers. The combination of features such as rich ad formats, ability to buy digital ad inventory and usage of real time data to improve targeting and measurement, and the opportunity to make on the fly changes to maximise interactions and conversions, will further catapult programmatic to new heights in 2017.

Unlocking The Potential Of Emerging Markets

Emerging markets presents a tremendous opportunity for mobile advertisers. It’s estimated that advertising in emerging markets will be a $300 billion business by 2020. With mobile penetration nearing 80% in the US, and the market becoming crowded, it’s a good idea for brands to look closer at the emerging markets. BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries are the largest emerging markets followed by South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi and Mexico.

Of all the emerging markets, China is the most exciting and fastest growing with a huge audience and great purchasing power. According to iresearch, China’s mobile advertising industry has maintained a growth higher than 160% in recent years with advertising revenue expected to exceed 300 billion Yuan ($43.5 billion) in 2018 from about 90 billion Yuan ($13.1 billion) in 2015. With internet usage and smartphone penetration skyrocketing in these emerging economies, advertisers cannot ignore the opportunity and scale these markets provide.

Importance Of Mobile Measurement & Attribution Rises Further

The challenge to provide trusted and effective measurement and attribution of marketing efforts on mobile is raising the demand for accountability from advertisers. While getting customer data from apps is important to drive marketing efficiencies, it’s equally important to understand what is being measured, and how to translate the measurement of marketing activity into something that is clear, focused and actionable. With exploding mobile advertising budgets, there’s a need for data-driven analytics to connect user's mobile behavior and their real world offline actions. As users jump from device to device along the purchase funnel, marketers will be looking to attribute across devices to better understand the buying behavior and plan their media strategy accordingly. From guaranteeing 100% viewability of ads on mobile to enabling seamless cross-device targeting to ascribing impact of campaigns across networks and formats, measurement and attribution will be pivotal to scaling advertiser spend on mobile. At the same time, marketers will want to evaluate campaign performances in a holistic manner across all marketing activities and any malicious reporting or opaque self-attribution could only hamper mobile ad growth.

AR & VR All Set To Gain Momentum

The success of Pokémon GO generated widespread interest in augmented and virtual reality apps and will grow next year and beyond. As AR and VR become widespread and more developers get on board, the apps will expand beyond gaming and move into mainstream sectors ranging from a car test-drive VR experience, to retail shopping via VR enabled transmission and distance learning programs, to real-estate sector.

According to IDC, It’s estimated that the number of virtual reality users will reach 171 million by 2018, as the mobile VR headsets become more accessible and cheaper than computer VR headsets. In terms of revenue, it’s estimated to reach $5.2 billion this year and expected to grow to $162 billion in 2020. These numbers will definitely push brands to create some revolutionary products over the next year and think about investing in virtual reality ads.

Final Thoughts:

With the constant advances in technology, marketing strategies that worked this year may not be as effective in 2017. Marketers should always be on the lookout for the next cutting edge trend and push the boundaries to stay ahead of the competition.

Download our Yearbook for more detailed insights to power-up your marketing strategy in 2017.

All in all, it was a year of revelations and here we highlight a few key themes :

1. The rise of mobile video advertising : 200% growth in video ad consumption

In 2016, video was the fastest growing ad format available to marketers, charting over 150% growth in ad spend and 200% increase in consumption. Additionally, marketers around the world allocated 24% of their digital ad spend to mobile video ^[1], confirming that ad dollars follow user behaviour. By delivering unparalleled results - 4X higher user engagement and 2X higher conversions compared to static formats, it is not hard to see why video was the preferred choice amongst marketers.

2. Driving loyalty : Mobile remarketing adoption soars by 400%

The app ecosystem is reaching a ‘tipping point’, and app developers are considering user retention to be as important as acquisition. Nearly 50% of all app marketers across the world adopted app retargeting as a means of engaging users in 2016 ^[2], and many more intend to allocate budgets in the next 12 months. On the InMobi network alone, mobile remarketing adoption surged by 400% across the first 3 quarters of the year. With retention rates as low as 6% on Day 30 after an app install^[3], mobile app remarketing is proving to be indispensable.

3. Entering the age of automation : 75% of marketers bought their mobile inventory programmatically

In the march towards achieving greater efficiency, control and transparency, 75% of all marketers adopted programmatic in 2016 and 33% of them have been doing so for over 2 years ^[4]. Currently, advertisers based in North America account for the largest share of mobile programmatic ad spend. Interestingly, In H1’16, 85% of the mobile programmatic spend on the InMobi network came from Fortune 500 brands. Growth in programmatic adoption is expected to come video ads as 44% of marketers preferred to buy video via programmatic^[4].

4. Advantage Asia : China, India and Southeast Asia spur growth

Asia is a vast and diverse region where mobile user behaviour and preferences differ in each country. China’s digital ecosystem is mobile-first and users exhibit a high degree of mobile maturity compared to the west. This will continue to grow as by 2020, mobile is forecasted to account for 84% share of total digital ad spend ^[5]. In India, on the other hand, mobile accounted for only 3% of the total media ad spend, which is expected quadruple to a 10% share by 2020^[6]. Ad spends in the market shifted from pure app installs and user acquisition to user retention and high LTV. Southeast Asia is a eclectic mix of mature market such as Singapore, and the trailblazers like Indonesia and Malaysia which are driving growth in the region. Declining smartphone prices coupled with improved 4G coverage is encouraging a mobile-first digital ecosystem.

2017 is sure to be another stellar year for mobile advertising and the industry will continue to build on these themes from 2016.

For more details on award winning mobile-first creatives, opinions and thoughts from industry leaders and case studies, explore the Yearbook online right here. For future references, you can also download the full copy for yourself.

Sources :

[1] IAB digital video ad spend study, IAB, 2016
[2] Retargeting is a must for app marketers, eMarketer, 2016
[3] What makes a good retention rate, Adjust, 2016
[4] Mobile Programmatic : A buyer’s perspective, InMobi, 2016
[5] Digital ad spend rises in China, eMarketer, 2016
[6] Digital ad spending in India to surpass $1 billion next year, eMarketer, 2016

Reaching beyond the surface, marketers can leverage this distinctly active audio-visual medium to tell their stories and value propositions in a clear and understandable manner.

Advertiser Name - OLX: Buy and Sell near you

Developer - OLX B.V.

2. Strike the right balance between User experience and storytelling - keep the length between 15-30s

While rewarded videos intuitively seem to guarantee high completion rates, 30s is the ‘tipping point’ for videos to lose impact and pass into nothingness.

Advertiser Name - 1010!

Developer - GramGames

3. Engage the right audience - reach highly involved users

A user is a 40% more likely to stick around when downloading an app after seeing a video ad than if they downloaded the game after seeing a non-video format ad. By incentivising for the view and not the click, rewarded videos naturally glean the high-quality users from the rest.

Advertiser Name - Talking Tom

Developer - Outfit7

4. Capture user intent - use end cards effectively to drive user action

A clear call to action and important meta-data such as app rating, the number of downloads and publisher name are vital for driving user decisions.

Advertiser Name - Township

Developer - Playrix

The event was unique not just for the attendee-initiated discussion topics but also for additional activities such as yoga, meditation and a cooking contest in addition to offbeat activities such as powerpoint karaoke and VR tech garden. Added to this, an unexpected drop in temperatures prompted the purchase of Mexican ponchos readily procured by the resourceful organizers, resulting in a colorful gathering of attendees indeed! Used to the more temperate climate of India, I promptly donned a poncho, grateful for its warmth!

The discussions at Stream covered a spectrum of thought-provoking topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Parenting in the Digital Age, Why Hillary lost the Election, The Future of the Advertising Agency and Corporate Transparency. One prevalent theme was the importance of trust in advertising and the changing definition of what that means. How do brand advertisers trust that each of their media partners is working in their best interest?

The topic was not just limited to measurement and metrics although that was certainly front and center. Facebook addressed the revelation that they made an error in the measurement of video viewership overstating time spent on videos on their platform for over 2 years. They subsequently found additional errors in audience measurement across a portfolio of products, admitting additional work/investment was required to give advertisers and agencies "clarity and confidence" in their walled garden environment. SnapChat shared that they decided not to take the walled-garden approach by implementing a host of third party measurement partners - 16 and counting!

Indeed the list of measurement solutions to meet advertiser requirements is long and growing. Fraud protection, brand safety, audience verification and viewability measurement are all pre-requisites and offer multiple choices of vendors for each standard. We, at InMobi, have changed ad serving impressions to count on ads rendered only when those impressions are from human traffic, in a brand safe environment, with the ad 100% in view for a certain length of time, sometimes with audio on.. In one discussion group, it was estimated that over 10% of the cost of digital media (and maybe as much as 20%) is attributed to providing trust assurances.

A couple of dominant topics at Stream suggest that there are two new areas of trust that need to be addressed - fake content and bias in advertising. Concerns around misleading and fake social media content having a major influence on how Americans voted in the recent US Elections was a big topic. As self-defined "technology" companies, not "media" companies, editorial oversight was not something that either company had contemplated. That will likely change.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating and well-attended discussions was led by Joel Benenson, Hillary Clinton’s pollster, who spoke about the results of the US Election. Part analysis and part therapy, the conversation was centered on how Americans were blindsided by the election results because their individual experiences on social media mirrored their individual points of view. This raised many questions around the topic of bias in marketing - especially models that are inaccurately built based on confirmation bias. What are the causes of bias in marketing? How does an ad agency and/or tech company ensure that the talent they employ is diverse enough that human bias is limited? Even as we start to employ new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, concerns arose on whether bias was baked into machines or not.

Whether the cost of trust is 10% or 20%, perhaps a more fundamental question is how do large media partners like InMobi ensure that the cost of trust isn’t innovation itself? Are we investing more in supporting third party verification services than we are in innovation? As the head of a mobile advertising platform, the need to balance these two is especially poignant given the juxtaposition of a highly personal device and rapidly changing consumer behavior. Media companies need to build a foundation of trust with their advertising partners to continue to innovate for and with them. How are we able to continue to test in new areas when third party verification services aren’t yet available? Could this hold back innovation? Constant innovation and disruption are two of the principles of digital marketing and finding ways for these to co-exist with today’s trust standards will be key.

It was certainly plenty to think about as I boarded the flight for home. I look forward to seeing what next year’s Stream has in store and I will definitely carry my poncho!

The success of the campaign was further cemented when it was recently awarded a Gold and a Silver in the in the ‘Mobile Video’ and ‘Innovation’ categories respectively in the prestigious Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) UK and EMEA Smarties™Awards

A Sneak Peek into the Campaign

During the Rugby World Cup in the UK, with patriotism running ripe, Samsung found an opportune moment to evangelize their partnership with the England Rugby and stand out as a proud sponsor of the host nation team. Through this partnership, Samsung was looking to drive brand affinity, and in the long term brand love. The primary objective was to drive views of the ‘The Samsung School of Rugby video’, a series of football lessons presented in a light-hearted manner, amongst the “Big Eventers”.

Why Mobile?

Samsung hypothesized that mobile usage spikes during sports games because viewers tend to dip in and out of action. This meant that Big Eventers were likely to view their mobile devices during games. In addition, Samsung had fantastic video content and wanted to present this content through an innovative and compelling way to wow their target audience.

Mobile was the perfect medium to achieve these goals. Leveraging the gyroscope in a mobile device, a 360 degree video ad creative was designed to ensure that audiences could engage with Samsung’s content in an all new way.

Reaching the Right Audience with the Right Message

Samsung partnered with InMobi to build a bespoke audience of Big Eventers, using unique first party data. First, users who frequently use sports apps were identified. Location data signals were then leveraged to identify users who frequently attend large-scale sporting venues and who also attend big national sporting events. Users who were marked by both data types were classified as Big Eventers.

A best-in-class technology was used to create an immersive 360 degree ad creative featuring a rugby game. With the goal to deliver an engaging experience for the user, a gyroscope to adjust the video’s viewpoint was used. Users who viewed the video could rotate their devices and view the game from different angles as the video played, giving a 360 degree experience to users . Once the video ended, users could click to view more videos or share the video on Twitter.

This innovative ad format encouraged users to truly engage with the “The Samsung School of Rugby Video Series” and learn about the sport in a refreshing fashion.

Tremendous business impacts for Samsung

More than 1 million Big Eventers were exposed to Samsung’s partnership with the England Rugby team- a total reach of 1,106,207 unique users. 2.61% of users exposed to the ad clicked to view and engaged with the video, exceeding the benchmark CTV rate of 2%. 4% users shared the video on Twitter, which once again smashed the average 1.5% share rate.

TNS tracking showed the campaign successfully increased Samsung’s awareness as one of the top 3 brands associated with Rugby. In addition, the brand love scores climbed steadily over the tournament and hit their highest point ever.

The survey features questions on topics like programming languages, platforms, app categories, new technologies, revenue models, IoT verticals and tools. It’s a survey made by developers, so the questions will be relevant plus you will get to learn something new - and it only takes 15 minutes!

Also - this is a survey that’s actually fun! Once you complete it, you’ll get to find out what kind of character you’d be in a fantasy world, based on your responses: A mage? A fighter? A dragon slayer? Take the survey and find out!

Need extra motivation? Participants can win one of the tens of prizes available including a MeccaNoid G15 KS, an Apple Watch Series 2, an Oculus Rift headset, a Pixel Phone, Udemy courses and more.

VisionMobile will show you how your responses compare to other developers’ in your country. You’ll also be the first to receive the State of the Developer Nation report (due March 2017) based on key survey findings. In the meantime, you can download the last report State of Developer Nation Q3 2016.

Start The Survey

Shopping is therapy. Many psychologists have written about the joy associated with discovering something new. Discovery raises the level of serotonin, the neurotransmitter chemical known as the happiness drug. We’ve all fallen victim to the addictive power of shopping. While reams have been written on the science of shopping for the physical world, the blueprints on digital are sparse. If I were to narrow it down for mobile, the literature is bleak and yet, mobile is the biggest contributor to online shopping.

Mary Meeker’s recent report on internet trends shows a 55% growth in smartphone usage in India. There has been a change in purchasing patterns among consumers mostly dominated by mobile phones over the last few years. Browsing on your mobile and shopping online post a hectic day is the usual routine most of us follow. For many of us, the season of festivity is not only a reason to shop for ourselves, but the thought of gifting our friends and families heightens the excitement. Seeing your loved ones happy doubles the level of serotonin in the body. A double shot of serotonin translates into double the chance of you shopping on your favourite app.

The period between September to November is an auspicious time for shopping in India. Consumers loosen their purse strings during this period, which include festivals such as Dhanteras, Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali. Businesses capitalize this opportunity with multiple new product launches and festive season sales. One-third of annual car sales occur around this time and it is one of India's biggest sale seasons.

I am sure as an advertiser or marketer this makes perfect sense. Every major brand strategizes to grab eyeballs during this bumper-shopping time to entice Indians who are glued to their screens in this mobile-first country? What are some sophisticated and differentiated mobile advertising strategies you can use to reach the right customers at the right time and engage them with your brand’s story?

The ad format matters

One of the strongest tools in any marketer’s arsenal is mobile video advertising. Video tells a story like no other form-factor. A compelling trifecta of sight, sound & touch, simultaneously engages potential customers into a magical world custom-created by brands. Today, we have access to next-generation video ads like 360° videos and vertical-videos to wow customers with a brand’s story. While video ads have seen great success globally, India also presents a huge opportunity for advertisers to leverage this engaging user-first format.

There is a common perception that video consumes a lot of mobile data and therefore Indians may be averse to viewing video-content on non-wifi networks. InMobi network data indicates that mobile video content is being equally viewed both on wifi and mobile data networks. In parallel, as mobile data prices in general are falling, (disruptive plans from Reliance Jio for instance) data will become more affordable and accessible to mobile users, which is only going to fuel mobile video consumption. Let’s not forget to talk about metrics: video ad campaigns deliver 2X better engagement rates (double the number of people react to a video advertisement) than traditional ad formats! Clearly, an untapped opportunity, waiting to be harnessed by advertisers, marketers and brands alike.

Reaching the right audience

Reaching out to the right audience segment is paramount as a mobile-marketer. You need to market to appropriate Audience Personas. These are curated segments built on deep data-driven insights of a user’s mobile usage journey, typically verified based on first party data signals. It includes user demographics, user intent, app usage data, technographic data and location history. Such profiles are usually built on a user’s movements in the brick and mortar world as much as they are built on the user’s mobile usage behaviour. The different signals are combined together to build unique propositions for propagating your marketing message as an advertiser. I have seen very successful examples of campaigns leveraging audience personas- an example where a new phone is promoted by an OEM reaching out to smartphone users who have not purchased a phone in last 12-18 months - within a 3 km radius of a mall – with information about a special offer for certain network/ carriers only.

A marketer’s strategy

Today, more than 75% of app users uninstall an app after 3 days. It is therefore necessary to continuously engage new users, through their product discovery and shopping journey. If we’re hoping to convert a ‘user’ to a ‘paying customer’ you need to give them contextual information like relevant products, relevant deals and relevant information (such as cash on delivery option, try and buy offers). Remarketing is the closest solution akin to CRM in the mobile world. As a marketer, it helps engage with the user through relevant information: right from the time the user downloads an app, views a list of products, and finally makes a purchase.

There needs to be a balance between large-scale brand awareness and user engagement v/s targeting and accuracy. This is the pulse of digital advertising. We need a cohesive strategy to ensure brand recognition and recall. Marketing on mobile is a complex subject and the rules are still being written. This festive season, I’m hoping that more brands embrace a medium where a consumer resides and spends the lion’s share of their time – mobile. We’re still in the early days of mobile advertising in India, but 2016 could be an interesting year in this journey.

Such user opt-in advertising experience brings superior user retention, keeping users engaged for a longer amount of time and away from abandoning the game due to hasty ad overload. The magic math behind this high performing format can be nerdily formulated as follows:

User * (Engagement + Retention) = Uplift *(Completed Views + CTR) ⇨ Boost In-app Monetization

Introducing the InMobi Rewarded Video Experience

In this blog post, we aim to visually deep dive into how we deliver rewarded video ads at the natural breaks of the iOS app flow. Taking as case in point the game flow of Subway Surfers by our gaming partner Kiloo. In particular, we feature the end of game placement where users are offered the opportunity of doubling up the collected prices during the just finalized gameplay race. As an advertiser, we are showcasing the fantastic UA video campaign of Uber, with the objective of looking to drive app installs of their flagship Uber app.

Seamless and intuitive, the InMobi end-to-end rewarded video ad experience consists of three simple and distinctive steps:

1. OFFER ⇨ 2. WATCH ⇨ 3. REWARD

1. Offer - User sees an offer that can be implemented across different ad placements within the app- for in-app reward in exchange for watching a video. Please note that InMobi can help you implement rewarded video across different parts of your app to match your specific game dynamics and unique design for a truly non-disruptive ad experience.
2. Watch - User opts-in to watch the video and right away (no buffering!) a full-screen 100% viewable HD video ad plays. This video is non-skippable, between 15 and 30 seconds long. A sleek progress bar is included at the bottom of the clip as a visual aid to help manage user expectations. Once the video has ended, an interstitial end card is shown with a clear call-to-action “INSTALL NOW” that directs users to the App Store to prompt immediate action and drive app downloads.
3. Reward - After closing the end card with the (X) button, the user is returned to the app flow, having earned their promised reward clearly stated with a notification message. This happy user is now ready to game on, supercharged with extra neat goodies that will keep him/her playing for longer than an average session free of rewarded ads.

Learn to #WinWithVideo. Join the winning team now!

Are you a gaming developer looking into implement rewarded video in your game? Easy integration, superb monetization and expert account management is awaits!

Check our brand new dedicated website for all things video - winwithvideo.com and get in touch with the expert InMobi Gaming team to learn how to get started in no time!

How TUNE identified the top partners

Evaluating more than 1000 partners, the advertiser list ranks TUNE-integrated partners on the basis of the quality of users and Return on Investment (RoI) across brand and performance advertising campaigns.

The advertising partners were evaluated across 8 different aspects:

1. Adoption - market presence evaluated as the number of marketers deriving value out of each ad partner
2. Reputation - Do marketers view the ad partner as transparent and trustworthy?
3. TUNE Certification - ad partners certified under the TUNE certification program for adhering to best practices and complete visibility into results
4. Scale - level of engagement measured in clicks that an ad partner drives
5. User Acquisition - effectiveness of campaigns with the ad partners
6. User Retention - measured as the number of active users across different user cohorts (Day 1, 2, 3, 7 and 14) from app install campaigns
7. Return on Investment - the revenue per install that ad partners drive measured over 30 and 60 day windows

InMobi - a strong ecosystem player

In this constantly innovative and disruptive advertising landscape, InMobi is a strong ecosystem player and a preferred advertising partner for leading advertisers across the globe. “Today, InMobi is one of the largest, independent, full-stack mobile advertising platforms in the world. As a mobile-only player since inception, we have invested heavily in building out the technology stack across both the demand and supply sides of the ecosystem.” Piyush Shah, Chief Product Officer at InMobi said on the rankings.

Specializing in advanced pub monetization through Native & Video ads, InMobi enables advertisers to leverage advanced audience targeting & measurement capabilities to engage mobile users effectively across different stages of their lifecycle. “Leveraging a combination of advanced data sciences and immersive ad experiences, we are able to help a wide range of customers - be it the CMO of a Fortune 500 brand or a bootstrapped developer of the next big app. With our depth and sophistication of technology and a potential reach of 1.5+ billion unique users across the globe, we enjoy leadership in several key markets across the US, Europe and Asia. We are also proud to be the largest advertising platform for iOS in China," concluded Piyush.

About TUNE

TUNE is a leading mobile analytics platform committed to making mobile marketing better for everyone. TUNE Mobile App Tracking (MAT) is an unbiased platform for mobile marketers to attribute channels and partners to users that were acquired, engaged and retained. As a part of the InMobi Mobile Tracking and Attribution Program (MTAP) TUNE aims to provide advertisers the best-in-class solutions for independent, secure and accurate attribution.

Here are 5 tips for performance advertisers on how to #WinWithVideo!

1. Leverage skippable and non-skippable videos optimally

The best results can be achieved by optimally allocating budgets to both skippable and non-skippable video. Performance advertisers today have the option of choosing between the two ad formats. Non-skippable video guarantees high completion rates due to highly informed clicks with a user opt-in, and thereby also serves a supplementary marketing objective of branding for performance advertisers. On the other hand, skippable video enables interest-based targeting on the basis of completion rates at scale. Leveraging video formats optimally can boost the performance of an already high-impact ad format without compromising on user experience.

2. Invest in your mobile video asset

1. HD videos - The video experience on mobile is the key to engagement today and building High-Definition (HD) creatives - a 1080p video mp4 file not greater than 5 MB with a 16:9 aspect ratio - specifically for the mobile platform is the first step for every advertiser.
2. Shorter video ads - Video ads on mobile can effectively capture the user's attention with a length of 15-30s. Adapting the length of the video ad to the target audience is a critical part of maximizing the impact. While skippable videos should preferably be anywhere between 10-15s, non-skippable videos work best with a length of 15-30s.

3. Ensure a great user experience

1. No latency - Users should be provided with an HD ‘buffer-free’ video experience. Any latency due to video buffering could negatively impact the user experience, subsequently effecting engagement and conversions.
2. Clean templates - Having a clean template with distinctly visible elements of the video ad such as skip and mute buttons, timer and call-to-action buttons in the end cards can help manage user anxiety and expectations.
3. Exposure management - Exposure management plays a vital role with a dynamic and visual medium such as video. Frequency capping should be employed strictly to avoid user fatigue and provide a non-intrusive user experience. This also leads to efficient buying by preventing wastage of impressions.
4. Combining targeting mechanisms:
   • Geo-targeting: Coupling video with targeting based on contextual signals such as location (shared by user) enhances relevance by customizing for base locations (home, office) or locations around points-of-interest.
   • Day-parting according to the device is another important aspect as tablets tend to be prime time and at-home devices, whereas smartphone usage is spread across the day

Rexona Streetview

• Gold Award for Location-Based Campaign
• Gold Award for Innovation

Rexona, Unilever's top deodorant brand was launching a new and improved product, Rexona Antibacterial Defense in Jakarta, Indonesia. With an active anti-bacterial ingredient, this product provides instant protection against body odor. Rexona targeted 18 - 35 year old males at dusty crowded areas during the evening hours with the help of location, audience persona and time targeting to communicate with users that Rexona could help them feel refreshed after a long commute.

A rich media ad unit incorporating augmented reality technology was created, giving users a complete 360-degree view of the bus stop they were approaching. Using advanced location targeting, Rexona was able to pull up 360-degree google images with the same lat-long as the user's current location. Through the 360-degree view, users could truly experience the moment and also understand the need for the Rexona Antibacterial Defense. This ad experience, nudged 13,000 users to download the coupon code and actually buy the newly launched product indicating that the campaign successfully grew top-of-mind awareness of the all new Rexona Antibacterial Defense.

Ponds Acne Popcorn

• Silver Award for Innovation
• Silver Award for Product & Services Launch

Ponds wanted to relaunch Ponds Acne 10-in-1 Solutions showcasing its superior product & breakthrough technology. This product was aimed at enabling women in Indonesia to feel confident about themselves by getting rid of the blemishes left behind from acne. With close to 60% internet penetration and 100% mobile penetration in the target audience, mobile formed a key part of the overall media strategy. In order to effectively share the campaign's message, front facing cameras on users’ devices were leveraged. This helped Ponds to capitalize on ‘mobile-first' features creating an ‘augmented reality environment’ to heighten the user's experience.

Using the phone’s front-facing camera to talk about skin care is a truly disruptive method compared to traditional methods of simply displaying messaging about a product. This campaign was thus the world’s first face detection augmented reality HTML 5 rich media unit to run on mobile phones. Users interacted with the ad unit more than 39,000 times with an average engagement time of 29 seconds.

Ponds White Pollution Detector

• Bronze Award for Location: Unilever Indonesia / Mindshare Indonesia & InMobi for ‘Ponds White Pollution Detector’

Ponds wanted to educate people about the Pure White Deep Cleansing Facial Foam, an anti-pollution cleanser that deeply cleanses and lifts dirt, dust and pollution from the skin. Ponds targeted young working female commuters during evening hours using audience persona targeting along with time and location targeting.

With the help of advanced location data, the rich media ad gave users a real-time update of the pollution levels around them and warned users that dust particles on the street would make their skin look dull and tired. The ad unit displayed buildings with a layer of soot and polluted skies in the backdrop. Users were then nudged to blow on the ad unit, and this act cleared out the animated pollution images.

Users were then shown the benefits of Ponds Pure White Deep Cleansing Facial Foam. More than 70,000 users interacted with the ad unit and close to 80% of those users actually visited the Ponds site.

These campaigns demonstrate the power of cutting-edge and innovative mobile creatives. Using technology such as facial detection and augmented reality, Brands are able to provide truly mobile-first immersive moments for users.

In the march towards automation, greater control and transparency, more advertisers are opting for programmatic buying of digital impressions than ever before. Be it banners or video campaigns, the ability to cherry pick which impressions matter and bid on them has empowered the advertiser ecosystem, delivering better results and greater efficiency. By 2017, U.S. mobile programmatic media buying is expected to reach $21.22 billion, or 78 percent of overall mobile display ad spending, according to eMarketer. The growth the programmatic marketplace is experiencing is undeniable, as it becomes a mainstay of digital advertising. A study by AdRoll found that 98% of marketers surveyed expect their programmatic ad budgets to increase or stay the same in the coming year, while 87% of marketers believe programmatic ads provide a greater return on investment (ROI) than traditional media.

There is no doubt that programmatic has revolutionized online media buying and that it offers significant benefits, but this road to opportunity is ridden with obstacles such as Viewability and traffic fraud. Mobile programmatic advertising can be challenging in many ways but when done thoughtfully and strategically, the ROI can outweigh the challenges.

Mobile Programmatic: The Three Biggest Challenges

Any revolutionary method or new technology brings challenges and it is no different for programmatic advertising. There are three major challenges surrounding programmatic advertising – Viewability, ad fraud, and ad blocking. While these are disturbing, they are definitely not insurmountable.

The Battle for Viewability

Ad impression Viewability is an important aspect within online display advertising and continues to be a challenge for programmatic advertisers. The advertisers will only want to pay for the impressions that have been viewed by a human, and not for any others. All the major associations and governing bodies are addressing online and mobile advertising Viewability standards in an effort to bring the industry closer to 100% Viewability.

As advertisers demand higher standards for more effective ads, publishers and developers must also be proactive in understanding the problem and exploring ways to address the concerns, or risk losing valuable advertising dollars. These concerns have given rise to new players in the advertising ecosystem which offer advertisers the peace of mind of independent measurement of viewable impressions. Advertisers can drive more effective ads by leveraging partnerships with such players (e.g.: MOAT, Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify). As the industry and technology evolves, new standards will emerge for mobile advertising, and Viewability standards will be re-defined from a pure buying-based model around served impressions, to that of viewable impressions.

Ad Fraud and the Scourge of Non-Human Traffic

Ad fraud is the most significant programmatic advertising problem but is not exclusive to programmatic alone. One type of fraud that is of particular concern is impression fraud, when ad impressions are falsely generated to inflate some impressions made, causing advertisers to spend more. This is also referred to as bot behaviour. Ad fraud has become such an important area that big ad networks have started selling “fraud-free” ads in the last couple of years. The business for preventing ad fraud is potentially even larger. One way advertisers can do so is by buying impressions from publishers and supply side platforms they know and trust, and who offer transparency and enforce safeguards against ad fraud. Identifying and eliminating bots requires systemic analysis of impressions and clicks, to ensure advertisers only pay for valid, human impressions.

The Industry’s Biggest Threat – Ad blocking

The estimated global economic cost of blocking ads will reach $41.4 billion this year according to Adobe and PageFair. The debate within the publishing world is whether to force users to pay a small fee for ad-free content or serve relevant and high quality ads which can be accessed without ad blocking software. Ad-free content poses a risk to the advertising industry, particularly in the programmatic world.

The continuous growth in the popularity of branded social media has proved that consumers don’t really care whether the content is sponsored or not--they just want it to be relevant and engaging. Currently, ads are intrusive, boring and unavoidable, which is driving users to block ads. The key to getting this right is to develop a targeting platform capable of listening to consumers, understanding their behaviour with genuine consumer insight using performance metrics, and thus adjusting the advertisements presented to them.

The Future of Programmatic is Bright

As the industry evolves, there will be a push towards quality and efficiency. The progress that come with programmatic clearly outweigh any short term challenges. Despite these challenges, programmatic technologies are evolving and adoption is increasing dramatic. More importantly, programmatic is attracting an ever-increasing share of the global digital advertising spend and growing confidence in programmatic solutions. Advertisers can become familiar with programmatic advertising platforms by understanding algorithms, defining how targeting works, and implementing the following actions to overcome the challenges:

• Choose a programmatic ad provider who actively tries to prevent ad fraud;
• Build display ads with the latest specifications which are optimized for mobile and can be viewed on all screens;
• Consult an expert in the domain who can advise you on how to leverage the benefits of programmatic and lead to better performing campaigns;
• Optimize your programmatic advertising campaigns with a large number of creatives that are personalized for different target groups;
• Choose to serve relative, engaging, and contextually targeted ads, personalized to the user, to avoid ad blocking.

The Road to Success

Clearly the future lies in programmatic ad buying. The shift to programmatic will be accompanied by its fair share of growing pains vs. the benefits of quality data for targeting and the promise of greater transparency. By adopting innovative solutions, programmatic advertisers can navigate the near term issues and lay the groundwork for long term success.

Programmatic will become a one-stop solution for delivery of all types of digital ads with rich media, or videos, across both web and mobile platforms. This provides a tremendous opportunity for both advertisers and publishers with an immediate need to educate the market, adapt to the ever changing requirements, and to localize and customize ads.

Sports has always evoked passion amongst fans. Whether it’s baseball, tennis or soccer – watching a live sports game brings with it an unparalleled experience, intensified only by the presence of smartphones. There’s no doubt that mobile devices have changed the way we consume sports, and brands have an opportunity to leverage each event to connect and engage with their consumers.

Mobile, Sports and Going for Gold

The beginning of 2016 witnessed an interesting trend on mobile, particularly around national and global sporting events. In the run up to the Super Bowl 50 in February, American smartphone users began downloading NFL related gaming apps. These gaming apps witnessed over a 100 percent increase in downloads, and by the last week of the Super Bowl, users consumed 150 percent more of their favorite sports app than usual.

Similarly, during the COPA America Centenario in June, users from the 16 participating countries went on a downloading spree of gaming apps, increasing app installs by more than 70 percent. Fans were constantly scouring sports apps to check scores, game schedules, and to keep track of the latest updates, results and commentary, which saw a 200 percent increase in content consumption of sports apps on mobile devices. According to Accenture, 87 percent of consumers use a second screen device while watching TV. It’s not surprising then that sports fans were glued to not just the TV, but they had their mobile devices handy for that second-screen viewing experience.

Expectedly, all this excitement was too much to contain and clearly needed an outlet – after all, sports is about teamwork, community and sharing. Particularly during the last week of Super Bowl 50, sports fans spent 45 percent more time on social apps than normal, connecting with family, friends and sports fans around the world who cared about the game enough to do the same. Fans shared their opinions as they celebrated wins with their teams and mourned a loss or expressed frustration. It was all about connecting with fellow sports fans and feeling the adrenaline in real time, while having a good time with their dear ones – online or offline.

The Opportunity for Advertisers

If Super Bowl 50 and COPA America are any indication, major sporting events represent a huge opportunity for advertisers. There are various micro-moments that present themselves throughout the event, and advertisers need to find creative ways to engage an audience that is constantly second-screening.

In a world where 57 percent of consumers use more than one device at a time, namely the smartphone, it only makes sense for brands to break the shackles and reach out to their audience on a channel that users will always have in their hand. While there are fans who rarely shift their eyes away from the TV during a game, there is also a substantial ratio of fans who get distracted by their mobile devices, engaging with friends, or checking social apps at the same time. The biggest opportunity for brand advertisers today is to find ways to grab shorter consumer attention spans on the “one thing” most people claim they can’t live without – their mobile device – and to show game specific content.

2016: The Year of Sports

Numerous sporting events have taken place this year including Super Bowl 50, COPA America, UEFA Cup, and most recently the Olympics. These events, amongst others, offer advertisers a chance to reach a larger audience, across the various micro-moments that present themselves during an event. Revelling with your audience in their joy, sharing their hopes and anxiety and showing support during hard times are just a few opportunities where brands can connect with their consumers. Timely messages and push notifications can do wonders, and brands need to make each experience about the customer, and cater to their wants and needs, contextually.

The shift to mobile and online video is expected to draw millions of eyeballs away from traditional television viewing, providing both content creators and advertisers significant new opportunities to reach fans.

Mobile as Number One

Mobile is now seen as the first screen and can no longer be an afterthought or an add-on. Instead, mobile is at the centre of every media company’s content and engagement strategy. It provides advertisers with a level of customization and on-demand accessibility, so it’s no surprise that we’re seeing consumers turn off the TV and turn to mobile to stay connected, especially when it comes to some of the biggest sporting events of the year such as the 2016 Rio Olympics.

However, brands still need to think long-term and how they can create an experience that’s compelling enough to obtain and maintain consumer attention. It’s important to make use of the incredible amount of data every mobile interaction provides. These insights can help better understand your audience and ensure you’re delivering the most relevant, and impactful, experience possible.

Smartphones aren’t just enabling real-time updates, but they also enhance the in-stadium experience. Many stadiums now offer high-speed Wi-Fi that enables in-seat ordering, video streaming or directions to the closest bathroom, which is taking the experience of watching live sporting events to a more comfortable and fun level. Teams have also started accepting mobile tickets for entry into the stadium, and many are even collaborating with ticketing apps to offer fans additional features and services.

Mobile ticketing now offers a segway into loyalty programs for fans. The possibilities are endless when smartphones solve real world problems by taking consumers online. However, for a brand, large sporting events are a boon – they are responsible for gathering millions of users in one place at the same time. The next move is for brand advertisers to decide on how they target users, via which channels, with what content, and when is the peak time to catch their attention.

In the following sections we’ll introduce three additional tips to help gaming publishers ride the rewarded video monster wave like a pro monetization surfer:

4. Keep a close eye on the rewarded video results for diminishing effectiveness

Rewarded video offers great returns in the first views but it’s generally the case that, after a certain number of videos shown, the impressions become less valuable. Pay attention to your game analytics to track performance, including CTR and CPI to crack early on the engagement patterns of your audience. Such data will give you insight to naturally frequency cap the videos, ensuring the reward doesn't become saturated (for example, only offer 3-5/day). You should be able to split the daily number of videos shown between a wide range of users, over bombarding a reduced group in hopes of never-ending engagement. This would hurt retention and eventually will downsize your revenue generation potential.

5. Offer rewarded video often and in different placements

To ensure you are maximizing the number of ads per player per day, be sure to implement reward ads across different ad placements in your game. From our experience, a fantastic combination that makes the most of the natural breaks of the gameplay is the following combo: main screen, storefront and in between levels or at the end of a gameplay.

Another great best practice is to highlight the reward as part of the game tutorial. This way users are empowered with neat goodies as a welcome pack and you’ll make them clear they can leverage rewarded video to supercharge their gaming experience.

Finally, you can incorporate rewarded video to your re-engagement strategy by offering a special reward via daily push notifications to lure your users back into your app, game on!

6. Explain clearly the options and rewards available to your players

Rewarded video is all about crafting with finesse a strategy to incentivize your users and drive immediate action. Going back to the basics, you’ll need to educate your users and guide them in a transparent and truthful manner so they know at all times what to expect when deciding (or not) to interact with your rewarded video.

In practice, all goes down to crafting a nice and sweet message that lists all options available to your players. Some great real examples taken from of stellar InMobi gaming partners are:

• Trivia Crack : A full screen packed with options: You ran out of lives! Choose your pack or get free lives: Watch the video or Ask your friends (via Facebook Connect).
• Subway Surfers : Dedicated menu section “Earn Coins”: Sponsored video - Watch to get a reward along with an icon of a Mystery Box o Two keys (two extra lives, but for the first video of the day!).
• Color Switch : Visual and minimalistic approach in the home page: Just a nice and simple animated button featuring an intuitive video icon that reads +30 (extra points awarded).

A. Trivia Crack

B. Subway Surfers

C. Color Switch

Learn to #WinWithVideo. Join the winning team now!

Are you a gaming developer looking into implement rewarded video in your game? Easy integration, superb monetization and expert account management is awaits!

Check our brand new dedicated website for all things video - winwithvideo.com and get in touch with the expert InMobi Gaming team to learn how to get started in no time!

LIGHTEST. STRONGEST. SIMPLEST InMobi SDK ever!

These new changes are available to you right NOW. Here is a sneak peak into why InMobi SDK should be a part of your monetization strategy!

Become iOS 10 Ready

App Transport Security (ATS), a default setting introduced for iOS 9+ traffic that mandates apps to make network connections only over TLS version 1.2 and later. You can read more details here.

Also, for the “Limit Ad Tracking” enabled iOS 10 traffic, InMobi will be exercising a best-effort scenario by serving ads on non-IDFA traffic as well, based on the advertiser’s consent.

Maximize Earnings with a Lean Mean Revenue Machine

Over the last 6 months, our technical teams have been hard at work rewriting InMobi’s SDK. The new SDK decreases footprint in the published app by a whopping 70% with just 555 KB inflation in the IPA file.

Attract Brand Dollars with Viewability Enabled

Given that a lot of premium advertisers are spending exclusively on viewable mobile inventory, InMobi SDK provides you a unique opportunity to tap into this growing demand pool and maximize revenue. With InMobi SDK 600, you get baked-in MOAT viewability compliance.

Spend More Time on Pokemon with Faster Integration

We have simplified the frameworks for you to start monetization with few code insertions. And yes, we do feel your pain, so now fast track your InMobi integration with Cocoapods.

Save Time on Upgrade Cycles

Upgrade the SDK only once a year aligned with new OS release and save on the development effort.

Get started today with InMobi iOS SD K 600!

If you are already monetizing your app with InMobi refer Migrating to iOS SDK 600.

India’s online video viewership stands at 81.7 million viewers and is only expected to rise. Video streaming is expected to account for over 60 percent of mobile data traffic in 2018, as consumers increase the number of videos they watch and upload^[1].Not only has video consumption increased, but Indian users are also spending more than 2 hours on their mobile devices^[2]. This nudged us to take a closer look at the video ad trends on our network. On taking a deeper look and analysing millions of video ad impressions delivered by our network, we extrapolated some actionable insights for our advertisers. Based on these insights, we present to you the infographic, “The Hurried Indian”.

You can download this infographic from here.

^[1]Comscore Inc., 2016
^[2] Ooyala, 2016

To better understand how brand marketers view the mobile programmatic space, we conducted an extensive survey, undertaken by a diverse group of over 180 digital marketers at brands, to track the usage and investment in mobile programmatic advertising. This report covers the benefits, opportunities and roadblocks in this dynamic and data-driven digital landscape.

Find out what the 180+ digital marketers had to say about the latest trends in 2016.

Learn more in our complete report.

Download Infographics

Interested in connecting with our team to hear more about the data and how it could impact your business? Please reach out to our InMobi Insights team at insights@inmobi.com

Detecting errors by comparing latitude/longitude country with IP country

A request that comes with a latitude/longitude (henceforth, also referred to as lat/long) value will also typically be associated with an IP address. Even in cases where the request is forwarded via multiple servers, the servers are expected to provide the IP address of the user’s device. If the IP address’ country does not match the lat/long's country value, one of the two signals might be wrong.

Detecting errors by comparing ad request volumes to population densities

Looking for anomalies in the geo-distribution of ad requests is one of the techniques we use to identify errors in location signals. The human population is not evenly distributed across the globe and there are several low-density regions. Anytime we see a large number of ad requests coming from regions of low user density, it is an anomaly that requires further investigation.

One common anomaly in geo-distribution is a large number of requests from latitude = 0 and longitude = 0. The location (0,0) is in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Ghana. This anomaly occurs when the ad request simply sends the default system values of lat/long when it does not have access to a precise user location. Ideally, the lat/long values should be omitted from the request when they are unavailable.

Swapped or equal lat/long values: typical errors

Another anomaly shown in the pictures below is a high volume of requests coming from the seas off the Scandinavian coast and the south Atlantic ocean. Upon further investigation it is apparent to us that the ad requests have swapped the values of latitude and longitude, making requests from India appear to come from Scandinavia and requests from Brazil appear to come from the South Atlantic ocean. These errors are typically observed in ad requests that come to us from other servers, possibly from applications that have a lat/long swapping bug. We are able to confirm the existence of this bug when we receive other SDK-originated ad requests from the same devices containing correct lat/long values. It is tricky to detect this kind of problem if both the correct and swapped locations correspond to regions with reasonable population density, which adds complexity to location hygiene methodologies.

The picture below shows another interesting anomaly: a high density of ad requests originating along a line that cuts across the Mediterranean Sea. This issue seems to result from a bug where the application copies the same value into both the latitude as well as the longitude parameters. We have also seen such streaks along the equator and the prime meridian where only one of the two values of latitude / longitude are populated while the other is left as zero.

First-party location data from the SDK: manageable and reliable

Almost all of these observed bugs occur with ad requests that come to us via server-to-server integration, where our SDK is not involved. In these cases, when requests come from blinded apps, we are forced to discard all the lat/long signals from those servers to avoid erroneously targeting location specific ads. Wherever we are able to identify the application with the bugs described above, we try and help the developers fix the bug.

If we were to serve ads on requests that always set longitude to zero, we may end up targeting a user in the western part of London with ads meant for people on the eastern side, closer to longitude zero.

Detecting errors based on multiple requests from the same user

Observing the different lat/long samples from the same user over time also helps in the identification of errors in the location signals. Here is an example of ad requests that we see from a certain device closely spaced in time but from two different applications. One request appears to come from the New York area and a short while later we see another request from the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

It is unlikely that the user actually traveled that far!

Also, the IP country did not match with Kyrgyzstan. The root cause seems to be an error in one of the apps, where the longitude value might have lost its negative sign.

Detecting deliberate abuse

Often, advertisers are willing to pay a premium for precisely location-targeted ads and as a result app developers who are able to send requests with precise lat/long values can make more money. This creates an incentive for app developers to abuse the lat/long signals and introduce values in these fields that have nothing to do with where the user actually is located. While some of the techniques described above, especially looking at location points over time for the same user, or high request density from sparse regions, can help identify such abuse, it often requires a trustworthy location signal such as an SDK signal to confirm the abuse.

Not all users have apps that are integrated with the InMobi SDK. In such cases detecting the abuse is harder. We list a few methods of abuse that we have detected and eliminated.

1. User lat/longs are sometimes populated in the request through geo-coding of the corresponding IP addresses. Populating accurate lat/long fields allow the supply source to command a higher premium by pretending to have access to precise user locations. Such abuse tends to place a large number of users at the centroid of the US (Potwin Kansas), for instance, where these IP addresses are typically geo-coded. When we detect such abuse, we discard the lat/long values from these requests.
2. Some supply sources generate a random lat/long value within a region where they think the user is located based on some other signal such as IP address. Detecting such abuse requires intense analytical efforts and clever algorithms.

An example of such abuse is depicted in the following snapshot where the location signals appear to be evenly distributed across a wide region, some of it spilling into the South China sea.

There are more types of abuse we have observed that are beyond the scope of this blog.

Best Practices Insights

Location Hygiene is a complex task that requires a deep understanding of diverse, complex data sets and the use of sophisticated analytical algorithms for detection/prevention of abuse. Before subscribing to a vendor’s location solutions, it is important to understand (1) whether the solutions are based on first-party (SDK) data or on 3rd-party (off-exchanges) data, and (2) whether the vendor has methodologies in place to detect and guard against anomalies. Such anomalies, whether instituted through unintentional errors or systematic abuse/fraud, can derail the promise of precisely geo-targeted services and geo-targeted advertising.

At InMobi, we take the user’s experience seriously - serving relevant content while assigning utmost importance to concerns such as propriety and privacy. Having a set of trusted signals helps us identify issues in the broader signal space. Our experience teaches us that unless service providers deploy safeguards against errors in geo signals, these signal errors can degrade the user experience.

In this first edition, we sat down with Hussam Hammo, CEO and founder of Tamatem to learn more about the exciting gaming industry in the Arab world and middle east region where Tatatem is king.

About TAMATEM

Irene: What is Tamatem’s secret sauce? Which is your most successful title so far and why?

Hussam: Tamatem is the MENA region’s leading mobile games publishers and developers; we take successful games from across the globe and tailor them for the Arab region by localizing and making them culturally relevant.

Our most successful game to date is Shake the Metal that has unlocked more than 5 million downloads and topped charts across the region. The sequel, Shake the Metal Rush, was also a huge success and has achieved more than 3.5 million downloads so far. Both games were successful because they were both created upon the requests of our users, everything from the cars, environments and even the music were all created based on the likes and dislikes of our users.

Tamatem has 67 titles in the App Store and 45 in Google Play.

Growth Challenges

Irene: What is your User Acquisition strategy? How do you drive downloads for your games across different regions?

Hussam: We operate and target the Arab region only, the region has very high smartphone penetration rates and there are more than 60 million active smartphone users. The main issue is that only 2% of content in the App Store are in Arabic and people crave Arabic content.

So far we have acquired more than 28 million downloads in the region, which we achieved by utilizing our user database to cross promote. The MENA region also has one of the highest social media users worldwide therefore, we use social media channels to acquire new users.

Monetization Pro-tips & Tricks

Irene: What performance metrics are the most valuable to you to maximize games monetization? Why do you rely on video ads to monetize your game?

Hussam: We mainly rely on retention, daily active users, which we believe, are key and number sessions. We use video ads because they are a lot more engaging for users, the conversion rate is much higher and they don’t ruin the user’s experience whilst playing a game.

Hussam gets his tomato creative juices flowing at Tamatem’s HQ @ Amman, Jordan

Know Your Users

Irene: How do you collect user feedback to improve your game over time?

Hussam:To improve our games we listen to what our users want, we mostly use several social media channels. Our users are extremely engaging on social media, especially Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Industry Trends

Irene: What excites you about the near future of the industry of mobile gaming?

Hussam: We are really excited to see the future of smartphones; we are hoping to be able to create higher quality games with amazing graphics and real time multiplayer features.

The advertising industry is abuzz with the controversy created by the stricter implementation of the Limit Ad Tracking feature in iOS 10. With iOS 9, Limit Ad Tracking restricted the location and behavioral targeting features on iOS devices, resulting in poorly targeted ads. However, advertisers could still use the IDFA (iOS Advertising Identifier) for attribution and frequency capping. With iOS 10, the new operating system nullifies the IDFA for all devices where the user has opted in for Limit Ad Tracking, thereby enforcing complete anonymity of the user to advertisers. While it is a beacon of user privacy standards, this change will have both a positive and negative impact on the user experience. On the one hand, the user is secure in the knowledge that their privacy is maintained and no one can track their mobile usage behavior. However, on the other hand, it also implies that frequency cap checks and IDFA based attribution methods will all fail for devices where Limit Ad Tracking has been turned on, resulting in a repetitive and context-less ad experience.

Different players in the advertising ecosystem are reacting to this change in various ways. Some have decided to not serve ads on devices with Limit Ad Tracking, upholding the importance of well targeted ads above revenue pressures. Some are taking a stance to continue serving ads on the nullified IDFA accepting the truth of poor targeting as a bitter pill. A few others have put their own identifiers in place to ensure their targeting algorithms remain unaffected. In either case, users who select Limit Ad Tracking will encounter a mobile experience marked with fewer, but contextless ads. As engagement rates and conversions decline, advertisers might decide to reduce their spends on such traffic. This would also imply that users who have gotten into the habit of leveraging rewarded video ads within games/apps may suddenly find themselves bereft of any videos to watch.

So what can advertisers do to prepare for this change?

1. Advertisers need to be aware that this change affects the entire advertising ecosystem and not just one odd advertiser. They need to prepare for some impact on the burn rate of their campaigns. Currently, only about 13-17% of devices have Limit Ad Tracking enabled, but only time will tell if users embrace this feature or ignore it.
2. Advertisers should understand the stance of their partners to assess where they can expect the spend to go down or targeting efficiency to be reduced. They will need to measure the efficacy of your campaigns in light of these changes while allocating ad spends.
3. Transacting on IDFA null traffic makes advertisers vulnerable to fraud, as most of the fraud check mechanisms depend on the IDFA for iOS. Advertisers should prepare for stricter fraud checks or play safe and spend on IDFA traffic only.
4. Advertisers should ensure they are built to the specs of their advertising partners and the ecosystem requirements to avoid any further blockers. Another change which will hit the iOS advertising ecosystem by the end of 2016 is the mandatory compliance for ATS (App Transport Security). All traffic, creatives, attribution links and pixels will need to move to secure HTTPS links by December. Failure to comply would affect advertising spends severely.

If you are concerned about how this impacts your advertising spends and performance on the InMobi Network or the InMobi Exchange, please contact us at efficientbuying@inmobi.com.

The location offers improved precision when targeting ads. Accurate location information, when combined with other data like user interest profiles and time of day can significantly improve the chances of ads being noticed by users, and being relevant to them. For instance, store discount coupons may be shown only to users within walking distance of a particular store.

In order to enable location targeting, the location of the device (i.e., its latitude and longitude) is included in the ad request that the device sends to a server. An ad matching service uses the location to find ads that are appropriate to the user’s location. The ad server may also forward the request to other downstream ad servers, ad networks, or ad exchanges that will use the latitude and longitude as part of their own ad matching services to find relevant ads.For location targeting to work correctly, it is important to ensure that the location of the device is captured correctly and transmitted without modification all the way to any of the matching services. The ad service that receives a request directly from a handset is known as a first-party service. First part services have a significant advantage in terms of cleanliness and freshness of request data.

Privacy-compliant, reliable location data: the key to trust

At InMobi, we run a large ad network where we receive billions of first-party ad requests, from hundreds of millions of devices every day. A large fraction of these requests come with latitude and longitude signals (which are sent upon the user’s consent to an app for collecting location information). A subset of these requests also come from devices which run our SDK. When our SDK runs as part of an application that has permissions to geo-locate the user (see image above), it obtains the latitude and longitude from the device and sends the same to our servers in a secure manner. As a result, we have a greater degree of assurance of the correctness of the location signals from a device when we get a request that is sent from our SDK. We may also receive location signals from the same device, from a different application, that comes to our servers via other channels. This enables us to verify different location signals. Our experience in dealing with location signals at scale has taught us that one needs to exercise a lot of care in interpreting and identifying where users are.

In this series of articles, we discuss some of our learnings along with a few examples that illustrate the biggest challenges with Location data and also offer insights into how important accuracy is for us at InMobi. Stay tuned for more!

"After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world."- Philip Pullman

Advertising is storytelling. From the Mad Men of the 1960's to now, the Don Drapers of the world want to tell us a story. And storytellers don't advertise products, as much as invoke heart-warming, magical connections between users and brands. By hammering out what a brand stands for, the product defines its emotional connect and shapes an identity for itself. India presents a unique opportunity in the storytelling narrative, because it is a mobile first country. And by virtue of that fact, the medium of narration is as important as its message. If mobile is a foregone conclusion, the power of video advertising is still at its evolutionary stages. And I want to delve into why we've transported a desktop experience to a country that has more mobiles than PCs.

So what makes India ripe for mobile video?

India is a truly mobile-first country. The majority of Indians accesses the internet through their mobile and not a desktop/laptop. More than 200 million Indians access the Internet via their mobile devices. India's 4G and 3G user base is expected to touch 300 million by March 2018, according to research by CLSA. The explosive increase in the country's smartphone penetration, underscored by price wars waged in a hyper-competitive smartphone market, has resulted in Indian consumers buying more smartphones each year.

Mobile video consumption is led by millennials - that age group which marketers, brands, recruitment offices and everyone in the world wants to understand. Studies by PwC indicate that by 2020, Millennials are projected to be 50% of the workforce and by 2025 this number is expected to reach 75% in the US. Naturally, products and services are being conjured across boardrooms to satiate the needs of millennials. Any company that's building for baby boomers has a limited shelf-life.

Not surprisingly, we don't have India specific numbers here, but advertisers are sitting on a virtual gold-mine in India. There's an untapped user base of more than 426 million millennials in India making it one of the largest workforces in the world.

So what changes for brand advertisers?

Traditionally, brands and agencies have conceptualized and created 'video' content with a TV screen in mind. That's the first impediment for a user - brands need to conceptualize and create video content keeping a smaller, though an equally powerful, mobile-screen in mind. What exactly does this mean?

While the basics remain the same - production value for video storytelling in mobile needs a rethink. For one, less is not always more and mobile is not always about 'quicker', but is often about being 'relevant'. In an experiment run by Google, a mobile video ad had a 26% higher VTR (View Through Rate) compared to shorter versions of the same ad played on desktop and TV. That's an important metric because the mobile video ad was three times longer; yet, it was viewed more. Clearly users are willing to engage more with video content on their mobile screens viz-a-viz other traditional screens. In this case, the content was intriguing and fun and piqued the interest of users nudging them to watch the 'longer' mobile video ad till the end.

New Rules in the New World of Mobile Video

Brand advertisers in India would benefit significantly by allocating budgets to test different concepts, video ad lengths etc. of mobile video ads to compare key metrics across screens. Running experiments to test the efficacy of different mobile video ad formats will be critical to yield confidence in the early days. Vertical video, a video format that renders in the portrait mode with9:16 aspect ratio on mobile phones, was first introduced in 2015 by Snapchat, and has since seen rapid adoption. As observed by Snapchat, with 9 times the viewing completion rate when compared to horizontal video, Vertical Video is establishing itself as the most natural format for mobile users.

Once you have nailed down the format for the mobile video ad, it is important to further enhance the user experience by avoiding some basic rookie errors. For example, Serving the same video pre-roll multiple times during a content series, forcing long-form ads ahead of short-form videos and one of the personal favorites - auto-playing video, with audio, without the user's consent.

Mobile video is a storytelling format where advertisers can get instant feedback. Much like a theatre artist gets a standing ovation or a muted applause at the end of a performance, advertisers can get immediate feedback too. The end card for each mobile video ad, gives users specific directions allowing brands to drive measurable actions - visits to the brand's website, signups for an event, sharing on social platforms etc. In fact, the InMobi network shows that combining mobile video with rich media doubles the time spent on the ad unit and drives phenomenal brand engagement for advertisers.

Compared to display advertising, which includes both video and banner, the mobile video offers greater creative possibilities, more opportunities to engage viewers with relevant, entertaining content and a more immersive experience. Also, contrary to popular belief, research suggests that mobile video screening is "far less distracted than it is on TV." I think of mobile video ads as a sort of 'private screening' opportunity that brand advertisers in India should be harnessing.

If users like the ad, it can also be viewed 'on-demand' (on various social media or video content platforms), resulting in a powerful resonance in a brand's message. Once you have the user interested in your 'story', you've established a personal connect that so many brands crave for. And in this endeavor to make advertising relatable on mobile, video needs a complete rethink.

Full-screen Video Ads

A full-screen video ad is a short, high-definition video which can be skippable or non-skippable, based on the publisher’s preference and occurs at natural breakpoints within an app, such as the end of a level in a game. A great user experience coupled with a buffer-free stream of the video guarantees better eCPMs for publishers and lower CPA for advertisers, demonstrating the true power of video.

This example is illustrative.

This video ad format is ideal for advertisers looking to acquire new users by driving app installs as we found that users acquired through a full-screen video ad were more valuable than users acquired through an interstitial ad; and the cherry on top - 50% lower cost per action, ensuring a better return on your investment! Ideal for gaming publishers, this ad format delivers double the eCPMs of interstitial ads - for the same slot.

Performance on InMobi as compared to Interstitial ads

• Placement: Publishers can place this ad at logical breakpoints in their game such as while the user waits for matchmaking to complete, or when the user clears a particular level. Publishers also have the option of choosing skippable or non-skippable video ads, in-tune to their app’s user experience.
• Length: If the advertiser targets skippable inventory, the maximum recommended length is 15s and if the advertiser targets non-skippable inventory, the maximum recommended length is 10s.

Rewarded Video Ads

A Rewarded video ad is a non-skippable, high-definition video which a user opts in to watch in exchange for virtual goods or gifts within the app. Rewarded video is seeing huge adoption within the game developer community due its non-intrusive nature, with the added benefit that often encourages players to stay with a game longer than they might otherwise.

This example is illustrative.

Advertisers with the objective to increase brand awareness objective or drive app installs benefit from this intriguing ad format. Given that the user chooses to opt-in to view the video, this ad format delivers over 90% completion rates. The users acquired through Rewarded video ads have been found to be very valuable with upto twice the LTV of users acquired through interstitials. Recommended for gaming publishers, they too enjoy a 3-5x increase in eCPMs,and a non-intrusive, retention-friendly experience for their apps.

Performance on InMobi as compared to Interstitial ads

• Placement: Publishers can place this ad at storefronts (the most common placement), the start of gameplay for a booster bonus, end of gameplay for an extra life, etc. Refer this article for an in-depth guide to rewarded video placements.
• Length: Due to the non-skippable, non-intrusive nature of this ad format, the ad should be between 10s and 30s for optimal impact.

Splash Video Ads

A splash video is an ephemeral non-skippable video ad, lasting for a few seconds, which surfaces prior to the app launch. While the publishers benefit from a new source of inventory opening up, advertisers get access to the user’s prime-time. What really sets this ad format apart from the rest is access to the users’ undivided attention ensuring that the message is relayed to the user.

This example is illustrative.

Advertisers looking to increase brand awareness, or market a new product launch akin to television advertising where they put ads just before a show or movie starts, should opt for this format. This format is suitable for both gaming and non-gaming publishers.

• Placement: Apart from the launch screen, publishers can also place this ad whenever app resumes in the foreground.
• Length: Since the ad is non-skippable and appears in the critical path of the user attempting to open an app, the ad should be no longer than a 5 secs segment.

Splash Video Ads is definitely opening doors to new inventory which can be an additional seasonal boost to the revenue.

Stay tuned for the part-2 where we will cover more video formats. Always #WinWithVideo!

Video is eating the world

55% of all content consumed on mobile in 2015 was video and this is expected to grow to 75% by 2020. Video is emerging as the preferred medium for advertisers because of genuine demand from users. Unlike traditional online ad formats, the immersive nature of video not only strengthens user intent by generating excitement but also drives users to transact or download.

Mobile video’s telling effect on key downstream metrics such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates (CVR) and quality of users acquired is unparalleled. A recent comScore study revealed a 90% uplift in performance campaigns that used video ads. Industry segments such as retail, gaming and housing are early benefactors of the video wave. While shoppers are 64% more likely to buy a product after watching a video, real estate companies with video ad listings have received 403% more inquiries than those without!

InMobi video insights

The performance of videos on the InMobi network tells a similar story. InMobi’s analysis of over 1 billion¹ ads globally corroborates the effectiveness of video for performance marketers, delivering 5 times the average CTR and 100% more conversions than that of traditional ad formats such as banners. But, the success of video on mobile has more to it than mere user demand!

Source: InMobi Network Insights - Indexed numbers with banner performance as baseline

As a non-intrusive and highly palatable format, video captures the attention of users. Be it introducing the latest hardcore gaming app to its audience or driving transactions for an online sale, video draws users into an immersive experience, unlike the static ad formats. In addition, video ads on mobile have the advantage of context and communicate personalized value propositions to gently nudge customers. For example, an online food ordering platform can draw customers by showcasing video storyboards with the cuisine on offer during lunch or dinner hours. Or, a video of the latest fall collection for women in an apparel store can generate excitement among fashion aficionados and improve sales. Finally, custom end cards in videos capture the strong user intent in mobile users thereby delivering audiences of remarkable quality to advertisers.

The power of mobile video

Performance marketers are 5 times² more likely to acquire a high-quality user with video than with traditional banner ads. Mobile video - with its various formats - is a valuable investment for advertisers to glean high-quality audiences from a myriad of users out there. For example, the rewarded video format, widely used in the gaming industry, is synonymous with high-quality gamers. A player is a third more likely to stick around when downloading a game after seeing a video ad than if they downloaded the game after seeing a non-video format ad. Rewarded video ads provide in-app rewards for completed views rather than clicks in a gaming app, leading to not only informed clicks but also downloads with true user intent.

Also, auto-play video - the preferred video ad format for performance advertisers - has delivered 300% better conversion than traditional banner ads. Mobile users today prefer to experience serendipitous discovery with such videos. The ability to target audiences with high video view percentages guarantees high value for performance advertisers and is what makes the mobile video much more powerful than traditional channels.

At a time when consumers interact with a variety of devices, it is important for performance advertisers to get a consistent message across channels. With video, existing assets from traditional channels can be leveraged on the mobile platform to capitalize on the consumer moments that drive ease of download and transaction - key actions that matter the most to performance advertisers. Advertisers such as Supercell have made the most out of app install campaigns by supplementing a consistent cross-channel messaging across television and outdoor (super bowl) with mobile video.

Video on mobile, as a distinctly active visual medium, aids the consumer journey from awareness to consideration to action within a span of 15-30 seconds. Reaching beyond the surface, video renders the performance marketers’ value proposition in a clear and understandable manner. With a strong user pull and noticeable results, the mobile video clearly is as mainstream for performance advertisers as it is for brands.

¹ Only rendered | ² InMobi Network Insights

However, in the traditional world of consumer goods, retails and Quick Service Restaurants, a direct response is indicative of interest and nothing else. The success of a marketing campaign is triggered only through increased store footfalls and sales.

InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile advertising and discovery platform, now has partnerships with Placed and NinthDecimal. The new strategic relationships give marketers the opportunity to measure offline attribution either through Placed's, panel app or NinthDecimal's impression based Location Conversion Index™, allowing them to measure down-the-funnel metrics including footfalls and the location conversion index.

With these partnerships, advertisers can also get a true sense of how many footfalls are being driven to their specified store locations through the advertising campaigns on both the InMobi Network and the InMobi Exchange.

“Mobile is an effective medium for driving people into the store through mobile dynamic creatives,” says Jeff Coon, Head of Global Alliances at InMobi. “Through these partnerships, InMobi is placing one more tool in the hands of the advertisers to prove the efficacy and measure the ROI of this medium.”

Advertising seasonal sales, new offers, new collections and contextual targeting to show different creatives at different times of the day, are excellent strategies for driving footfalls to the store, and can be leveraged through mobile campaigns. This also encourages advertisers to take an active interest in optimizing their mobile creatives to entice the user to visit the store.

More about NinthDecimal

NinthDecimal is the leading omni-channel audience and measurement company, operating at the intersection of the digital and physical worlds. Fortune 500 companies and marquee brands, including American Express, Comcast, Kraft, Microsoft, Starbucks, Target and Toyota, use NinthDecimal’s data to plan, activate and measure campaigns, while gaining deeper insights into their audience and overall business. By bridging online and offline data, NinthDecimal’s pioneering Location Graph platform offers the most precise audience solution in the market to understand today’s consumer and how to engage them throughout the path-to-purchase. Its Location Conversion Index™ (LCI™) is the industry’s first offline attribution solution that goes beyond the click to measure physical-world behavior at the point of purchase, and data partnerships with companies like Acxiom, BlueKai, Datalogix, Experian, LiveRamp, Neustar and more provide a comprehensive closed-loop solution.

“For businesses that primarily sell offline, ensuring a successful digital campaign – whether in mobile, desktop, or both - ultimately lies with understanding the complete path that consumers take to make a purchase,” said Todd Rose, SVP of Business Development at NinthDecimal. “Connecting physical and digital world insights can help marketers optimize their campaigns with confidence to make sure they achieve the highest ROI possible.”

More about Placed

Placed is a market share leader in ad to in-store attribution. Measuring billions of first party locations on a daily basis, independent of media, across the world's largest opt-in location audience, Placed provides a comprehensive understanding of consumers' offline behaviors and is a preferred attribution solution across brands, publishers, and agencies including Digitas, UM, Initiative, Horizon, BPN, and Essence.

”Going back to 2014, Placed and InMobi have partnered to make location measurable and actionable across billions of impressions,” said David Shim, Founder and CEO at Placed. “As the partnership has matured, Placed has seen InMobi’s focus on footfall as a primary success metric drive better performance for some of the largest advertisers in the US by combining best in class reporting with in-flight optimization. With this partnership announcement, Placed is excited to continue to build on the success that we’ve seen to date with InMobi.”

Horizontal video ad units only fill 25 percent of a phone’s screen when held in portrait mode. It’s only recently, with the reported 10 billion daily vertical video views on Snapchat, that brands are being forced to change the way they plan, create and film the video for mobile. Why wouldn’t brands want to fill 100 percent of mobile screens without the user having to take any action?

“Our hands are best suited to holding objects vertically, which is why phones, tablets and, in the predigital age, our books and other documents were usually oriented in portrait mode.” Source: The New York Times

Don’t waste space: Vertical video offers 4X better visual effects

Jump into the edge-to-edge experience

Vertical Video delivers a highly engaging TV-like experience in the palm of users’ hands. It’s a true mobile-first experience, with the video filmed in portrait mode (9:16 or 1080x1920 resolution). When AdWeek published the article “Now that Vertical Video is finally legitimate, creatives need to rethink everything” in 2015, it described how some companies are offering tools to resize horizontal videos, to make them vertical. However, as a best practice, the vertical video should be created and filmed with the mobile device in mind, not as an afterthought.

Major publishers such as Hearst, Mashable, Refinery29, Vice, CNN, National Geographic, Food Network, Buzzfeed and many more, have already dedicated resources to creating vertical video content.

Live streaming apps, Periscope and Meerkat, as well as video content player YouTube have also embraced vertical video.

Engaging, Immersive Creative for Mobile

A 360 video compliments vertical video and is best experienced on a mobile device, where the user can touch the screen, or tilt their phone around to see different camera angles. Now that Google’s YouTube supports 360 video, we expect to start seeing brands filming more of their content in this unique format.

Another great news for the immersive video production landscape is the launch of the GoPro Omni.

The availability of the GoPro Omni, a six-camera spherical array, further enforces the growth of 360 video and VR video creation in the industry today. Photographers and videographers have the ability to piece together a slick 360 video experience. For the mobile marketing industry, this news offers validation that 360 and VR are soon to be the norm, and presents a huge opportunity to fully embrace immersive mobile video content as a primary way of advertising.

At InMobi, we're seeing video campaigns delivering 80% better engagement rates than banner-based ones. It is the best performing format across the board in terms of engagement. The GoPro Omni will allow brands to take video content up to the next level with 360 and VR. Mobile video has already been touted as a major channel for advertisers - with GoPro entering this arena, we're confident this will add even more engaging opportunities for brand storytelling, especially among millennials.

In-app video cannot easily go unnoticed

Interstitials are a natural part of the in-app experience. Appearing within natural breaks in the user's experience upon the launch of an app, in-between levels of a game, at the end of a song. In-app interstitials are full screen experiences, that can not be scrolled past easily like mobile web.

Brand Adoption

InMobi Exchange has seen Samsung, Netflix and AirBnB lead the way in creating and distributing vertical videos at scale globally. We’re excited to see more brands follow suit.

2 very important best practices for Vertical Video:

1. For best results, film content in portrait mode, rather than cutting or resizing horizontal video.
2. Add rich media or static end cards to increase the opportunity for further user engagement and time spent on the ad unit. End cards appear at the end of an ad or in between sections of a video ad, with calls-to-action that allow for better storytelling. InMobi sees 2X engagement metrics when end cards are leveraged.

Learn more about impactful, highly engaging, immersive mobile ad formats available on the InMobi Exchange.

Watch our Webinar on Vertical Video

Brands and retailers have a significant opportunity to influence the purchase decisions by learning from this consumer behavior.

If you're interested in knowing more about this topic, check out our blog on How to Ace Back-To-School Shopping Through Mobile Video!

As we gear up for yet another school year, parents and kids are shopping for books, backpacks, uniforms, and gadgets. Back-to-school is the second largest shopping season of the year with sales expected to total $828.81 billion in 2016, up 2.6 percent year-over-year, according to eMarketer. Previously, this meant heading to a shopping mall. However, the digital age has changed the way we shop, and the adoption of mobile has introduced new ways to research, compare, and buy. It's important that advertisers reach these mobile shoppers to encourage mobile purchases or drive them in-store.

Consumers expect engaging experiences irrespective of the medium they use to shop. eMarketer revealed that, unsurprisingly, smartphones are the device of choice for multitaskers with 146.9 million Americans simultaneously using their phone, while watching TV -- representing more than two-thirds of internet users. With this shift in consumption, it's clear that brands need to allocate marketing budgets towards mobile videos.

Why mobile video?

According to Strategy Analytics, worldwide revenue from mobile video will reach $25 billion by 2021, and mobile video viewers will reach 2 billion users by the end of 2022. Mobile video advertising is dynamic and eye-catching, especially when telling a story. It's fast becoming one of the most popular advertising channels among marketers due to:

• Higher engagement: Data from DG Media Mind shows the average click-through-rate (CTR) for in-stream video ads was 1.11 percent -- much higher than mobile banner ads with a CTR of 0.88 percent. It's also become apparent that video ads offer better engagement to users and advertisers.
• Versatility: Mobile videos are used to release product teasers, video tours and to help bring a product to life. This highly versatile nature makes video advertising far more dynamic and interactive, and it allows marketers to increase engagement and stimulation with customers.
• Higher conversion rates: A survey from Liveclicker revealed that videos on product landing pages on a retailer's website can increase the average order value by 50 percent. Retailers who uploaded videos to their product pages had 80 percent higher conversion rates than those with videos on less than 25 percent of their landing pages.
• Anytime access: Mobile video is always available and is viewed without primetime hours like online or TV. Although mobile video consumption is often complimentary to other devices, mobile is often the sole source of media consumption, especially on the go. Due to the multiple short bursts of time spent on mobile, video ads typically range from 10–15 seconds and are viewed one at a time, rather than the back to back ads you see on TV.
• Deeper influence: According to Invodo, 81 percent of online shoppers will research products before buying, and those who watched a product-related video were 1.6x more likely to buy the product than shoppers who didn't. Additionally, 52 percent of consumers admitted that watching product videos made them more confident in their online purchase decisions.

Back to school: The opportunity

Brands can create excitement and a sense of urgency with mobile video, while also telling a story to engage shoppers. Advertisers can create effective mobile video campaigns through a variety of ways, including:

• Video format: Video ads on mobile are often repurposed from desktop and TV, and they are filmed in landscape mode. Brands are starting to film content vertically to match the natural position of how users hold their phone. They can deliver a full-screen video experience, without expecting users to rotate their phones.
• Screen size: Smartphones have a limited screen size compared to traditional mediums. Mobile video ad creatives should take this into account by making ads crisp and clear while considering bold, visual imagery. Viewers shouldn't struggle to make out what is happening in the video, and any text should stand out and be legible.
• Short and crisp: Attention spans on mobile are short lived, creating a need for concise video ads to keep users engaged. The relevance and content also dictate the length of the video, since 70 percent of consumers won't watch an ad longer than 10-15 seconds. Brand impact is strongest within the first few seconds, forcing advertisers to optimize ads with messaging and branding at the start.
• Actions and incentives: A direct response component is necessary for all ads to engage users through a call to action (CTA) button such as "Tap to view the website," "Tap to share on social media," or "Tap to download more info." The CTA can be a URL, a button or a hashtag that provides additional opportunities to scale campaign reach and measure ROI.
• Engage without audio: The popularity of mobile autoplay video ads has increased but there are concerns this can be perceived as too intrusive. Mobile video ad units should include an opt-in button to initiate audio, but the creative should be engaging enough to get the user's attention without sound.

Mobile video: A winning combination

As users become obsessive with their mobile devices and the entire school ecosystem from parents, teachers and students engage in mobile experiences, mobile video ads offer great potential for marketers to stay ahead. The adoption of mobile will continue for school assignments, student-teacher collaboration and feedback.

Every consumer has unique personalities and habits - marketers should experiment with types, lengths and formats to make campaigns efficient based on responses. Investment in video ads will only increase over the coming years and it's important for marketers to develop sophisticated mobile ad campaigns to drive brand value

The report includes insights and analysis based on responses from over 16,500 developers globally across multiple research areas including Mobile, Desktop, Cloud, IoT, and Augmented / Virtual Reality, as well as Machine Learning.

It focuses on four major themes – each with its own visualization:

• Mobile platform wars - The mobile developer population is shifting east and to Android. After years of stability, Android is now extending its dominance in device sales to even greater developer mindshare and priority over iOS.
• Desktop and cloud developer tribes - There are strong correlations between desktop developer platform priorities and their choice of language on the server side. These illustrate how the developer population is split into technological tribes.
• A new phase in the IoT market - The massive influx of developers to IoT in 2015 has slowed significantly, and developers are picking which vertical markets to target. Where are bets going to be placed as the market begins to mature?
• Where are developers looking next? Augmented and virtual reality, and machine learning – are they just the latest over-hyped technologies or the next big things? The level of developer interest in both areas suggests the latter.

Insightful Key Highlights:

• Leaping to a new record for any platform since they started measuring, Android now has 79% mindshare amongst mobile developers
• 47% of professional developers now consider Android their primary platform, up 7 percentage points in the last 6 months
• Nearly 23% of developers are already involved in either AR or VR development, most of those as a hobby or side project
• An amazing 41% of developers are involved in data science or machine learning in some way, 33% of those in a professional capacity

The report is aimed at helping you gain insight into the latest trends in development and what sparks them, discover where you stand among other developers, as well as make important decisions about tools, platforms and programming languages.

The full report is available for download here, enjoy your own copy now!

Impact of VTA across campaign stages

1. Precision targeting for quality users

A deep understanding of user behavior that signals high lifetime value (LTV) is the holy grail for mobile marketers. And yet, performance marketers fail to account for the behavioral and engagement patterns of 85% of users who are non-clickers, which includes high-LTV users. With VTA, performance marketers can capture the behavior of high-LTV users outside of clickers i.e. among non-clickers as well. Thus, building holistic user insights for precise targeting.

First recorded in a study by comScore, non-clickers are defined as users who do not click on display ads in a month. Many non-clickers deliberately refrain from clicking an ad despite being interested in the product being displayed. For example, instead of clicking on an ad to download a gaming app, non-clickers will download it directly from the app store. By optimizing the campaign for clickers alone, marketers are studying and analyzing only a tiny cohort of high-LTV users, and therefore risk not acquiring high-value users who may be non-clickers

2. Investing in the right networks

Performance marketers can increase their chances of success by investing in networks that maximize returns. VTA-enabled networks optimize for both clicks and views, effectively lowering the acquisition cost per loyal user (CPLU), and thereby delivering the best return on investment (RoI). At a time when the cost of acquiring high-LTV users is rising at 101 percent year- over -year, investing in the right network is of paramount importance for performance marketers.

3. Enhancing campaign performance

By partnering with networks that optimize based on VTA, performance marketers can achieve app install uplifts as high as 120%. With feedback on both click-based and view-based installs, campaign optimizations across the network expand reach efficiently and at scale to all clicker and non-clicker high-LTV users. In addition, previously unavailable premium inventory can be accessed, thus improving the share of high LTV users being targeted. Marketers can significantly boost performance by making accurate and complete information on user behavior and total ad installs available to partner networks through VTA. By partnering with leading mobile measurement and attribution players such as TUNE, Kochava, Appsflyer and Adjust, performance marketers can leverage VTA with the flip of a switch.

Mobile marketers today need to overachieve and deliver outstanding results to influence marketing budgets. By brushing aside all non-click based installs as organic installs, marketers are discrediting their own efforts on the mobile medium. With VTA, marketers can better influence the allocation of digital marketing budgets across mobile and partner networks by accounting for the true Return on Ad Spend (RoAS). This in turn enables performance marketers to smartly invest in expanding their user base while constantly improving the contribution of high-LTV users. VTA is a vital leaf in the performance marketing playbook that cannot be missed.

At InMobi, upon completion of nine years of solid experience helping gaming developers from all over the globe getting started with in-app monetization and ongoing personalized 24/7 optimization, we would like to share six practical pro-tips to conquer rewarded video success.

1. Choose the perfect reward to incentivize daily gameplay

When settling on what to use as a reward, the first thing to explore is learning what players would consider enticing to keep them coming back for more every single day. Two great strategies are:
1) Offer a juicy reward for a limited time to create a sense of urgency and
2) Frequency cap the best reward to one a day

Premium currencies and extra lives are a fantastic choice as well as ‘hard to obtain’ in-game items. The opportunity of unlocking such rewards builds a powerful habit of daily check-in, much improving user retention. This, in combination with in-app purchases (IAP), will eventually turn some of these very loyal players into LTV users who spend money in your store. We’ll cover IAP in depth in the next section.

Another incredibly smart tactic is to use rewarded video to amplify the prizes collected after a completed game. For instance, in Subway Surfers, players are offered the chance to consistently double up every item obtained from the mystery boxes found during game play.

Subway Surfers “Double Up!” Button prompts a rewarded video

2. Combine tastefully rewarded video with in-app purchases (IAP)

A lot of people worry that rewarded video will cannibalize IAPs because, when given the option, players will always prefer not to spend their own money. Backed by performance data from across our platform of over 32K apps that reach over 1.56 billion users, we can confidently say that rewarded ads do not come at the expense of IAP and, in fact, it can even be the reverse. We believe that adding rewarded video to your game actually boosts overall in-app purchases since this offers gamers a low cost way to see the value of extras such as power-ups, coins and so on. However, do not forget that your rewarded ad strategy should enhance game monetization: make sure your offers are limited so that there is still motivation to make an in-app purchase. This means, you must strategically frequency-cap rewarded video to a reduced amount per user per hour/day.

We’ll elaborate on this aspect in pro-tip #4.

3. Choose the right video ad length for your game

When it comes to mobile gaming, every second away from the game matters, even if you know that there is a juicy reward with your name on it at the end of the clip. Often, you can consider shortening allowed video length to a maximum of 15-20 seconds if most of your gamers experience a short playing time (less than 2-3 minutes). Longer video ads could be upsetting for the gamer, potentially harming retention in the long haul. On the other hand, a 30 second brand video ad represents the perfect break to help unwind after a long game play of over 5 minutes of non-stop screen tapping to cool down from the adrenaline rush and get ready for the next level.

Stay tuned for the second part of this blog series, coming very soon!

Learn to #WinWithVideo. Join the winning team now!

Are you a gaming developer looking into implement rewarded video in your game? Easy integration, superb monetization and expert account management is awaits!

Check our brand new dedicated website for all things video - winwithvideo.com and get in touch with the expert InMobi Gaming team to learn how to get started in no time!

On the 5th of August, InMobi, along with BHIVE, hosted an event to build on this theme. Titled “Retain and Re-engage your Mobile Users”, the event brought together app developers, app marketers and start-up enthusiasts to network and understand how best to use remarketing solutions for their businesses. InMobi Co-founder and Chief Revenue Office, Abhay Singhal, kicked off the session by highlighting the importance of remarketing at a time when app marketing has truly evolved from focusing on increasing transactions through new users to actually retaining existing users. This was followed by a presentation by Vasuta Agarwal, VP of India for InMobi, who delved into the crux of the issues pertaining to getting users to discover an app, download it, engage with it and eventually retain it. Moderated by Nivedita Bhattacharjee from Techinasia, the latter half of the evening centered around a panel discussion with InMobi’s VP and Global Head of Marketing - Arun Pattabhiraman, Director of Remarketing - Mansi Jain and Head of Marketing - Meera Iyer from Big Basket as the panelists.

Here’s a summary of the key takeaways from the evening:

1. Remarketing is the new CRM tool

While acquiring users is taking up a major chunk of mobile marketing budgets, the acquisition cost per loyal user has reached an all-time high in 2016, increasing 101% YoY. And despite the investment in acquiring users, an average mobile app is retaining only 23% of its DAUs within 3 days of it being installed. The 3-7 day period in an app’s post-install life has become critical in engaging users before they lose interest or uninstall. Clearly, it is not enough to drive installs - you need to convert existing app installers to users, make them high-value users and win back dormant users. And remarketing helps you achieve all of these goals. Arun Pattabhiraman, was quick to dismiss a common misconception that remarketing is merely to drive an increase in transactions and shared, “Remarketing can not only help users upgrade to subscription services but also drive traffic back to the app by re-engaging existing users.”

2. Measuring the right metrics

Everyone acknowledges that the conversation has shifted from Reach to LTV (LifeTime Value) and DAUs (Daily Active Users), and from CPIs (Cost Per Install) to Cost Per Action. And for markets such as India, which are very Android heavy, it becomes extremely important to focus on downstream metrics to predict LTV as limited storage space on Android devices leads to faster rates of uninstalls. Apps need to make greater efforts to retain users in a market where users have access to about 2 million apps but download and retain only about 20 apps. Mansi Jain spoke about attribution and the key issues around correctly attributing an ad unit across various events (eg add to cart) on a particular app to a specific user. The concept of multi-touch attribution is coming into prominence as marketers are realizing that users can be nudged to engage or re-engage with an app as a result of multiple ad units across multiple publishers. In the extremely deterministic app remarketing environment where it is necessary to have the right identifier for effective attribution, it becomes important to understand how we can connect mobile web and mobile app ecosystems.

3. Segments where remarketing works

Vasuta Agarwal touched upon the different use cases and their KPIs with respect to remarketing for the startups from different verticals to understand how they could leverage retargeting for their specific businesses. Remarketing can be used effectively across segments, including gaming where one can nudge users to move to the next stage of the game, commerce where one can drive transactions, music apps within which one can increase the number of songs played and social where one can nudge dormant users back to the app.

4. Creatives matter

An important factor in effective performance marketing is delivering creative and innovative media ads. Mansi Jain explained that creating ad units that recreate the app experience outside the app itself allows users to get a better idea of what the app has to offer and eventually leads to both re-engagement and retention.

5. At Big Basket remarketing starts much before user acquisition itself

Meera Iyer shared how Big Basket has managed to retain its users not only with superior customer facing metrics but also by constantly simplifying the browsing and purchasing process for users on their mobile app or website. Big Basket realized fairly quickly that they are better off by retaining existing users and growing their LTV, in addition to acquiring new users. By investing resources into machine learning, they are able to start suggesting relevant products for customers to purchase based on what has previously been searched or added to cart. She made it clear that for Big Basket remarketing starts much before user acquisition itself. Meera mentioned that fundamentally most digital marketers don’t understand that everything starts with understanding your users and their behavior - what they want and why they want it. She sounded hopeful when she talked about the direction and rate at which data sciences is developing in order to accommodate the fast evolving concept of marketing and remarketing.

6. Lessons from across the Globe

The Western world is definitely more advanced than the East. However, the East, with countries like China and India, is predominantly mobile-first and a large chunk of the mobile remarketing efforts are taking place here. “The only way to remarket in a country like India is through mobile,” said Arun. China is an entirely different market where infrastructure for mobile, for example, mobile payments, is developed to a much larger extent and people are accustomed to transacting over mobile. The biggest issue faced in the Chinese market is the advertiser’s hesitation to share user data which is necessary for advancement of upscaling efforts under remarketing.

Arun wrapped up the session by saying that the beauty of remarketing lies in the advertiser's ability to create micro-segments of users and to target the segments that matter to them. Overall, the evening ended on a high note, with both speakers and audience hopeful of the direction in which remarketing is evolving. Clearly, the expectations are around seeing great leaps in terms of innovation and efficiency of the industry.

InMobi Remarketing is a comprehensive solution that enables advertisers to activate acquired users by nudging them to their first LifeTime Value (LTV) event, re-activate dormant users and retarget existing users to drive incremental revenues or engagement.

InMobi Mobile Remarketing witnesses the coming together of:

1. Personalized recommendations based on user intent
2. Dynamic and impactful messaging using native or video creatives and,
3. Seamless transaction fulfilment by deep-linking with the advertiser app

Effective remarketing involves a 3 step process - Activation, Re-engagement and Retention.

Activating new users

Today, only 23% of daily active users are retained within the first 3 days of an app install. A lack of relevant engagement or an unsatisfactory in-app experience can trigger user dormancy or even uninstallation. This makes engaging with a recently acquired user within the first few days highly critical. The InMobi remarketing platform drives users at an early stage to engage with the app and complete their first in-app LTV event. Here are some examples:

• Sign Up: A recently acquired entertainment app user is exposed to a carousel of trending bestsellers, thereby increasing dwell time and nudging the customer to open the app and sign up.
• First Ride: A taxi app user is shown first-ride coupons during peak office hours with a ‘book’ button to order the much needed cab from within the ad unit.
• First Purchase: A new retail app user sees current offers coupled with relevant information on fulfillment terms such as cash on delivery, thereby improving conversions.

Re-engaging dormant users

With app engagement currently measured on a day to day basis, users who have not visited the app in over 2 weeks or a month are considered dormant users. Lack of relevant content and an inconsistent cross-device experience are among the many reasons why users become inactive. While such users are often thought of as sunk costs or wasted budgets, smart remarketing can ensure that they are reactivated and re-engaged. Communicating the latest app updates and offers can drive users back to opening the app and engaging with it. Once dormant users have been reactivated, retargeting steers them to actively transact.

Retaining active users

An active user is a treasure trove for advertisers because of the depth of data on user-intent and preferences. Retargeting active users with recommendations based on user-intent can help maximize revenue per active user.

For instance, by understanding a user’s in-app search history, a music app can retarget that user and drive more in-app song purchases. Similarly, knowledge of a retail user’s browsing and purchase history can be used to suggest similar products or trigger pending actions such as transaction fulfillment.

Making remarketing campaigns work

The InMobi remarketing platform utilizes the power of creatives and accurate mobile tracking and attribution to deliver the retargeting promise.

Non-intrusive and real-time ads

Retargeting is effective because personalized user recommendations are delivered using ad formats that recreate the app experience, both in form and function. Detailed ad units with metadata such as price, ratings, high-quality product images that a user would seek or consider when buying a product can shorten the time taken for a user to transact. Immersive ad formats such as native carousels and videos provide a rich and interactive experience, gently guiding the user from a state of consideration to a state of transaction.

The ad experience, however, should be real-time with the availability of data on surge prices or price fluctuations and stock availability. InMobi achieves this by integrating with the advertisers’ inventory management and pricing systems.

An entertainment advertiser can drive transactions from within the ad unit by retargeting users in and around multiplexes with immersive ad units that showcase ticket availability and prices for a new movie release.

Rich, dynamic formats such as native carousels, interstitials and video deliver a compelling storefront-like user experience. Direct SDK integrations with 30,000+ mobile app publishers enables InMobi to harness premium inventory supply with complete creative control. Finally, seamless transaction capabilities within the ad unit simulate an offline shopping experience as closely as possible.

Data integrations and attribution

A seamless buying experience is enabled by deep-links with the advertiser’s app, directly landing a user from the ad unit on to the desired page within the app. This reduces transaction friction, thereby improving conversions.

InMobi’s Mobile Tracking and Attribution Partner (MTAP) Program, comprising of independent mobile attribution platforms such as TUNE, Kochava, Apsalar, Adjust and Appsflyer, gives advertisers the best-in-class solutions to capitalize on mobile remarketing. In addition to deep-linking, MTAPs enable vital backend integrations with the advertiser app. Backend integrations capture in-app browsing and purchase history for the curation of personalized recommendations. MTAPs also provide accurately tracked conversion data across publishers and ad formats. InMobi leverages attribution reports to analyze and optimize campaigns, maximizing return on investment(RoI), efficiently and at scale.

Performance marketers have made much headway in engaging customers by embracing the app revolution. Marking a shift towards personalization, apps have redefined the way advertisers engage with consumers. At the same time, leveraging the app ecosystem to retain and engage customers while maximizing the value derived out of them has become a challenge. The InMobi remarketing platform utilizes the power of highly contextual and personalized creatives to deliver the retargeting promise, efficiently and at scale. Savvy marketers can take the next step in unlocking growth with the InMobi Remarketing solution to maximize in-app engagement and revenues.

Author and media theorist Steven Johnson got it right when he said,“Chance favours the connected mind.” And in this era of humankind, the internet is driving the connected mind. It stands as a testament to the great strides we have made and it has changed the world for the better. This level of connectivity has just deepened with the onset of the smartphone era. Rich content is accessible to everyone on the planet, no matter where they are—or is it?

The internet has more information than what one person can consume in a lifetime, even if one glosses over all the spam. The rich content from cyberspace has built massive economies, positively impacting the lives of people even in the remotest of villages. To achieve this, the internet has relied on allowing a vast number of information-rich websites to remain completely free.

Online content publishers depend on advertising revenues to keep their businesses afloat. Rich content attracts a large number of readers; which advertisers are keen to tap into. To achieve this, publishers can integrate ads into their web page and earn revenues. Similar to print publishers, websites can also employ a subscription based model to keep their content ad-free, but this model has met with limited success on the scale of the internet; where most content is free.

Initially, it was believed that the advertiser-publisher-reader synergy would work seamlessly, but misuse and greed crept in. Publishers eager to earn more money spammed every visitor with excessive and often obtrusive ads. This misuse has simply been amplified by the growth and dominance of mobile as a content consumption platform.

Ad Blockers are being created for the express purpose of blocking intrusive ads to enhance a consumer’s interactive experience. The rising adoption of ad blockers pushes such firms towards developing innovative, non-intrusive ad format that could in fact help enhance consumer experiences.

A common misconception is that the iOS 9 Ad Blockers can block ads across all mobile spheres. In reality, this is far from the truth. Incidentally, iOS 9 brought in the capability to develop content-blocking extensions in Safari, in order to improve the browsing experience. Employing these extensions leave in-app ads unblocked, which attract a majority of screen-time. In fact, a recent report by PageFair and Unruly shows 22% of the world’s 1.9 bn smartphone users employ ad-blocking on mobile web. On the other hand, about 9 out of every 10 minutes spent on mobile devices is spent in apps rather than the mobile web, according to comScore.

Even though the concept of ad blocking is appealing to many consumers who have had their mobile experience disrupted by ads, the process of setting up the ad blocker is a little more work than just downloading an app and letting it do its thing. Users have to get into the device’s system preferences and enable the app to communicate with Safari. While 93% of

mobile users say they would consider using ad blockers, most of the time, they couldn’t be bothered to go through this extra effort to block a minor disruption.

On the other hand, Google has never been pro-Ad-Blockers; the obvious reason being that their revenue heavily depends on ads themselves. For Ad Blockers to work on Android, the app requires root access. Without root access, some ad blockers can still block ads to a certain extent.

Though the difficulty of blocking ads on smartphones is significant today, this is not the reason enough for mobile AdTech firms to become complacent. Now it is the responsibility of AdTech firms and publishers to create an environment where Ad Blockers become redundant.

This trend of ad blocking, although limited to a very narrow user base, encourages mobile advertising companies to create ads that don’t interfere with the consumer’s experience.

Ads act as a discovery platform for consumers to discover new products and services that they didn’t know existed. Ad Blockers have now become the harbingers of the next renaissance in digital advertising. The time has come where advertisers and publishers must work with Ad Blockers to preserve consumer experience while exciting them with the latest that brands have to offer. The internet personifies democracy and freedom, and it is the responsibility of everyone of us to make the best of this virtual world.

The broad consensus was that the industry is still evolving and only a handful of progressive advertisers have really embraced programmatic as the predominant mode of mobile media management. Even these progressive advertisers along with their agencies had an uphill climb in terms of technology partner selection to power their programmatic platforms and talent pool to operationalize it.

If you want to start in Mobile Programmatic and don’t know where you stand, we recommend a 4 step program to conquer it.

1. Mobile Programmatic does not equal to buying cheaply

Conversations on programmatic start with the wrong objective in mind - ‘can I get some cheap traffic’, ‘do you have xyz premium site on your exchange’. People incorrectly assume that cheaper media is equal to programmatic efficiency. Programmatic efficiency comes from creating a true program for end-to-end success. The cost efficiency in programmatic comes from the reduction in cycle time to: think of a campaign, brief the agency, create a media plan, create the mocks and then go live. This process can take over 4 months normally. For our most progressive partner, even during the peak season of Ramadhan in Indonesia, we were able to reduce this cycle time to half using programmatic

2. Don’t bring your desktop mindset to mobile programmatic: be truly mobile capable

Mobile is different. One needs to transition from the easy to implement, widely available cookie based desktop world to the device identifier based mobile world. Most DSPs have been created for desktop and have then been adapted for mobile. Hence most mobile programmatic initiatives tend to scratch the surface by implementing a largely mobile web initiative or buying from open exchange. Real mobile capabilities include:

• Buying across all formats – banners, full screen, mobile video in its various forms – 15 to 30 sec, vertical vs horizontal, interactive and 360 and lastly native. Native on mobile provides access to non duplicated in-app inventory and up to 4X performance when compared to normal banners
• Buying true audiences on PMPs – there is a wide variety of audiences available on mobile programmatic. Through PMPs, clients have access to first party data targeting based on advanced multidimensional data signals as well as 100% viewability of impressions
• A strong emphasis being directed towards brand protection, real time checks ensuring validity of impressions and clicks and big data trend analysis detecting spoofing at all levels, all make programmatic a safe option for marketers
• Have your DMPs and other verification support mobile in a seamless manner

3. Invest to learn: mobile intelligence that drives advertising effectiveness

Over a period of time, by investing more resources in understanding why certain media or certain creatives or certain forms of targeting work better under different circumstances, there will be intelligence built by planners and buyers on how to plan for media effectiveness. For instance, creatives that use location and contextual targeting have 38% more engagement than banners and a dwell time of more than 10 seconds. InMobi recently ran a programmatic campaign in the Middle East where the advertiser tested over 40 combinations of creatives and audiences to determine what should be their mobile execution plan for the future. Programmatic can help advertisers run creative tests at scale or even brand effectiveness studies.

4. Create advertising agility and scale via always on buying and faster responsiveness

Learnings from step 1, 2 and 3, can help advertisers create a ‘digitally automated playground’ to follow their audience. Embedding mobile programmatic into the larger marketing automation domain where campaign data CRM or purchase data co-exist has its advantages. Advertisers can break away from the illiquidity that prevails by thinking of campaigns and embed mobile programmatic into their customer segmentation models to optimize for marketing objectives that have direct linkage to sales and brand metrics thus driving mobile ROI.

Clearly creating a program for success entails various elements. From thinking audience-first to maximizing reach through diversified ad format, constant optimization for results is truly at the heart of programmatic.

While mobile advertising has become an integral part of media plans, there is still a dearth of execution excellence when it comes to mobile ads. Most mobile creatives are refitted versions of their desktop siblings and are not optimized to perform on mobile devices. As a mobile first company, InMobi has worked with several categories of advertisers to come up with the following best practices for building creatives that excel in the mobile environment:

• Video - 2016 is the year of video advertising and marketers are leaving no stone unturned to leverage the different forms of video ads to get their message across. Users love consuming video, more so with the convenience of their mobile devices. While marketers have taken conscious steps to increase their mobile video advertising budgets through both direct and programmatic channels, mobile-first video creatives are not yet the norm.
  • Users love mobile video but hate buffering time. Partnering with companies who understand video encoding, deliver instant play video experiences and optimize the quality of the video based on the bandwidth of the data connection is important for delivering a good user experience.
  • While mobile video ads are more widely seen than other video ads, marketers need to be cognizant of the fact that they may be seen in silent mode. Building short engaging stories which are effective without sound is a new skill that creative agencies need to acquire. Long form video ads are clearly not optimal for the mobile environment.
  • Mobile video is also evolving as more marketers start to understand the nuances of mobile usage. 360-degree video, vertical video and native video are advanced formats and are built to be mobile-first in terms of their fitment with mobile usage patterns. Video end cards help increase engagement by 2X and can be used effectively to improve direct response metrics.
• Location - User consent based location information can be secured from apps and mobile websites which share location information and is pivotal in tracing the persona of a user in the real world. The location gives insights into the behavioral patterns of the users and allows marketers to build creatives extremely personalized for the user.
  • Location elements can be incorporated with localized weather feeds to customize the creative based on the local conditions of the user - for example - an advertisement for cold coffee for users on high-temperature days vs hot coffee for users on low temperature/rainy days
  • Location can also be used to drive footfalls and purchases by giving the user directions to the nearest retail outlet/event location of the advertiser based on the user’s current location
  • The user’s location can be used to customize the messaging in the ad - for example, a targeted message to visit the retail store on the second floor of a mall when the user is known to be inside the mall building, vs a generic message about the ongoing sale at all of the retail outlets. Similarly, tourism bodies can advertise targeted places of interest close to the tourist’s current location.
• Rich Media - In the race and chase for user attention, ad fatigue is the lock, innovation is the key, and rich media is the key maker. Rich media ads allow brand advertisers to break through the clutter and engage the user with interactive creatives. Whether it is gamified ads, ads with parallax effects, or simple interaction based message reveals, rich media ads constitute 80 percent of in-app brand display advertising.
  • Rich media ads are heavily dependent on the publisher’s capability to render the elements. Creative authoring platforms like Celtra, InMobi Studio, Bonzai, etc. are used to build the rich media creatives. It is important to ensure the creative authoring platforms have been certified to run on the different inventory sources to ensure the ad is rendered without glitches.
  • Rich media ads tend to be built on Flash or HTML5. By creating digital content in HTML5, marketers can ensure that their ads will be seen as intended in all environments. Google’s announcement that it will pause all Flash content on Chrome provides yet another reason why advertisers should use HTML5.
  • Building responsive ads which automatically adjust to the different device sizes available in the market today is critical for flawless execution. Targeting the ad creative appropriately based on the device features supported is also important for maximizing ROI from the ad spend.
• Native Ads - The mobile environment is teeming with feeds - news feeds, social feeds, product feeds, etc. The most popular non-gaming apps are adopting the feed layout to impart information to the user in the right amounts. This proliferation of feed environments has given rise to the popularity of native advertising, which walks a fine line between blending in and standing out. With so much time being spent in the feed environment, investing in native ads is a foregone conclusion. While a lot of native ad inventory exists outside of the walled gardens, marketers are yet to focus their budgets on these non-ONO (owned and operated) native ad apps.
  • As more and more of the mobile advertising dollars move to the programmatic channels, there is a dearth of partners who support the native ad spec. Identifying and integrating with DSPs who are built to IAB’s OpenRTB Native Ad Spec 2.3 is the first step to accessing a large amount of native ad inventory available in the marketplace.
  • Native ads, by virtue of their nature, are not standardized and built to support various sizes as per the publisher’s layout. Advertisers and agencies need to customize their image creatives beyond the standard facebook size of 1200x627 and leverage as many sizes as possible to achieve scale.
  • Unlike other ad formats, native ads are a unique combination of creative and copy. Writing compelling copy which intrigues and engages the user in 100 characters or less is an art. Teams focused on advertorials should be leveraged to build native ads that entice the user to take the desired action.
• Reporting and Attribution - Advertising without attribution is like intentionally throwing half the money down the drain. Despite the importance of reporting and attributing it to the right source, understanding of this space is still murky. Mobile attribution is also rapidly evolving as the various ecosystem players catch up to the different milestones in the ad delivery process.
  • With the popularity of the feed layout and pervasiveness of fraud, measurement of viewable impressions as opposed to served or rendered impressions has become a hot topic. Partnering with an independent player that helps differentiate between in-view impressions and out of view impressions is helpful in avoiding wastage of impressions.
  • There are multiple attribution models used today which rely on last touch attribution. However, as advertisers partner with multiple ad networks and DSPs to get their message across, view through attribution has become a popular model to give credit where it is due. Analysing “influenced” engagement helps identify the network partners which are delivering better ROI.
  • Mobile web attribution is still a fuzzy area. Reconciling mobile web cookies with Device IDs is a difficult business, especially without the aid of trackers. Implementing tracking pixels on the landing page helps evaluate the bounce rate and correctly measure post-click engagement.

In the age of data-driven digital and mobile marketing, where mobile ad spend is forecast to account for 72 percent of United States digital ad spend by 2019, we are at a critical inflection point of changing the mobile advertising currency from impressions to audience segments.

The shift from desktop to mobile has advertisers following suit, and they are not looking back. Campaign success is now portrayed as the ability to grow a brand's audience by converting prospects that drive mobile purchases, rather than reaching mobile consumers to reinforce brand awareness and recognition.

The living proof of this is the Snapchat Discover feature. Since launch more than a year ago, there are now 20 channels produced daily by established media brands such as People, CNN, ESPN and The Wall Street Journal, along with Vice and BuzzFeed.

To reach their core target audience – millennials and Generation Z – advertisers are starting to see mobile advertising not just as an option, but as a necessity.

Mobile advertisers now more demanding

In the face of this media and social revolution, advertisers have fully embraced mobile, and are becoming significantly more intelligent in the process.

Advertisers can see the potential from mobile and the ability to accurately identify their audience of choice. This is especially critical when it comes to brand dollars in the programmatic arena, where advertisers are demanding maxed-out campaigns with large budgets, but reach an extremely narrow audience.

Gone are the days of blindly buying cost-per-thousand (CPM) impressions in Web sites where the age and gender demographics would broadly match their target persona.

The last two years have seen digital spray-and-pray campaigns based on impressions pave the way to sophisticated audience-based campaigns that are enabled through data-science based targeting and ad-serving capabilities driven through machine learning.

Additionally, the integration of the buy button in ads has increased the return on investment for digital campaigns, and retailers such as Walmart and Amazon are finally reaping the rewards from mobile.

Who is your audience?

The second best asset for publishers, after their own application, is the valuable data signals sent to the ad networks to fulfill their monetization goals.

These data signals include multi-dimensional information of the user's device (e.g. type, model, OS and carrier), context (e.g. geo-location and time of day), demographic, technographic and appographic (e.g. apps that the user has installed and frequency of engagement) as well as rich post-event analytics including user behavior around the ads shown (e.g. skip, click and purchase).

Ad networks process billions of ad requests on a daily basis, acting as data powerhouses, collecting data signals on an anonymized and aggregated level.

Publishers are encouraged to proactively share their data signals for better audience targeting on their apps, and provide users with relevant ads to keep them engaged, ultimately improving retention rates.

The end goal for advertisers is to build different sets of audience segments, each with unique propositions for propagating their marketing message, to target accordingly.

Quest for data dominance

In the midst of a $100 billion mobile advertising industry that is currently under a profound consolidation, the once-pitched as a “robust ad serving technology” is no longer a differentiator, but instead a commodity.

The secret sauce for ad networks is data science, and the ability to support data-driven audience targeted campaigns.

This targeting technique, paired with machine learning, can use each creative served to learn and feed data back into the system to refine the audience segments profiling. It also provides an opportunity to predict critical success metrics, such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and even cost-per-quality user, based on predicted lifetime value users signals for all ads, at any given time.

Setting up an auto-bidding system that determines the optimal bid price for each ad per user request will help maximize overall return on investment for the advertiser and increase revenue for the publisher.

Mobile Advertising players with the ability to run precise data-driven audience campaigns at massive scale will remain competitive and alive.

Audience-based campaigns are also dominating the mobile advertising world, being the king currency in key markets such as the U.S., where ad networks pitch both publishers and advertisers their powerful audience segmenting and targeting capabilities.

Advertisers are offered access to custom-built audiences for every new campaign setup, leveraging a myriad of data-infused criteria to reach their high-value users.

In contrast, publishers are enticed to sell audience campaigns, not impressions, by targeting real people.

This trend embodies the rise in popularity of people-based marketing, set to rule mobile advertising in the coming years, in a collective effort of turning the perception of the ad tech industry into a more human focused business.

Millennials are becoming retailers’ largest demographic in both population size and market influence with significant buying power due to their constant access to technology. Over 85% of millennials own a smartphone compared to 71% of the total U.S. population, and their mobile-first experiences are set to reshape the economy and change the ways in which consumers trade. Already, a quarter of millennials recently surveyed report 100% of their online purchases were on smartphones — and marketers in retail are taking note, but in some cases, not fast enough.

Are Retailers Prepared for the Millennial Effect?

Shopping preferences of millennials are unique and often include a combination of both online and offline. So how can retailers win the hearts of millennials? There are many critical components but seven steps to success include:

1. Customer Journey It’s important to think about the holistic customer experience throughout the entire journey. Brands should focus on weaving in the journey, which integrates consumer touch points before, during and after the transaction has been completed.

2. Seamless Interactions It’s important to provide seamless online and in-store experiences. Millennials like to converse and interact with retailers across multiple platforms without disruption, and their expectations of in-store and online interactions are similar. Most millennials will research options online before heading into a store and they expect the various channels to complement each other with relevant and consistent communications, allowing them to easily execute their purchases.

3. Visual Effectiveness and GuidanceVisual effectiveness is crucial as this will drive the first contact and initial impact to consumers. Brands need to think carefully about how they present product details along with images, emojis, stickers, ads, etc. Personalization is key to generate loyalty and to help consumers discover the most relevant content, guiding them along the path to purchase.

4. Device Agnostic Creating a shopping experience which is optimized for any device is key as millennials are known to shop on a multitude of devices. A mobile-optimized site or a hybrid app which is responsive and can scale on any device is imperative. Providing a mobile-optimized checkout process is just as important as the responsive site. The traditional long checkout process will not resonate well with the tech-savvy millennials.

5. Social SharingMany millennials seek advice online, and enjoy declaring purchases and opinions through social media. Social media sharing is a key feature and even a necessity for millennials, providing a social sharing option as a core component of brand marketing will help drive adoption.

6. Geo-Targeting More than half of the millennial population allows location data on their mobile phones. The younger generation is more receptive to geo-targeting than any other demographic as it provides more relevant and contextual offers at a specific instance.

7. Loyalty Programs and Coupons Millennials are heavy users of coupons and are always on the lookout for deals. Apart from coupons, loyalty programs are a major consideration for retailers to implement to keep them bound to a brand.

The Road Ahead

In order to remain competitive in the retail landscape, retailers will need to cater to the spending habits and tendencies of millennials. Accenture estimates that millennials in the U.S. spend approximately $600 billion a year, a number that will rise to $1.4 trillion, or 30% of total retail sales volume, by 2020. Born in the unique world of technology disruptions, this mobile-first generation has distinct media and shopping habits and it is poised to create a tidal shift in the retail industry. Their access to mobile devices, impulse buying behavior, coupled with purchasing power, greatly influence what, how, and where they purchase.

Retailers have a golden opportunity to tap into these patterns by understanding millennial shopping habits and by focusing their efforts on customer retention. Brands and retailers who fail to capture the millennial attention and loyalty today will be missing out on this evident trend and could impact business success in the near future.

The data helps us understand when Indian’s like to shop, what their mobile shopping journey looks like and how they make purchasing decisions. We discover two crucial insights for retailers,

• Seeing is Buying - shoppers are more likely to buy if they see things they like. It makes common sense. So the more a retailer can help their users discover relevant products, the more likely they are to go on to purchase them.
• Remarketing wins shoppers back - retargeting shoppers who signaled their interest but then abandoned their carts or got distracted helps bring them back into the purchase journey and translates to higher sales.

Here’s how the story unfolds:

Click here to download this infographic in PDF format.

But over the course of our travels in the past year, meeting with customers from San Francisco to Beijing, we’ve observed the conversation shift from focusing on acquiring users to worrying about retaining them. We’ve heard the lexicon shift from Reach to LTV (lifetime value) and DAUs (daily active users), and from CPIs (cost per install) to Cost per Action.

Fundamental consumer behavior trends are driving this paradigm shift. Despite the investment in acquiring users, an average mobile app is retaining only 23% of DAUs within 3 days of it being installed. The 3-7 day period in an app’s post-install life has become critical in engaging users before they lose interest or uninstall. Yet, more than half of all users are turning off push notifications.

Clearly, our customers today need smarter ways to engage users at multiple touch points along their journey. So earlier this year, we set out to meet this need through remarketing.

We incubated this zero to one solution design separate from our core business, giving it the priority and focus it needed. Over the months, the team has worked closely with some of our strategic customers to unlock higher LTV and conversions, and today those campaigns are scaling and driving results that exceed expectations. We’re at the stage where we can finally share our excitement and unveil InMobi Mobile Remarketing.

InMobi Remarketing extends our performance solution end-to-end across the user lifecycle, from acquisition to engagement to retention.

Today, we partner with one of China’s largest O2O (online to offline) players to cross-sell and upsell their installed users and drive app transactions. Segmenting users based on the type of products they’ve bought, like movie tickets or restaurant bookings, we show them offers for other related products, thus driving up overall transactions and increasing user loyalty.

India’s largest fashion e-commerce player had the goal of activating users who haven’t bought anything after a week of installing their app. We deliver this by nudging them to make their first purchase, showing them relevant products they’ve indicated interest in (added to their shopping cart, searched for or viewed them) and leading them back into the app to purchase.

One of the world’s largest social networking apps had a slightly different goal, to re-activate their long term dormant users. We’re helping them do this across 10 countries, retargeting those who have been inactive for months, to spark their interest, nudge them to open the app and re-engage with it.

Aside from offering unmatched scale, what makes InMobi Remarketing a truly unique solution in the market today is the power of our SDK and recommendation engine.

InMobi’s Software Development Kit (SDK) is directly integrated with 30,000+ mobile app publishers enabling us to harness premium inventory supply as well as fulfill diverse advertising demand. The power of our SDK integration enables complete creative control to deliver a compelling storefront-like user experience via rich, dynamic formats like native carousels, interstitials and video, deep-linking users directly into the buying experience seamlessly, simulating offline shopping as closely as possible.

Lastly, our recommendation engine is powered by data science that precisely targets audiences based on holistic insight into their usage and purchase behaviour derived from first, second and third party data signals. Deep integrations with tracking and attribution partners enable plug and play data transfer and seamless optimization, enabling us to pinpoint the right context and time to nudge a use to purchase.

Personally, watching this effort go from zero to one to beyond has been an immensely rewarding experience and I’m proud of the team that has been working hard to exceed our customer’s expectations. But the journey is just beginning. Retention is the new growth hacking, remarketing is the next wave in mobile performance marketing, and InMobi has a critical role to play as a true ecosystem enabler.

To learn more, join our upcoming webinar.

At InMobi, we are pleased to extend our monetization support to the COCOS2DX community. Currently, we are helping more than 10,000 developers across the world to monetize effectively. InMobi is the only mobile-first advertising platform with a reach of 1.56 billion active users, 943 million monthly active users, and 202 million daily active users.

With InMobi as its monetization partner a developer gets access to:

• Higher Revenue Generation - attracting diverse advertising dollars with a mix of both performance and premium brand advertisers.
• Yield maximization - with support for leading mediation platforms like MoPub, AdMob, Heyzap, Fuse Powered (Upsight), AdMarvel, Fyber, etc.
• Monetization opportunity in every region! - InMobi is present on the ground in 20 cities across the globe and helping developers monetize across all regions. Apart from a stronghold in English speaking countries, InMobi is considered as the strongest non-domestic advertising network in China.
• Simple Integration - Get started with InMobi under 10 minutes with a simple plug-n-play SDK integration.

In order to start monetization with InMobi follow the below steps to set up InMobi SDKBOX plugin.

Set-up InMobi Account

To get started with InMobi, set up the account as follows:

1. Go to InMobi website and hit “Sign Up”.

2. Sign up as a publisher.

3. Click “Add an App”, and hit the link as shown below. Name your app, select your platform and proceed.

Note: For apps without a URL, the test mode is on by default. Once live, input the URL on the dashboard by clicking the link as shown below and your app will be ready to monetize.

4. With placements, select the ad format of your choice and tag it for superior monetization, based on the ad unit’s location and context in the app. Currently, you can either select interstitial or banner ad format for monetization on SDKBOX plugin.

5. Proceed to integrate and select SDKBOX as the development platform.

6. Your placement is created!

Enable SDXBOX Plugin

1. Download the SDKBOX plugin from here.
2. In your project, set up the plugin with following details:

• Account ID = InMobi Account ID
• Ad ID = InMobi Placement ID

You are now ready to monetize with InMobi using SDXBOX plugin. The detailed documentation is available here.

More insights on Mobile Media Consumption in Vietnam is available in this report

The InMobi Exchange, powered by Rubicon Project, offers programmatic buyers video ad formats across 22,000 transparent apps, bringing to market the most extensive and diverse set of engaging mobile ad experiences. According to eMarketer, spending on programmatic video will account for 65% of the total U.S. digital media dollars by 2017, or $7.43 Billion.

Advertisers’ growing preference for immersive video-centric ad formats - including vertical and 360 - on mobile programmatic campaigns is consistent with recent media consumption trends. eMarketer reports, one in three consumers watch video on their mobile devices, which means watching video on mobile is already more common than using devices to listen to music.

“Mobile is fast becoming the favorite - not the second - screen for consuming video content,” said Anne Frisbie, Senior Vice President of Brand and Programmatic at InMobi. “It is great to see that major programmatic buying platforms now support mobile-first video so that advertisers can powerfully reach consumers where they are.”

Within the InMobi programmatic exchange, campaigns running non-skippable video formats have a 95% completion rate, providing brands with optimal viewability and engagement. Retailers who used rich media ads that leveraged the user's location increased footfall by 79% by providing directions to the nearest store or restaurant.

"TubeMogul is always eager to integrate with independent, transparent inventory sources to enable our clients to holistically plan and buy brand advertising across screens through our software," said Antoine Barbier, Sr. Director of Product, Mobile, TubeMogul. “We applaud InMobi for bringing more mobile inventory to the market.”

To learn more about the impactful, engaging, and immersive mobile ad formats available on the InMobi Exchange, contact us here.

The survey features questions on topics like programming languages, platforms, app categories, tool categories, revenue models, IoT verticals - and, of course - tools! It’s a survey made by developers, for developers - so all questions are highly relevant and will give you great insights about the pulse of the market when it comes to tech stacks and developer environments.

We’d like to kindly ask you to take 15 minutes and participate in the survey. Upon completing the survey, you’ll get access to the Developer Scorecards, helping you find out how your answers compare to other developers’ in your country, across 9+ metrics (developer experience, preferred platforms and languages, and many more).

Additionally, Vision Mobile will be sharing the key findings of the survey in the form of the free State of the Developer Nation report (due July). In the meantime, you can download the last State of Developer Nation Q1 2016 Report here.

Need extra motivation? All participants can win one of the amazing prizes available, including an iPhone 6s, an Xperia Z5, a Nexus 6P, and more.

Start the Survey Here

Watch the Mob-Ex 2016 Award-winning Campaign

The panelists represented some of the largest publishers in the industry, while the majority of the audience was made up of indie developers and representatives from smaller studios. They were all there to gain tips and insights into the one big question: “What does it take to get chosen by the greatest gaming publishers?” Since there’s more and more consolidation in gaming, the industry is getting competitive and sometimes smaller guys need help. Finding the right publisher, and conversely, finding the right developer to work with is much like the dating game: there’s always a bit of give and take, but you have to know what you’re looking for in order for the relationship to work.

The resounding takeaway is that each game and developer is evaluated on a case by case basis. There is no one-size-fits-all daily active user (DAU) threshold, popular genre, or magic retention number etc. All publishers agreed that it’s a combination of moving parts that will help create the overall picture of success. While this might be unfortunate for some of you to hear, don’t worry. Due to the complexity of each relationship, there are so many business points up for negotiation. What will the revenue share be? Who is in charge of marketing costs? What is the IAP split? And on and on.

While no gold standard template or perfect partner exists, there are some key features that publishers will take into consideration:

Team Pedigree: There’s always room for an underdog. However, when time, money, and other resources are involved, an investor is more likely to bet on known winners instead of the rookie. Much like when venture capitalists look at the background of a company, a game publisher will do exactly the same for a game. What games have people on this team shipped before? How long has each of them been working in the industry? Are they interested in a long-term relationship or a one-off deal?f

Technical Knowledge: Publishers don’t always prefer one platform over another. They care about how much a team knows about the options they’ve chosen. Be a specialist, not a generalist.

Unique Offerings: What else can the developer offer aside from the team and the game the publisher is investing in? Some developers have developed specific platforms and tools that can be helpful across the publisher portfolio. The value of that is much higher for the publisher than just a title alone.

If you’re worried about getting picked up by a publisher, don’t. Keep working on making amazing games. Once you’ve got that figured out, then start shopping your title around - remember you need to crawl before you can walk. There’s no playbook for how to land a publisher for you, and there’s no blueprint of a perfect developer for them.

Me: Were you wary when beginning ad monetization? What factors did you consider?

Jasjit: Contrary to popular belief, monetization if done well adds to the existing revenue stream without any major impact on the KPIs that an app wants to drive. For us, the KPIs post monetization have in fact improved drastically as we focused on new key features with a monetization story in them.

To summarize, the three factors we looked at were -

i. Ensuring that we add a revenue stream with minimal or no impact on the overall user experience of the app.

ii. Focusing on the “empty sessions”, or the sessions where there were no transactions for monetization.

iii. Trying out multiple formats and then scaling the formats that ended up working for us.

Me: Choosing ad formats can get very confusing, very fast. Which ad formats did you try and how did they work out?

Jasjit: (Laughs) That’s true! We started out with the traditional favourite, banner ads. However, the eCPMs and engagement metrics were not great. We then moved to interstitials which gave us good revenue, but we couldn't add an interstitial on each page as this would be extremely intrusive and would ruin the user experience.

We realized that with native ads, we would be able to maximize on our metrics, without compromising on user experience. Not compromising our user experience was very important to us. Since native ads have the ability to match the form and function of a the product experience, monetization becomes much easier. Native has given us extremely high eCPM yields and we are very happy the format is engaging and has actually enhanced our users’ experience.

Me: Well, your experiences followed the path of evolution of ad formats themselves. How do you see native advertising evolving?

Jasjit: Considering the kind of returns, and engaging user experience native ads provide, I strongly believe native ads are here to stay.

Eventually, more formats like InMobi’s Native Storyboards will come into the market. Such formats have components of engagement and even retention which are core to any app. From being an eyesore, native ads truly have the potential to make powerful monetization stories.

Me: Lastly, what advice would you give app developers who are considering ad monetization?

Jasjit: Well, I think firstly it is crucial to think about the users who you want to target and create a powerful story around ad monetization. And secondly keep trying out different formats before locking in on THE format.

It depends on your app, your user experience and most of all your target audience. It’s crucial to be patient and work with the brand or ad network to continue optimizing and improvising the experience.

Thanks for sharing, Jasjit! It’s great to listen to practical insights from someone with hands-on experience in ad monetization at scale!

A case in point - the international traveler segment. In my earlier post, we analyzed the top international destinations of outbound US travelers and found them to be Mexico, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, France, and India. Now, we take this analysis further by evaluating the’ device platform, age and gender mix of these travelers.

The Importance of Platforms

There are several differences between Android users and iOS users that every marketer should keep in mind before planning and executing campaigns. According to a comScore report, the household income of iOS users is typically higher with 41 percent of iPhone owners falling in the $100,000+ income segment vs. 24 percent of Android owners. Some reports even position iOS users as spending as much as 4x Android users. This directly correlates with the finding that iOS users are more likely to engage in m-Commerce where smartphone users are more likely to make purchases on their devices on a regular basis. And when it comes to signalling brand loyalty - a major factor for marketers to determine long-term market share, iOS takes the cake. Around than 70% of the iOS users are highly satisfied with their devices and more than 80% of those users had previously owned an iOS device.

Figure (i) shows the iOS vs Android device trends of the outbound US traveler split by the choice of destination country

The Gender Paradigm

The shopping behavior for men vs women is clearly different. Extensive research has shown that:

• Men tend to follow a utilitarian, more logic-based approach. You need to tell them why they should buy your products and why it makes sense for them to purchase it. While,
• Women are mostly hedonic shoppers. To reach and engage women, you have to create emotive shopping experiences that resonate with them. Women want to know more about you, your brand, the lifestyle you sell and how your products are going to make them feel.

In addition, 22.2 percent of men said they used their smartphones to shop while only 18.2 percent of women did so. Men are loyal to brands while women are loyal to good service. A study by the Erasmus University showed that once men found a brand that worked for them, they were more likely to stick with it, which is especially true for apparel, automobiles, financial services and home electronics, while women showed a greater degree of loyalty if they received a good service.

Figure (ii) shows the gender mix of the outbound US traveler split by the choice of destination country

The Age Deviation

The key difference of mobile behaviors by age groups is the mobile intent. While engaging with their mobile phones, older consumers tend to have a clear idea on what task they want to accomplish, while younger consumers tend to have less of a distinct purpose and are more open to new experiences while engaging with a wide range of activities on their devices. Also, while older consumers are more loyal to the brand when it comes to shopping, the younger consumers prioritize price over brand.

Figure (iii) shows the age-group trends of the outbound US traveler split by the choice of destination country

A shout out to marketers - consumers across platforms and demographics are engaging and spending on mobile. And as you can see in the international traveler segment, the user demographics and platform can vary quite a bit by where they travel to. To maximize the ROI on your campaigns, ensure that you create targeted campaigns keeping all the above attributes in mind, to engage the right audience with the right message.

The AMA brought together experienced and aspiring app developers, and game fans. For those who missed it, here are the hIghlights:

On Building Games

Successful game concepts sometimes occur naturally, but a lot of brainstorming happens for the others.

. @mob_app_review Sometimes it comes naturally (Bicolor) and sometimes we have to brainstorm a lot and iterate (Super Sharp) #Ask1BAnything

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

Start with a prototype and iterate. Know that you will have to kill prototypes, but keep them handy - some can surprise you by coming back and succeeding.

. @eurekaashanti We start with a prototype and it is good enough we iterate #Ask1BAnything

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

. @GameYep We brainstorm a lot and yes, we have killed a lot of prototypes. But sometimes an old prototype can become a real game years later

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

Focus on the interactions first. Graphics come later.

@AMAmediaStudio I'd say that we focus on the interaction. The prototype must feel great regarding the interactions. Graphics come later

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

Biggest challenge next to conceptualizing the game is naming the game! (who would’ve thought?)

.@mob_app_review Finding the name of our games... (True story) #Ask1BAnything

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

Young studios need to focus on creating new game apps, and not hesitate to kill old ones.

.@mayankthapliyal For us it is always to create new games (we are only 3)! We also don't hesitate to kill old apps/games too!

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

On Marketing and Monetizing Games

Think of monetization as soon as the game concept is ready. Don’t let your monetization strategy be an afterthought.

.@cbhargav As soon as the game concept is solid. For example we never think monetization first! #Ask1BAnything

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

Advertising needs to be less intrusive.

.@weeb0 It depends on the game But the best type is of course the less intrusive! #Ask1BAnything

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

The most difficult part is marketing the game, not building it.

.@samzgamz I think that the most difficult/random part is to make your game visible. The development is not that hard compared to that.

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

@samzgamz we made $18 with our first game in 2010! We knew how to code the game, but not how to sell it...

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

The secret of small tech teams.

.@samzgamz All our games are native using our custom OpenGL engine. Stackoverflow has almost always been enough #Ask1BAnything

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

There is stuff in the works. We’re waiting and watching!

.@imZoeSheen We are working on several projects but I can't show anything right now You'll hear from us soon

— 1Button (@1ButtonStudio) March 23, 2016

The combination of social media and mobile devices has become a way of life in China.

A lesser-known ancient Chinese proverb translates as “Dig the well before you’re thirsty.” In many ways, this beautifully illustrates the secret behind the mind-boggling success of mobile commerce in China. China is the world’s largest smartphone and e-commerce market, and some believe that China is an entire decade ahead of the West when it comes to mobile commerce. So what are Chinese commerce businesses doing on mobile that the rest of the world simply isn’t, and should start to emulate now?

View mobile not as a channel or tool, but as an integrated lifestyle

For starters, many hugely successful Chinese apps are developed by established market players like Tencent and Alibaba, who demonstrate incredible foresight in perceiving mobile as a way of life, and integrating services to support it. Unlike other parts of the world, mobile payments are actively driven by major third-party Internet and e-commerce companies in China, who ensure that the payment experience is integrated and frictionless for end users.

Rather than focusing on selling more devices with payment capacity added, as is the norm in North America, companies like Tencent and Alibaba in China weave payments seamlessly into services that consumers already use heavily, such as messaging apps, thereby powering immediate adoption. In addition, third-party payment providers in China are essentially escrow services that guarantee that no money changes hands until both buyer and seller are satisfied, driving up the trust factor in mobile payments. This has resulted in China having the highest mobile payment adoption in the world of 86 percent, twice the global average.

The fact that nearly one in five WeChat users are setup for mobile payments speaks for itself. Convenience, seamless payments, and security still remain the top reasons why smartphones are the primary shopping tool. Long before Chinese consumers felt the need to integrate payments into their mobile lives, retailers enabled it for them and made it easy and secure.

View shopping as a social, not solitary, activity

In the offline world, shopping is a social and often entertaining activity that oscillates between buying things we need and buying things that we want. Why should our lives on mobile be any different? Chinese retailers tend to look further than just monthly active users and daily active users, but instead around how regular users engage with their apps. In China, social is not merely media for advertising or engagement, but is a way of life. Rather than aggressively driving consumers to their own apps and properties, Chinese businesses have leveraged social apps like WeChat to enable mobile storefronts, seamless payments, customer support, social sharing and more, all in one place—in the apps where users are already spending time.

As social and buying are increasingly integrated, consumers are compelled to become content creators rather than just consumers, and use social channels just as they would use a shopping buddy in real life—for feedback, ideas, and comments. These features empower nearly 80% of Chinese consumers to share their purchases on social today, compared to between 30-40% in other parts of the world. By enabling end-to-end shopping well beyond their own app, Chinese businesses have enabled word of mouth and social virality with incremental effort, while creating shopping habits that stick. Nearly 70% of Chinese smartphone users shop on social media, and Chinese retailers have skillfully pivoted their mobile strategy around not just mobile apps, but around social apps such as WeChat .

View offline and mobile as one

While Chinese apps have the advantage of scale, they have succeeded in bringing offline and mobile worlds together by completely immersing users in services. Users can pay online or offline for products using the same payment systems, cementing payment adoption and loyalty. Retailers can therefore integrate offline and online purchase experiences to drive a seamless service that provides unparalleled user convenience. For example, users on the Nuomi mobile app can view virtual tables in a restaurant, see how many are occupied, understand waiting line times, and book a table without being physically present. Users can also buy mobile coupons to redeem when physically visiting the restaurant. In merging offline with mobile, Chinese apps have ultimately enabled mobile to become the gateway portal to everyday life for users .

Own shopping events with integrated guerilla marketing

Many Chinese retailers have successfully built their own shopping festivals, rather than waiting for typical holiday seasons as in other markets. Singles’ Day, hosted by Alibaba, dwarfs all the big American shopping days combined, and goes one step further in creating a unified shopping “theme” that excites consumers and drives brand value. Prior to the sale, Alibaba produced an entire TV special with products that consumers could buy from mobile or TV, appealing to users on all channels—and ultimately, porting that interest onto mobile.

Before the Chinese New Year, Tencent launched a campaign in which advertisers gave away nearly US$80 million of cash to WeChat payment users, prompting them to gift money and ultimately shop and pay on WeChat. That resulted in more than a billion gifts being sent and brought nearly 200 million paying users on board. Chinese retailers don’t just view guerilla marketing as a resort for smaller players, they use their competitive position and funds creatively. Unlike most advertisers that spend on user acquisition uniformly, we’ve seen Chinese mobile apps spend heavily on burst campaigns that generate maximum buzz and results.

Focus on the proof in the pudding

Delivery is often the only real offline touchpoint for a consumer, and Chinese retailers truly deliver in this aspect as well. Retailers in China successfully bridged the last mile with consumers long before other countries, with same-day delivery and free pick-up facilities. For example, JD.com built up its entire delivery network comprising more than 50,000 workers and 150 warehouses to ensure that stellar customer service extended to the final mile.

"Creativity without strategy is called art. Creativity with strategy is called Advertising", said Professor Jef Richards.

No one could possibly agree more than today's retail marketer. The dawn of the digital age has brought with it a vast array of ad format options - enough to throw any marketer's mind into a tizzy.

As Indian consumers continue to spend nearly three hours on mobile each day, every retail marketer worth her salt possibly spends most of her week strategizing, planning, and optimizing media spend across digital channels, especially mobile. I've often witnessed the first resort of the direct marketer - multiple mobile campaigns with the same creative assets, all to determine the answer to one simple question - which advertising formats work best on mobile?

So how can retail marketers effectively navigate the plethora of options and allocate media spend in synergy with their goals? Let's start by busting the only too pervasive myth that the "best" ad format exists. Every mobile format can be used for a specific marketing goal, and deliver results with the right targeting, spend, and optimization.

But marketers beware - one size doesn't necessarily fit all. Some formats are better suited towards achieving certain marketing goals as compared to others. Matching the format to the goal is step one, and blitzkrieg-ing ad formats with the same creative is not going to get you optimal results.

Tell your brand's story

At its core, marketing is skilful and impactful storytelling. With the right creative edge, a video can narrate a brand's story in a beautiful, immersive way through the most visually intuitive medium there is. Video has the added advantage of being able to tell your customer's story instead of your own, which can easily rake up credibility points.

Brands need not resort to a standalone video campaign though. Marketing ninjas can deliver a real masterstroke by making sure that the mobile video campaign nicely complements the TVC, and driving cross-channel synergies.

If you're worried about your customer missing the punch-line in your latest video, choose the right video ad format. Many reward-based video formats are now yours for the taking, especially in gaming apps. Customers opt-in to watch a video, without the option to skip it, in exchange for in-game rewards. With the power of mobile video, your customers will be left mesmerised by the story of your brand.

Engage in more ways than one

In this age of digital shopping , the excitement of finding a coupon that offers promises of hefty discounts still drives customers to shop more. Rich media can bring that exciting experience of discovering a coupon to the customer even on mobile.

Consumer engagement today rests on one simple philosophy - learning by doing. By bringing soporific still images to life, a marketer can harness the real power of mobile to drive fun actions with advertising. Wipe-able ad formats can bring digital shopping coupons to life. These ad formats can let users scratch at their mobile screens to reveal discounts, or shake ads to unveil the latest collections on your mobile store.

Mobile devices are packed with sensors that rich media can rely on to deliver a great ad experience. Present shoppers with the option to take a selfie and then view themselves wearing the latest sunglasses, or play a game to unlock amazing deals! Shopping is an exciting, thrilling activity for many folks - and marketers can help retain its appeal both offline and on mobile with such ad formats.

Rich media ads go far beyond just 'gamification' - it takes the customer into an exciting shopping world. There is no other channel that lets your user shake, scratch and blow on the screen to discover new products and offers. If done right, rich media ads could result in users spending a significant amount of time interacting with your ad unit. We have seen users spending over 1 minute on some 'blockbuster ads'.

Sometimes immersive, sometimes not

Simon Sinek once said, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it". There are a multitude of shopping apps available today. Rather than showcasing what your app does, a truly beautiful mobile full-screen interstitial ad can capture how and why your app does things differently, giving customers an immersive view of the benefits of your app.

However, not all shopping ads need to be immersive. Campaigns that rely on short, catchy punch-lines can sink their teeth into native advertising. Mobile native ads can bring succinct, sweet, and compelling punchlines to life with non-intrusive ads that mimic content. If you want shoppers to download your app because your short proposition is powerful content, Native would be the way to go.

Digital shelves for retailers

As shopping and holiday seasons draw near and retailers want to push for sales, ad formats need revamping once more. Carousel ads are a unique way to showcase your products in a nifty way. Customers can scroll through products curated from your entire offering, tailored to the person's interests. Carousel ads can effectively expose your catalogue to millions of shoppers and nudge them to download your mobile app or visit your mobile website and buy right away. Retailers can pique the shopping impulse of every gadget guru with exclusive seasonal picks, or must-have devices.

Carousel ads can also serve as the storefronts that you need to drive sales on mobile. On an average, just about 2% of every merchant's catalogue is exposed to users. As a result, millions of valuable products are left hiding in virtual shelves which users have no access to. Retailers can enable shoppers to access products beyond page 1 of their properties, all with carousels.

Bring the 'creative' back into creative marketing

Great mobile advertising is, no doubt, powered by impactful creatives and choosing the right one can go a long way. The best mobile advertising dances between information and entertainment; between taking permission and being incidental. Creativity should not just be matched by strategy, but powered by it. Once that happens, retail marketers will find that mobile shopping stops being confusing, and starts being child's play.

So let’s look at how the role of smartphones in the different stages of a trip-planning process has evolved.

A TripAdvisor 2015 report defines the term “Connected Travelers” as those who have used a smartphone to plan or book a trip. It also found that

• 45% of Connected Travelers usually use their smartphones to book activities for a trip
• 72% use their smartphones to look for restaurants while on vacation and
• 34% of Connected Travelers want their accommodation to offer mobile check-in

These findings have been corroborated by an eMarketer Report, which projects that in 2016, 51.8% of travelers who book trips via digital means will do so using a mobile device, up from 43.8% last year. The report also highlights that travelers are increasingly researching trips on their mobile devices. In 2015, 62.6% of Americans researched their travel options digitally used a mobile device to do so, up 25.9% from 2014. This year, it is projected that 73.0% will use a mobile device to research a trip.

Ahoy Marketers! Targeting these micro-moments requires an understanding of the context of the user, in this case the traveler. InMobi has made targeting this segment extremely easy by launching several traveler segments that are open to advertisers on both programmatic and non-programmatic channels. These segments are built on data signals such as location, sent by various publishers on the InMobi network.

The International Traveler Segment

We have created a segment that reaches this “connected traveler” user base. It contains smartphone users seen on the InMobi network that flies internationally. Let’s examine a snapshot of the International Traveler segment, the users of which fly out of the United States of America.

Figure (i) The red marker represents the destination country of travelers originating from the United States of America

Figure (ii) Heat map representing the most visited countries by international travelers originating from the United States of America

We observed that these top 10 countries contributed to about 65% of all international travelers on the InMobi network originating from the United States. These top countries (in descending order of the number of travelers) are Mexico, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, France, and India. Note, this data reflects information for the last 6 months.

Marketers, target segments such as this to get access to the thousands of micro moments of these travelers in order to get a far greater ROI due to the much higher purchase and media consumption intent quotient of these micro-moments.

In our next series of posts, we will talk about domestic traveling patterns, demographic mix, mobile OS mix and a whole lot of traveling patterns surrounding large scale events.

Shyni Kuttapa

“I joined InMobi in 2011 but had to take a career break after two years since I was entering into this beautiful phase of motherhood. Being at InMobi as an expectant mother was so easy because of the flexible work timings and an awesome team who supported me always ...As a result my last day of working happened to be just a day prior to my baby's arrival.

The moment I held my little one in my arms, she became my utmost priority and my eagerness to join back work after maternity leave, flew out of the window. I ended up being a stay at home mum until she was 2.

Thinking of getting back to work after a career break of two years seems like a nightmare! All of a sudden you feel archaic. It seems tough, but the toughest challenge you face is to build up your confidence to apply for a new job. So one day I was sitting and contemplating on whether I should take up a new job, or start something of my own, and I received an interview call from InMobi! They said that I had taken a long enough break and now it was time for me to get back to work.

It was so uplifting to receive a call from the company you previously worked for. I cannot express how motivated I felt in that moment. It was a proof of them believing in my work and cherishing me as a part of the InMobi family. It was very empowering!

So here I am at InMobi for the past one year, learning some valuable ways to juggle parenting and work. And it’s all possible with ease just because I am an InMobian. The flexible work hours, work from home option, and also bringing my child to work helps me manage my both worlds of being a wife and a mother and also a successful career woman easily.

And that has made me an InMobian for Life!”

Ankita Mawandia

“When I first joined InMobi as a fresher, I was so marveled with work culture and outstanding people around. Almost two years later I had to quit as I was relocating to Mumbai after marriage. While I was parting from InMobi, series of incidents took place which increased my respect for InMobi. First incident was about appraisals. It was the appraisal time and my then manager knew the fact that I was leaving. In spite of that he made sure that my work was accounted for and I was promoted. It was only a month before I left. The second incident that moved me was when Mohit, the co-founder and CTO of InMobi asked me personally if I would like to continue working from Mumbai. Both the incidents made me feel that my smallest contributions were valued. Almost 5 month later I decided to work again, and InMobi had to be my first choice. The entire process was smooth and quick. I was welcomed as if I had never left. When I tell people around me that I work remotely from Mumbai and my entire team sits in Bangalore they get amazed, and I just feel proud to be part of such an organization. The confidence that InMobi has always shown in me is the biggest motivation. I feel great with my team. I am happy that I started my career here and happier that I continued it with InMobi.”

Ruchi Singh Thomas

“I joined InMobi as an employee back in 2010, when the company was much smaller! The journey with InMobi over the past six years has been an incredible one, and I have seen the company go from strength to strength. I sincerely believe that the secret to InMobi’s phenomenal success has been its almost fanatical belief in its employees: and more specifically, the belief that each employee, irrespective of gender, race, country, religion, age, is the soul of the company. This belief that InMobi has in each of us gives you that confidence boost which makes you grow not just as a professional, but as an individual. When I decided to start my own venture, in 2014, though they wanted me to stay on, InMobi was extremely encouraging and optimistic about my decision. A year later, I realized that I was a better fit back here, at InMobi - this crazy company that is disrupting the tech ecosystem, welcomed me back with open arms. The decision to come back to InMobi was easy, because of three things: (1) the eccentric disruptive thought process on which the company thrives; (2) the phenomenal work culture; and (3) The opportunity to work with some of the most talented people in this country. InMobi is not just any company... InMobi for me is home.”

Sunita Devi

“I am so blessed to be a part of InMobi family - the workplace that empowers every woman to think about their future development in the organisation even during maternity. As per the standard policy, I had 84 days of maternity leave and I was always worried thinking of how I would be able to leave my 3 month old at home and work. By the end of my 2nd month of maternity leave, I had made up my mind to take sabbatical leave or quit if required, as the heart of a mother was overpowering the passion of a career woman. Then a miracle took place! I got a mail from our HR that the company has revised its maternity policy. I can't express in words how empowered I felt. I am a modern woman with a heart of a mother and this news gave me a ray of hope. The new policy gave me 4 months of maternity leave plus 1 month half day working at office and 1 month half day at office and the rest of the day from home. And I also got one month leave approved! Hence, my baby was 7 months old when I started working full day at office. I benefit from support system like flexi hours, work from home, bringing your kid to office and 'enjoy freedom with responsibility and integrity" one of InMobi’s integral values."

In 2015, retailers continued to hit the mark with magnificent advertising campaigns, particularly towards the end of the year. But while many of us were on our fifteenth view of John Lewis’ heartwarming man on the moon, Mog’s adorable Christmas calamity for Sainsbury’s, and Harvey Nichols’ unmistakable #GiftFace, UK retailers have been busy prepping for the year ahead, with good reason.

Mobile First In 2016, traditional retailers who haven’t embraced mobile could see their business start to erode and lose significance with UK shoppers. Last year, mobile accounted for 45% of overall e-commerce in the UK with a clear majority expected this year for online shopping. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday surge was dominated by mobile, which accounted for more than 60% of traffic, a 10% increase from 2014. Mobile accounted for a large share of the discounted purchases made online, and shoppers could avoid the in-store mayhem.

The Centre for Retail Research warned that 62,000 shops could fold in the next five years as online shopping surges, prompting traditional retailers to adopt an online and mobile strategy. The way shoppers research, discover and transact will continue to evolve, and mobile will act as a companion app to inform users, grow loyalty and drive in store traffic in addition to being the end destination for a transaction. Physical stores will remain significant for final fulfilment, but will evolve and give users the opportunity to interact with different product experiences and share innovation.

But Not Mobile Only

The case for retailers embracing mobile is clear, but it’s not just a hard switch from one channel to another, but rather a strategy to adopt an omni-channel user experience. Omni-channel shoppers are the most loyal customers, and represent an important segment for retailers to grow and nurture through omni-channel shopping experiences, consistency and accuracy of prices, promotions and product availability. Shoppers have adopted mobile but also state that the in-store experience is still very important to them.

We will continue to explore how mobile can enhance a physical store experiences through the use of beacons, barcodes and mobile payment solutions. We’ll also see an increase in virtual reality to bring products to life, inform shoppers of deals, and make the shopping experience more rewarding and engaging. Shoppers have become very expectant on delivery, so fulfilment of mobile purchases must be fast, reliable and flexible, with the notion of same day delivery and pick-up fast becoming the norm, meaning order management systems and delivery infrastructure need to keep up.

Mobile Payments Consistent with the move to mobile, UK shoppers are embracing mobile payments at nearly the same rate as their American counterparts, with 21% shoppers already using them. Despite the heavily fragmented payments market, the timely launch of Apple Pay is likely to open up the market, with nearly every major UK bank supporting it. While PayPal currently occupies a near 20% market share, Apple Pay claimed a 6% share within a month of launch. With these seamless integrations, retailers can ride the tidal wave of payments, ease the consumer shopping experience, and propel mobile sales in 2016.

Buy Buttons and Big Data

Mobile applications will continue to shake up shopping behaviours as impulse and discovery-led purchases become mainstream, aided by seamlessly integrated buy buttons. Utilizing contextually relevant product placement within mobile content experiences offers retailers an opportunity to participate in new discovery-led mobile shopping economy. On mobile, the store is always open–which, when combined with ever-evolving seamless payment solutions, offers an easy, immediate and efficient shopping experience that is expected by millennials who are driving the growth of m-commerce.

Retailers need to consider not just how to drive users to their own mobile stores and experiences, but how to distribute their stores and products across the app ecosystem and build relationships with customers across their entire media consumption cycle on mobile.Big data is the critical piece of the puzzle, and retailers who harness big data can offer relevant, targeted promotions to individual consumers.

What’s Next?

In the world of mobile, what can be perceived as futuristic and innovative rapidly becomes the norm. Looking around the world on how mobile shopping has evolved to dominate in the US, China and Korea, we can get a clear glimpse of what to expect in the UK. Traditional retailers in 2016 should aim to be in a segment of early mobile adopters to secure their underlying business and be positioned well for future growth.

Mobile is an integrated part of a consumer’s life, being the first thing you look at when you wake up, and the last thing you look at before you go to sleep. With this in mind, well-designed mobile shopping apps seem to be the way to a consumer’s mind, heart and wallet. Consumers now have powerful search engines and extensive mobile stores at their fingertips, with seemingly infinite selections of products. When a consumer wants to buy a new pair of headphones, or a limited-edition watch, the path to gratification couldn’t be easier.

This type of search-shopping, based on intent, is powerful and caters to specific consumer needs by transforming a ‘want’ to a purchase right away. But do consumers always buy only things they think they need? What about the times consumers serendipitously come across items — while walking past exquisitely fashioned store windows, or while browsing within the retail store, discovering products that they end up wanting, or realizing that they now need?

Shopping is a wonderful, complex, personal activity, and that makes it difficult to fully understand. But Shopping is not Buying. Buying is merely the purchase transaction, often a chore, typically meant to replenish the things we need in our lives. Shopping offers an endless choice of possibilities — to spend, or not to spend. When people go shopping, walk into malls, or lazily browse popular sites and apps, they’re waiting to be thrilled, excited and enticed into buying something new.

The Limitations Of Search

Shopping is discovering things you didn’t know existed, or asking you to spend your money on that second bag you don’t really need, or plan to buy, but now want to buy. While search can cater to intent, search can’t tell a consumer what she would like to search for, let alone what she might like to shop for. From a tempting bauble at checkout to a gadget bought on a whim, nearly 83% of U.S. Millennials have bought on impulse, according to eMarketer. Yet impulse shopping hasn’t yet found its footing on mobile.

A CreditDonkey survey found that only 1% of U.S. consumers said they make more impulse purchases on mobile than in-person or online. For this reason alone, foot-traffic has so far been viewed as important, with a significantly larger percentage of consumers still buying on impulse in person, reports eMarketer.

Shopping apps today, ironically, don’t fully cater to the human need to shop. For starters, the odds of capturing consumer attention on mobile are lower than retailers imagine. According to Forrester, 60% of consumers today use fewer than two shopping apps, and consumers typically spend only 5% of their time in these apps.

Too Many Choices, Not Enough Personalization

The apps may have lists of items to discover, but it isn’t unique or personalized to a consumer on a shopping app — it’s typically restricted to the “new arrivals” section. A consumer might love that retailer’s neon animal print scarf — but what are the odds of her searching for something so specific? Top retailers propose nearly 500,000 responses for products such as scarves, let alone less-niche products. Meanwhile, for the consumer who decides to browse rather than search, the array of choices can be overwhelming.

Retailers will either have to wait for a consumer’s intent, or attempt to capture his or her interest in social zones, limiting their ability to captivate consumers on mobile. Numerous discovery apps can help people shop, but unless a product can make it to the first page of the search results, the odds of being chanced upon are shockingly low. Moreover, consumer time on mobile is heavily fragmented, with consumers spending nearly 70% of their time across various types of app categories, not just social or shopping apps, according to Forrester and Flurry.

Much like the friend who shows you things she just knows you will like, discovery on mobile should utilize the power of consumer data to show a consumer an amazing vacation she wasn’t planning to take but is now mesmerized by, or a hat that she would have never searched for but that just happens to go really well with the boots she bought last week.

Mobile advertising can unleash the power of product discovery, to truly power shopping — and not just buying. What commerce on mobile needs is a push towards taking people’s inherent need to impulse shop to the screen in their pockets. Only by doing this will it lead to a truly emotional connection between retailers and their consumers.

People see it. People buy it. The crux of the buy button’s mission on any platform—social, web or mobile app—seems like child’s play, but it is easier said than done. The buy button occupied center stage in 2015, however despite lackluster results and raised eyebrows, there is still hope for success.

The promise of the buy button

What’s the allure of the buy button? Many believe it will help relieve one of the biggest challenges of online shopping, shopping cart abandonment. Millions of products never made the transition from shopping cart to checkout in e-commerce this year. The drop-offs on mobile web are dire, owing primarily to multi-step checkouts. Shopping apps are a viable proposition, but with consumers spending only 5 percent of their time in-app, according to Forrester, the odds of completing a sale on a mobile device are lower than retailers imagine. Beyond the large retailers and e-tailers, smaller and more niche players struggle to finance and promote a shopping app.

Buy buttons can unlock products from a retailer’s catalog, placing them directly on mobile apps, social platforms, mobile web and consumers’ devices themselves. The buttons challenge the notion of the app as a final destination and argue that any mobile real estate can now be “shoppable.” But there’s work to be done before buy buttons can truly become retail’s Holy Grail, as several pieces of the puzzle still need to fall into place in order for buy buttons to take off and deliver on their promise.

Is the buy button designed for discovery?

To create something engaging for individual users, platforms will need to understand consumer shopping habits in their entirety. What personas or avatars do they adopt? What do we know about their shopping habits so far? While each social platform or app has a significant amount of data, the true picture hides behind the overlap of historical data across platforms.

Users may seek recommendations on social platforms, but respond negatively to assistance or suggestions on other apps. Some of the data may not represent who the user is today, but instead highlight a one-off phase in their life. Looking at transactions or clicks alone can blind us to how consumers really shop. While recommending targeted and relevant products through data science is critical, the technology behind the buy button must also enable serendipitous discoveries.

Consumers often don’t know what they’re looking for, and want to be surprised or excited by what they discover. Platforms will need to strike a delicate balance between showing a user what they are bound to like and delighting them with something new. To do that, we will have to find a way to personalize and curate not only for relevance, but also for discovery.

Does it mirror a consumer’s real shopping behavior?

Sharpening an understanding of how users think is essential, and mobile shopping needs to learn from offline shopping behaviors. Will a user succumb to an impulse and buy immediately? How much information will a user need on mobile to make an educated choice without becoming overwhelmed? How much time does a user need to make a decision? Can the buy button provide an option to save the product to purchase later?

Consistently optimizing the buy button for real world shopping behavior is critical to catching the user’s attention with shoppable offers. As many consumers often like to share their picks on social platforms, how can the buy button enable sharing, or opinion seeking? Measuring the effectiveness of a buy button hinges on how well it marries with an offline shopping journey.

Is it designed for user buying needs?

Shopping; an entertaining, want-based activity, differs from buying; a need-based activity. Sometimes users start in a browsing mood, happy to wander and discover new products, but can be easily enticed to buy if the process is easy. The buy button, therefore, leans heavily on seamless payment mechanisms. The rapid uptake of mobile wallets and payments is a big boon, but given the wide array of options, optimizing for point-to-point solutions for every customer is key.

Real-time inventory poses an even bigger challenge as no consumer wants to discover something they’re ready to buy, only to learn it’s out of stock. Creating an accurate picture of available products across fleeting mobile moments can be tricky. Additionally, while purchases will be undoubtedly fulfilled by merchants, establishing a modus operandi that preserves user privacy across all digital properties will be pivotal to success.

Getting it right

The buy button is a great idea, poised to disrupt the mobile commerce space. What will help propel the ubiquity across mobile platforms is the confluence of understanding user interests, coupled with cutting edge technology for optimized experiences. Let’s also bear in mind that shopping doesn’t begin and end with a button. This is precisely why there’s much to be done behind the scenes to deliver its intended success. Shopping is a wonderful, complex and personal, activity. If done right, the buy button has the potential not only to power shopping, but to enhance the mobile experience for consumers everywhere.

Mobile is now the gateway to consumer experiences in the real world. As consumers consciously integrate mobile into their lives, they are able to demand experiences and purchase any item, regardless of location, in a moment of need.

Forrester Research calls this the mobile mind shift. Retailers have responded to this reality with mobile applications and mobile Web sites that enable intent shopping, either through search that often leads to a filtered selection of products.

Can commerce be driven by intent alone?

Consumers often open shopping apps with a preconceived notion of what they are looking for. Their limited time on these apps is typically spent searching products using specific keywords, or using filters and categories to browse through endless options.

A recent Nielsen study shows that consumers use nearly 30 apps per month regularly. However, 60 percent of smartphone users have fewer than two shopping-specific apps, while 21 percent do not have any, according to Forrester.

To make things worse, consumers only spend 5 percent of their time on mobile using shopping apps, making it difficult for retailers to capture their attention with an app-only strategy.

With this data, shopping purely based on search is too limiting, while infinite choice can be overwhelming, leaving retailers unable to strike a balance between allowing users to easily find what they are looking for, and delighting them with options they might like – otherwise known as discovery commerce.

New way to enable commerce

For decades, consumer shopping has been dictated not only through intent, but also by serendipity.

With in-store shopping, consumers discovered products that caught their eye wherever they were.

For example, when loitering around malls or tiny shops, retailers employed visual merchandising to stack the odds of product discovery in their favor.

Recommendation engines enable and replicate in-store discovery, but true discovery that happens outside a store – when walking past a store window that beckons you in, for example – is so far absent on mobile.

Driving mobile commerce begs as a better strategy – one that is discovery-led.

So far, discovery commerce has been inadequately addressed on Web and mobile.

The recent wave of “buy button” announcements from the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google intend on moving transactions right to the point of discovery and inspiration. But they still require the user to visit a mobile property with an intent.

Instead, what if consumers were given the chance to discover products and buy from anywhere and everywhere on mobile, particularly from the apps they love to spend time on?

Enabling purchases across thousands of mobile apps is disruptive in how it can change consumer shopping behavior on mobile.

Taking buy buttons beyond these walled gardens of the Internet into thousands of apps, or what we like to call the wild gardens, where consumers spend nearly 80 percent of their time, could enable sales at scale, quickly trumping even wildly popular retail apps or Web sites.

Retailers can enable consumers to discover new products on mobile through buy buttons across thousands of apps.

Along with those buy buttons, retailers can deliver riveting discovery experiences through quick mobile storefronts to users, and bring their products to them.

This experience would seamlessly collapse the point of inspiration and point of transaction for consumers, while accelerating the growth of both retailers and app developers.

Curation, personalization and conversation

Mobile ads have so far been a viable way to reach consumers across multiple apps. However, they have also been a broken proposition for both users and advertisers.

Advertising, when done right, has the ability to help people discover new and amazing things.

Every single ad slot on mobile presents a unique opportunity to bring products that are hidden away in catalogs to consumers in a personalized and curated way for them to discover.

In between news articles, instead of ads, consumers can “walk” across a store window and check out the latest fashion – all on mobile. This is a powerful new channel for mobile commerce, opening up every mobile app as a potential retail storefront.

For discovery to be consistent, seamless, truly relevant and inspiring, we believe that creating a discovery experience unique to every user is important, and this requires an understanding of the user.

Retailers and ecommerce merchants can now showcase their catalogs and drive sales outside their existing stores.

ULTIMATELY, WITH THE right guidance from users, retailers can use technology to understand and personalize the consumer’s journey across apps, and help them make better decisions over time.

Every day, a retailer has access to more than 4 billion discovery sessions, all of which serve as opportunities to power the joy of discovering amazing things.

Each year, mobile advertising commands greater attention as it captures more of our day and reshapes all the critical touch points through the customer journey. According to comScore, 2015 was the year the number of mobile internet users exceeded that of desktop-only internet users, with over 54% of digital media time spent on apps. While many would have overlooked some of the importance of mobile and the opportunities it presented in 2015, it is essential for brands to look ahead, do some forward thinking and speculate on the mobile strategy they need to adopt to remain relevant.

2016 will be the year where companies will be obsessed with customer behaviour and mobile moments will be the next battlefield where companies will need to win to retain their customers. Enhancing the connection between brands and people to provide relevant customer experiences will be the focus of all major mobile marketing companies. This effort to build two-way relationships, serve relevant and personalized messages, and provide branded experiences to enhance consumers’ lives will be the most powerful developments in the mobile marketing space.

While it may be impossible to exactly predict which digital trends will take off, we at InMobi foresee a whirlwind of exiting changes in the future.

What does the mobile journey look like in 2016? To find out, we reached out to several top executives to share their outlook around mobility and consumer behaviour. We combined this expert input with insights from our own global ad platform that reaches over a billion users and have compiled these predictions for 2016.

1. Acceleration of Mobile Commerce

As per eMarketer, 1.6% of total retail sales in the U.S. occurred on smartphones in 2015. Mobile, until recently, has been seen only as an influencer in the retail funnel due to its relatively small contribution towards overall sales. However, this is going to change in 2016 as the top digital companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon flood the market with mobile payment solutions. As more companies strive for their share of the $800 billion worldwide market for mobile commerce, a flurry of innovations in mobile payment processing will aim towards simplifying the process. The rise of contextual commerce will further determine how and where mobile consumers conduct transactions, leading to higher customer lifetime value and increased sales conversations.

‎ Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, MMA, Asia Pacific Limited

“2016 is likely to be known as the year mobile commerce finally became meaningful. There seems to be no end in sight, as consumers armed with their smartphones increasingly look to discover, compare, and order/transact directly from their device. This trend, combined with the expanding number of mobile payment options and recently upgraded payment terminals to accept them, will continue to pave the way for m-commerce in the years ahead.”

2. The Rise of Programmatic Will Continue

eMarketer estimates that big brand industries such as retail, CPG and consumer products, automotive, and financial services already transact more than half of their US digital display ad spending programmatically. New ad formats, buying models, and inventory sources will further catapult programmatic buying through next year. Programmatic buying will see more rapid growth in the next few years primarily driven by mobile. Mobile will be the most programmatic ecosystem in 2016 with exciting potential for marketplaces and direct campaigns. As both advertisers and publishers seek more transparency in programmatic advertising, programmatic providers should be ready to adapt as advertisers look to those who share data and offer greater options for targeting and price optimization.

‎ Jason Gruber, SVP Product Management & Strategy, Rubicon Project

“Programmatic buying will exceed 50% of mobile ad buys and will break out of its niche and become an established answer to marketer’s digital advertising goals this year.

Programmatic advertising shows every sign of attracting more and more dollars over the next few years. Publishers and advertisers alike continue to awaken to automated ad buying possibilities for improved efficiencies in both workflow and the use of ever-more-granular data.”

3. Virtual Reality Will Emerge

Virtual reality is undoubtedly the next big thing to look for. The launch of Google Cardboard lets Android and iPhone users sample the virtual reality experience in an easy and relatively inexpensive way. While this technology has existed for some time, the market never felt quite ready for consumerization. The New York Times has taken a leap into virtual reality with a free phone app paired with head phones and Google Cardboard to simulate richly immersive scenes from across the globe.

With a variety of different virtual reality headsets expected in 2016 and Oculus Rift being the most anticipated product, the gaming and immersive video economies will be re-written. They will introduce an entire new medium of advertising and inevitably have a huge impact on the way marketers will engage consumers.

‎ Leo Scullin, Vice President of Industry Programs, MMA

“With virtual and augmented reality becoming more popular, we’ll start to see the effects trickle into the mobile advertising industry. We’ll begin to see the core infrastructure develop in terms of content creation, reach and tracking, personalization and performance. This will be powerful given the immersive nature of both of these formats, which will have a huge impact on mobile advertising landscape.”

4. Wearables and the Internet of Things

Wearable devices are at the heart of every discussion related to the Internet of Things (IoT). It is believed that IoT and wearables will have a widespread effect on the way we live our day-to-day lives by 2025. A flurry of smart watches and fitness trackers revealed this year, including the Apple Watch, reveals the tremendous opportunity the market holds for wearables. Wearables will continue to interact with beacons for a wide range of location-based services and with more customers coming on board, brands will be able to more accurately pinpoint customer location and deliver highly targeted messaging.

‎ Jason Gruber, VIice President, Mobile Strategic Partnerships,Rubicon Project

“Wearables will be high on consumer wish lists, and as more people receive them, brands will have an even greater opportunity to leverage smartwatch apps and new advertising formats specifically for these devices in the coming year. ”

5. Proximity Marketing

Over the last few years, brands and marketers have been testing and implementing location-based services to help retrieve information about the current location of their customers or prospects. With billions of consumers owning smartphones, it is no surprise that location-based proximity marketing is such a hot topic as retailers look for ways to provide more personalized real-time offers and promotions. With the rapid increase in sales of beacons and beacon-based technologies, location-based marketing services are expected to catapult in 2016 providing innovative ways for marketers to connect the digital experience with retail.

‎ Leo Scullin – Vice President of Industry Programs, MMA

“Location is driving everything, it’s central to success for brands. In 2016 and beyond, marketers will be able to not only use that data to develop relevant, contextual, and engaging experiences for their audiences, but also use that data to predict which locations and unknown segments will be most responsive to which campaigns and programs in the future. This shift will provide a much richer, data-driven approach that puts information into action.”

6. Mobile Video

Mobile video is one of the fastest growing areas of mobile advertising. According to eMarketer, more than 107 million people in the U.S. watch mobile video at least on a monthly basis, which is nearly 14 percent higher than 2014. Studies have determined that users enjoy shorter versions of videos on their mobiles more often than longer videos and mobile is the place to be for video engagements.

Preeti Desai, Country Manager, Mobile Marketing Association (India)

“Brands have noticed that customers are changing where they watch video and the numbers are staggering and are too big to ignore. Mobile video is a natural complement to more “traditional” marketing efforts like TV for brand advertisers. Brands have also discovered that just repurposing TV ads doesn’t help help increase engagement and they many are quickly learning that vertical screens and vertical mobile video content is a big deal. Video has already become the mobile ad unit of choice for both brand and performance marketers. In fact, consumption and spending will get bigger than anyone can even imagine in fact mobile video ad spends will have a significantly stronger growth rate than mobile display or mobile search advertising in the coming years.”

7. Contextual and Relevant Ads Gains Prominence

Investments in making ads contextual and relevant will soar as brands try and overcome the increased momentum around blocking ads on mobile. Ads will need to more relevant and be less disruptive, leading brands to invest more in native and non-intrusive ad formats, aligning the ads closer to users’ needs. To enable this there will be a lot of information collected around the usage and the surrounding context to remain relevant. Native ads will continue to grow in importance and eventually most of the advertising industry will have some type of native offering, including videos as a form of content for native ads. Brands will continue to invest in content and look to scale across different placements.

Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, MMA, Asia Pacific Limited

“Ad blockers are here to stay, and we have to make advertising a whole lot better. Making advertising meaningful and useful to consumers will help publishers get rid of ad blockers.” .

The Next Big Thing?

A whole lot of new tech is emerging to create a world of exciting possibilities. Augmented Reality is definitely a big bet along with enhanced device to device communication where smartphones are about to become nodes in the network. These trends are about to revolutionize the entire mobile ecosystem which is bound to have a direct impact on marketing.

We would appreciate your views on the trends and would be interested to know your predictions as well.