‘Mobile first’ is the digital advertising world’s constant mantra. Writing exclusively for ExchangeWire, Farzad Jamal (pictured below), general manager UK, Mozoo, explains how we need to start practising what we preach, highlighting key methods advertisers and agencies should be adopting to make the much-lauded, yet seldom implemented, mobile-first strategy a reality.

With Google’s parent company Alphabet attributing its 29% rise in quarterly profit to a surge in mobile advertising, and UK citizens collectively checking their smartphones over a billion times every day, it’s hardly surprising advertisers are placing mobile as their key priority. Ad agencies wax lyrical about their mobile-first approach in order to win their share of the £3.8 billion UK mobile advertising market, and to appeal to advertisers trying to reach the mobile-first millennial generation, but the reality is often different.

In fact, despite the mobile-first mantra, the majority of ads are still created for desktop and simply shrunk to fit mobile screens. This drastically limits the effectiveness of mobile advertising, restricting viewability as ads are scrolled off screen, and intruding on the user experience by interrupting navigation – all resulting in low engagement rates. These limitations are particularly evident with video or rich media ads, where creative designed for desktop causes latency issues on mobile and ads have very low completion rates.

It’s clear mobile requires an entirely different advertising approach to desktop or TV and the industry needs to turn the creative process on its head, starting with mobile and then retrofitting creative for other channels as necessary. So, what do advertisers and agencies need to do to ensure their ads engage on mobile? 

Make ads persistent not obtrusive

Standard desktop ads displayed on mobile devices have low viewability, as they can quickly and easily disappear off the screen as the user scrolls. Meetrics’s latest quarterly benchmark report substantiates this view by revealing the increase in mobile advertising spend is indeed contributing to a decline in ad viewability levels.

When designing campaigns for mobile, advertisers must strive to make their ads legible and persistent without becoming obtrusive. For instance, an ad can minimise but stay in view – perhaps in the footer – moving as the user scrolls without negatively impacting the browsing experience. 

Avoid blocking access to content

Farzad Jamal, General Manager UK, Mozoo

Mobile users want instant access to content. They object to full-screen ads that prevent them from accessing the content they want, which is often the case with resized desktop ads. With video, we typically see preroll as the dominant option, but this delays access to video content. Standard outstream video – the usual substitute for preroll – does not block access to content, but suffers from low viewability and causes latency issues, so is not a viable alternative.

Instead of resized desktop ads, preroll video, or standard outstream video, advertisers should look for ad units that don’t block access to content. These include immersive interstitials that only appear when the user has finished reading an article, or innovative new outstream formats that minimise latency and offer virtually 100% viewability. These types of ad units allow the user to actively choose whether or not to interact with the ad via a full-screen creative, enhancing the experience and avoiding negative associations with the brand.

Tailor messaging to location

Where mobile really stands out from other screens is in its ability to track users on the move using WiFi combined with GPS signalling. When advertisers understand where users are, and what they are doing, messaging can be adapted to their unique context. Advertisers can use both audience data and environmental data to programmatically optimise the most relevant creative mobile elements in real time to best suit an individual user – rather than an entire audience – dependent on the user’s whereabouts, as well as other data points. For instance, if a supermarket brand knows a certain individual travels past one of its stores five days a week, it can send personalised offers in real time enticing the user in.

Make mobile ads interactive

Smartphones and tablets are fun – we wouldn’t spend so much time on them if they weren’t – and the combination of controls and touch screens naturally encourages interaction. Mobile advertising needs to take advantage of these attributes, providing interaction and entertainment. This could be through gamification (an ad presented as a game), or through virtual reality, or augmented reality – making use of the device’s camera functionality.

Examples of interactive mobile ads include a mobile banner ad experience launched by Unilever’s Magnum, which allowed users to design their own ice cream bar, and a playable ad for WaterAid that allowed users to collect drops of water in a virtual bucket and donate the water as a financial contribution to the charity. The playable functionality of the WaterAid ad created emotion and relevancy, achieving its goal of increasing donations to the charity.

Keep ads short and lightweight

Mobile ad blocking is escalating globally. A key reason for this is heavy ads designed for desktop slowing down content load times, eating up valuable data, and using up battery life, so advertisers need to keep mobile ads lightweight and fast-loading. On-the-move mobile users have shorter attention spans than desktop users, so mobile ads should be short, snappy, and make an impact within the first three seconds.

Agencies can no longer get away with just talking about their mobile-first approach – they must put their words into action. By making use of lightweight ads that are persistent, but unobtrusive, and make the most of interactive features and multiple data streams, advertisers can finally make good on their mobile-first mantra and deliver the mobile advertising experience their audiences deserve.