Best Mobile Advertising Platforms To Consider In 2021Posted by Stephen Taylor on February 4th, 2021 Mobile advertising continues to experience phenomenal growth, despite the impact of COVID-19 on advertising budgets with brands looking to engage consumers in a socially distanced world largely through mobile video. According to Statista's Digital Market Outlook, mobile will account for 50 percent of ad spending by this year and finally surpass desktop in 2022. As consumers continue to shift their viewing behaviour in 2020-21, advertisers are following them closely. Advertising revenues from mobile devices continue to grow faster than the overall market, with mobile video advertising increasing its revenue share.
As advertisers grapple with how to reach customers in what is still a largely stay-at-home world, trends highlight the predominance of mobile ads and the rationale for brands delivering ads via a mobile advertising platform commonly referred to as a mobile advertising network. Many of the top platforms provide an ad management panel or dashboard allowing brand advertisers to create an account and manage ads by themselves.
In this article, you’ll get an idea of the best mobile advertising platforms you can consider for your business this year. So let's get started. Facebook and InstagramFacebook has entered 2021 as one of the most successful mobile advertising companies in the world. Facebook app, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram are the topmost downloaded apps of the decade all owned by Facebook. (Source: App Annie app tracker) Facebook is well-known for its many targeting options and rich media formats. With Messenger ad campaigns you can target people through interest, behaviour, location and more. You can build an audience and combine ads with retargeting strategy. With lead-oriented ads, you can generate leads, as they allow people to subscribe in just a few clicks. Despite its strong global presence, Facebook is fighting governments and consumer data privacy regulators across the globe. In late October 2018, Facebook Ads Manager was down for 8 hours, giving headache to marketers. Also, occasional bugs and glitches do bother. The platform has been plagued by hate speeches forcing brands to opt for superior alternatives.
Instagram is a mobile-first platform created with the mobile audience in mind having a good number of targeting options and formats. Ads in case of both Facebook and Instagram are managed via Facebook’s ad platform.
But, it is flooded with an unbearable number of sponsored posts and advertisements. The reason behind this is that both individuals and companies are allowed to promote on the app making it unsuitable for B2B brands. The user experience becomes worse when an advertisement pops up after every few posts.
Ad posts on Instagram do not support clickable links thus lacking interactivity. Advertisers cannot include any clickable link on Instagram excepting in bio. This becomes challenging for users visiting the app. Thus, you will have to think of some creative alternative than links to let users visit your business page on Instagram. Moreover, captions on Instagram must be limited as well.
moLotusmoLotus is an innovative and disruptive next-generation mobile video interaction platform which is fast replacing in-person experiences and campaign redesigns to acknowledge the new normal. With its rich media content, moLotus renders on all kinds of handsets without spamming. The best part is that the platform doesn’t require any app download or data connection. It integrates videos, images, text and links into one message and delivers directly to consumers’ mobile inbox. moLotus is able to deliver millions of hyper-personalized and customized messages per day for clients across industries and geographies for a variety of marketing uses. moLotus has introduced new revenue models for advertisers. It not only provides video delivery and interaction but also assists in exposure & awareness, customer acquisition, retention, rewards & loyalty, upselling, cross-selling, lead generation, direct sales and more leading to better marketing ROI for advertisers. The platform is capable of scaling revenue and performance for advertisers through easy campaign creation and management, response management, data reports & analytics, transformation and automation API.
moLotus gives the advertiser an opportunity to achieve extraordinary success by transforming and automating customer processes. The ad campaigns ensure high brand visibility & response rate. They improve customers loyalty and earn better ROI.
The breakthrough tech and platform is targeting a 0 Billion Direct Marketing opportunity. (Source: Statista). In addition to 0 Billion, the platform also targets the emerging 1.5 Trillion Digitalization opportunities together with 5G plus Transformation. (Source: Ericsson & Arthur D. Little) The platform has come to the rescue of Telcos challenged by OTT entrants which have been cannibalizing the telco services. With moLotus has come the unique subscriber data monetization opportunity for the telecom operators leading to the maximization of top-line and bottom-line revenues. It is significantly cutting down headcounts in call centre processes; saving training, compliance, printing and distribution costs. For operators, moLotus is providing a unique way to tap into the global direct marketing spend while leveraging their existing infrastructure together with enterprise and mobility assets.
The globally scalable ad platform has attracted marquee brands in a wide variety of markets namely in banking, finance, insurance, retail, automotive, consumer and even in the government sectors.
TubeMogulTubeMogul is a leading independent advertising software platform owned by Adobe. It enables you to plan, buy, measure, and optimize global ad campaigns. The platform offers cross-channel advertising and marketing by providing access to ad inventory across all formats and devices from a single platform. Devices not only include smartphones but also desktops, tablets, and linear televisions too!
You can adopt the platform in 2021 however with limitations. Its reporting feature available to publishers and its ad placement option is quite limited keeping in view options available this year. Scalability is an issue with TubeMogul. If you really want to scale up your campaigns quickly then it is unlikely to help you out making an otherwise perfect platform into a little less perfect!
Airpush (now Airnow)Airpush is a major mobile ad network providing advanced targeting and optimization technology. It differentiates itself by allowing advertisers to access its advanced, first-party data layer. In 2016, Airpush released the mobi.info advertising platform. Airpush became Airnow in 2020, joining Data and Cybersecurity within the wider Airnow network. The mobile phone advertising platform allows app publishers the ability to monetize data collected by their apps whether or not the app shows an ad. The platform allows consumers to see fewer ads while increasing their relevance. The platform is integrated into over 250,000 mobile apps, mobile web, and virtual reality properties, as well as one of the world’s largest consumer data marketplaces.
Despite having one of the cleanest interface, targeting, and real-time optimization, the Airnow ads are plagued by slow ad approval times and lack of support.
InMobiInMobi is also an independent app advertising network with a global reach. It develops an advertisement serving algorithm that helps in optimizing the ranking of the ads served on mobile phones. InMobi ad platform gives you the opportunity to drive engagement and revenue via personalised ad campaigns. The rich media contextual ads help you cross-sell and re-target users. The platform comes with Adtracker offering tracking for mobile apps, conversions, and events.
InMobi is a place to check out in 2021 if you are looking to run app installs but note that the majority of your traffic will come from tier two apps having low-quality traffic in most regions. The platform has less scalability in comparison to its counterparts.
AdColonyAdColony is a mobile video advertising network whose proprietary Instant-Play technology serves razor-sharp, full-screen video ads instantly in HD across its network of iOS and Android apps, eliminating the biggest pain points in mobile video advertising: long load times and grainy, choppy video. As a leading mobile video advertising and monetization platform, AdColony works with both Fortune 500 brands and more than half of the top-grossing publishers in the App Store. The platform's reach, targeting and optimization tools and services provide advertisers with a superior way to engage mobile audiences at scale. AdColony's app developer tools and services provide publishing partners with ways to maximize monetization while gaining insight needed to continuously optimize content and advertising offerings.
However, in 2021, the platform seems bloated with too many features that advertisers can't exclude if they aren't using them. The process of integration is complicated making it difficult for the advertiser to avail the benefits. Features such as analytics and control panels are standards for mobile ad networks today are less powerful as compared to other platforms.
ConclusionWhich one is the best mobile ad platform in 2021? This question doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. The decision solely depends upon advertising budget, goals, industry, and other niche factors. Although it is quite intimidating to decide the best tool, close scrutiny of the above tools highlights the fact that most of the platforms are app-based and heavily data consuming. The only exception is moLotus which bypasses the need for Internet connectivity. This gives it an edge and superiority. Added to this are capabilities like all-phone playability, scalability, interactivity, hyper-personalization, automation, integration, etc. which makes it a clear winner in 2021. Like it? Share it! More by this author |