How To Optimize Mobile Targeting To Reach & Connect With Buyers

Mobile targeting can help businesses grow their customer base and strengthen customer retention through targeted advertising. It can also be used for direct response advertising, such as getting people to download apps or visit websites. 

Mobile targeting is ideal for marketers who want to reach customers when they're most receptive to receiving marketing messages, i.e., while they're out and about or at home on their mobile devices. Mobile devices have an ever-increasing role in people's daily lives. It is responsible for more than half of web traffic, so mobile targeting has immense potential for marketers in the coming years.

What is mobile targeting?

Mobile targeting uses user data to target the contents of ads on mobile devices. It's a highly effective advertising technique that helps marketers reach consumers across various platforms and devices. With mobile targeting, marketers can identify specific groups of users and deliver unique, relevant ad experiences to them.

Mobile targeting targets potential customers on mobile devices with personalized and relevant advertising. It is an excellent way of targeting potential customers who are nearby and looking to make a purchase. It allows businesses to drive foot traffic to brick-and-mortar stores or increase online sales by targeting customers based on their context, interests, and preferences.

With mobile targeting, marketers can get deeper insights into their audiences by basing ads on various factors, including interests and demographics. 

For instance, smartphone users that use mobile banking or travel often may see ads for finance apps or airline tickets, while those who like fitness apps may see ads for running shoes or health supplements. 

In short, mobile targeting helps marketers to create tailored ad campaigns that drive higher awareness and purchase intent. Besides, it's an ideal advertising medium for marketers who want to reach consumers across various platforms and channels.

Benefits of mobile targeting for businesses

Mobile marketing and the resulting advertising have become an important marketing channel for businesses to reach customers.

In the past, mobile advertising has been primitive and fragmented: applications, text messaging, video, rich media, dozens of different browsers, and at least two major operating systems. However, with the advancement of mobile technologies, the emergence of more mobile ad formats, and the steady increase in smartphone usage, businesses can target users' interests more efficiently and effectively using smartphone users' location information.

With the help of mobile targeting, businesses have the opportunity to connect with customers in a more meaningful way. By using "near me" searches, businesses can target potential customers based on their location and send relevant offers to them. This helps businesses connect with potential customers less intrusively and increase conversion rates. It is one of the most effective ways to engage and interest customers in various brands.

As an advertiser, you can target specific demographics (such as age or gender) based on the interests of your audience or target specific devices (such as smartphones or tablets). This will allow you to engage with your audience and increase your brand awareness personally.

Types of mobile targeting

Mobile targeting enables advertising and marketing services, such as offers, discounts, and email campaigns. It's an increasingly popular way for brands to reach consumers in real-time and engage them with targeted ad campaigns and offers.

There are several types of mobile targeting. Some of the most popular types, segmentation and personalization, geo-targeting and geo-fencing, contextual targeting, and behavioral targeting, are discussed below: 

Segmentation and personalization

Marketers use segmentation to apply specific marketing approaches to customer similarities like location/country, age group, gender, and other demographics. Dividing the market this way allows for a more robust mobile target approach. 

Another popular mobile ad targeting option is personalization. With personalization, ad networks can tailor ads for users so that the ads are relevant and exciting to them. Personalization has been shown to increase ad views and engagement by up to 50 percent.

Geo-targeting and Geo-fencing

Geo-targeting uses GPS technology and Bluetooth to determine a user's exact location. With this type of technology targeting, businesses can create geofences around specific locations of interest to influence consumer behavior. For instance, a city restaurant could take advantage of the lunch crowds and send potential patrons a mobile coupon 1-2 hours before they head to lunch.

With real-time targeting, businesses can use advertising networks and partner platforms to target users based on their device, the open app, and the specific amount of time for ad impressions.

Geofencing also uses lookback targeting. For example, businesses can create a virtual boundary using wi-fi networks around a desired target location and target potential customers with advertisements, app messages, or other promotions.

Targeting consumers like this has many benefits for businesses. Businesses can craft relevant campaigns that drive higher conversion rates and greater customer satisfaction by using the contextual information attached to mobile ad impressions.

Contextual targeting 

Contextual targeting is a form of targeting that works to identify content that enhances brand recall. The concept behind contextual targeting is that the audience is interested in the particular topic being promoted, so the ad should be relevant to the audience's interests and preferences.

This targeting method focuses on identifying publishers that over-index for a specific target audience and layering emotion and sentiment further to deliver the brand's messaging within the proper context. This helps increase awareness of a nearby store location and makes the ad memorable. 

It is commonly used by retail stores and companies selling consumer packaged goods to help increase awareness of their products among target audiences. By incorporating context elements in ad campaigns, brands can target audiences with more effective and engaging ads.

Yet another form is through contextual advertising solutions like ComScore and IBM Watson. These solutions analyze users' online activity to produce a profile that can be used to display relevant ads on websites or in mobile apps. These targeted solutions can be used for both advertising and marketing purposes, improving the effectiveness of both activities.

Behavioral targeting 

As the use of mobile devices has become more pervasive and is a must for many, more advertising agencies are turning to behavioral targeting to connect with customers effectively and efficiently. This approach helps advertisers target specific groups of users with relevant content, advertisements, and offers across multiple touch points such as web browsing, smartphone app usage, and app store click-throughs. 

For example, a customer may view a car rental company ad on their smartphone while traveling through a region. The advertiser can then target that customer with ads for similar rentals tailored to their interests and location.

Another form of targeting is through cookies. These are small information files stored by a website on a device's hard drive when a user visits a particular website. They allow companies to track users' online behavior across websites, enabling them to serve ads based on that behavior.

However, behavioral targeting continues to raise concerns regarding privacy issues and potential ethical dilemmas related to manipulating individuals' behaviors in this way. 

Therefore, ad agencies must carefully weigh the benefits of behavioral targeting against its potential drawbacks when implementing it in their campaigns.

Audience insights

Marketers must use mobile targeting effectively to get precise insights into customer behavior. This audience Insight will help them deliver targeted campaigns that drive conversions and increase awareness. 

Near me searches grew by 136% in 2019 compared to 2018, offering an exciting opportunity for businesses to reach potential customers with their offers via mobile devices. With the help of apps such as Google Wallet, Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter, businesses can target potential customers via mobile devices. 

In addition, these apps have access to valuable consumer information, giving businesses a detailed view of their audience's interests, habits, and future purchase intent. 

Optimizing your campaigns for mobile devices 

To successfully use mobile targeting, you must know your audience and their different mobile device types. A smartphone is the most popular device for accessing the internet and apps, but tablets, laptops, and desktops are also necessary. The type of device your customer uses can influence your ad's bid price, ad unit size, and targeting options. 

For example, a smartphone ad with a larger screen could cost more than an ad shown on a tablet. This is because the larger screen increases the ad's value to consumers. However, advertising on mobile devices can be more cost-effective than other media channels due to the high conversion rates for ads.

You can optimize your campaigns for mobile devices by setting bids to auto-adjust when your ads can appear in front of a mobile customer. For example, suppose you target customers on their mobile devices who visit specific retail stores. In that case, you can set your ad targeting criteria so that only these customers see your ad in that specific store location. 

Another strategy is to utilize Mobile Location Targeting (M-LT) with a campaign that delivers value to your business. This allows you to target customers based on their location and interest in your product or service. 

By identifying where customers visit on their own devices and adding a clickable phone number to your ads with call extensions, you can increase the chances that they'll find and click your ad. 

Ensure your website looks and works well on smaller mobile devices by using HTML5 and CSS3 in your content management system (CMS).

Tips for effective mobile targeting 

• Use mobile targeting to increase awareness of nearby stores and services.
• Start with a solid creative ad for mobile targeting. This can include a call to action or a message that is easy to understand and remember. Make the ad concise and to the point, but make it memorable so potential customers will not easily forget it. Then, they are more likely to visit the site next time. 
• Try real-time targeting for your ad. This allows you to target potential customers as they read or view the ad on their devices. It allows you to reach potential customers when they are most likely to be receptive to your marketing campaign.
• Utilize mobile device targeting settings to focus your ads on specific types of devices. By tailoring your ad's targeting based on device type, you can increase the likelihood of attracting potential customers using specific devices. For example, you could target ads to smartphone users if you know they are more likely than other device types to have internet access while viewing your ad.
• Mobile retargeting, or historical targeting is the capability of a mobile device to track a consumer's past device usage and serve adverts or ad-like experiences on the device after the consumer has visited a specific location or website. With retargeting, businesses can increase conversions by 10 percent or more, increasing ROI.
• Contextual information can be linked with the user's location to increase the accuracy of your ads. By incorporating contextual information into your ads, such as weather information or nearby events, you can improve your marketing campaigns and target potential customers who may be more interested in those topics than others.
• Utilize mobile targeting platforms (MTPs); marketers use them to target potential customers through apps closely related to location-based services.

Final thoughts

Mobile targeting is vital to any marketing strategy, and targeting mobile users is critical. It allows you to target specific mobile device types, operating systems, apps, OS versions, mobile carriers, traffic sources, location, and mobile time of day. In addition, device targeting helps you display your ad only on smartphones or tablets, supporting the app you want to promote. This helps ensure that your ad displays only when it's likely to be a relevant match for the user.

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