People check their phones 100 times a day. That single statistic is one reason that businesses have been pouring money into ads on mobile devices. The traffic is there, the users (if not the attention) are there, and the revenue most definitely is there. Reaching users on their phones is not as simple as creating a smaller version of a desktop ad, however.
The businesses that are finding success with mobile advertising have learned one key thing: mobile is not a small screen. It is an entirely different landscape with different user behaviors, different patterns of attention and different paths to conversion. Making mobile advertising work involves understanding these differences and using the right tools to bridge the gap between business goals and the mobile user experience.
Mobile Users Have an Attention Problem
Here is the challenge every business has to contend with: people use their phones all the time but their attention is all over the place. Someone might be scrolling through an app, watching TV, standing in line and halfway through a conversation all at the same time. Mobile users interact with content on their devices in tiny segments of time scattered throughout the day instead of in dedicated “sessions.”
This is what drives what works in mobile advertising. Long form ads do not work. Complex decision trees do not convert. Anything that takes more than a few clicks to complete gets dropped immediately. The mobile campaigns that succeed work within these constraints rather than trying to overcome them.
Ads look different on mobile than what catches attention on desktop. Full screen ad formats are more effective than tiny banner ads that are crammed into whatever space is leftover after the mobile application has loaded. Video ads can be effective, but they must take into account that most people watch video ads on their phones with the sound off (because they are out in public). Interactive ads can enhance engagement but only if they are simple and clear.
The Infrastructure Behind Mobile Campaigns
Most businesses do not get involved in mobile advertising directly. They use networks that connect advertisers to mobile traffic across thousands of mobile applications and websites. A look at the best mobile ad networks when considering options for mobile marketing shows how these complex networks handle all the technical issues that come with mobile advertising, from tracking conversions across devices to optimizing the delivery of ads based on connection speed and device type.
These networks act as intermediaries to solve problems that individual businesses cannot solve on their own. They aggregate traffic from multiple sources, provide targeting based on mobile data and provide ad formats designed for small screens. Without this complex infrastructure, reaching mobile users at scale would be nearly impossible for most businesses.
The technical issues are greater on mobile than they are on desktops. Ad load times are critical on mobile devices because people will scroll past an ad without seeing it if they take too long to load. Creative assets have to be adapted to different sizes so that they display appropriately on every size of phone and tablet. Measuring performance is difficult because people bounce between apps, devices and even desktops during every phase of the buying process.
What Actually Works on Mobile
Mobile advertising campaigns show some commonalities when it comes to what works and what does not. Limited time offers convert well with mobile users because they are capable of acting quickly. App installation campaigns have a high rate of return because it takes almost no time and effort to install an application. Mobile users are often looking for something local so local businesses get great success with their campaigns.
The targeting options on mobile are not just demographic data like age and gender. Location targeting can deliver ads to people who are looking for something close by and ready to act. Another targeting option that is proving useful is device-based targeting. When it comes to reaching customers, there is a huge difference between someone looking at a campaign on the latest shiny iPhone and someone looking at it on an old Android flip phone. Time-of-day targeting can also ensure that campaigns appear when people are most likely to engage with certain types of content.
The way the creative assets are executed often makes or breaks success with mobile advertising. Text needs to be legible without zooming. Call to action buttons must be large enough for fingers instead of mice. Images need to be oriented for vertical screens instead of horizontally oriented desktops since people tend to hold their phones vertically by default. These details might seem trivial but they can influence the success or failure of an entire campaign.
The Measurement Challenge
Measuring the effectiveness of mobile advertising campaigns poses its own challenges. Users might look up information about a product on their phones but purchase it later on a desktop PC. They can see an ad on one app but convert days later on another one. Attribution gets messy as users navigate multiple devices throughout their entire buying process.
The businesses that are successfully handling mobile marketing have updated their measurement tools accordingly. Instead of expecting absolute last-click attribution, they look for patterns over time. Instead of stressing about which specific ad led to a specific purchase, they look for increases in overall conversion and surges in brand search volume.
Where Mobile Advertising Goes Next
Mobile advertising is changing all the time due to technology changes and shifting user behavior. Privacy regulations are making certain forms of targeting old-fashioned. New ad units are regularly rolled out as publishers search for ways to offer ads without harming usability. The rise of mobile commerce means fewer people are using phones to shop but more shopping is being done on phones.
What remains constant is the fundamental challenge: reaching people who are distracted, moving quickly through content, and highly sensitive to anything that feels intrusive or wastes their time. The businesses winning on mobile are the ones treating it as its own distinct channel with unique requirements rather than just another place to display ads designed for desktop.