Mobile has become king. And with accelerated digitalization due to the past year’s lockdowns, mobile has a great potential to remain the Supreme leader in tech space for the foreseeable future.
The global mobile advertising market size is estimated to reach US$ 269.1 Billion by 2026, according to a report by IMARC Group. There have been significant developments in mobile technology, harnessing mobile devices’ increased consumer usage, becoming one of the primary factors driving market growth at present, and eventually leading to a fall in the average selling price of smartphones. The global high-quality internet penetration rate is also acting as a significant growth accelerant.
Research studies suggest that news and social media platforms have become increasingly popular across the globe scale. We are observing more significant usage in content surrounding music, entertainment, lifestyle, and gaming, with additional ad expenditure being applied with the goal of attracting consumer attention.
The onset and after-effects of Covid-19 have challenged the industry to new heights, compelling companies to adapt, revisiting new forms of digital and mobile marketing approaches.
Most platforms are already harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) within their data network, to analyze data quantitatively and qualitatively. AI and ML systems use predictive mechanisms to ascertain the viewer’s actions, linking this data with bucketed viewers’ aspirations and their look-alikes, thus increasing the audience scale.
Reports have predicted incremental growth across the board for the AI, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) industries. With the global artificial intelligence market reportedly worth 39.9 billion USD in 2019, and further projected to expand at a CAGR of 42.2 percent between 2020 and 2027.
Mobile commerce or M-commerce, the natural progression to e-commerce, is growing at a rapid speed. By 2021, mobile e-commerce sales are expected to account for 54% of total e-commerce sales.(Retail Emarketer).
We are witnessing the change in the global retail landscape. Since the onset of Covid-19, online purchases have become the new normal, and businesses are working hard to maximize their online sales. Therefore, it is clear that mobile commerce is not a passing trend and has been steadily growing in popularity for the past decade as more and more companies develop their websites, ensuring they are responsive to mobile devices.
Mobile advertising and mobile commerce are firmly connected. Mobile apps are directly linked to higher sales and increased revenue across various industries. Retail Dive reported mobile sales across all devices, from tablets to smartphones, have increased by over 700 billion USD.
Therefore, marketers must ensure consumers are aware of mobile practices and services and that strategies are continuously developed, maintaining consumer engagement, Boosting mobile commerce sales as a result.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have become two of the most popular mobile technologies to be launched in recent years. The AR industry in 2020 wasestimated to be worth 17.67 billion USD, with a further projected rise at a CAGR of 43.8 percent between 2021 and 2028. The VR market was also estimated at 10.32 billion USD in 201with a projected expansion at a CAGR of 21.6 percent between 2020 to 2027.
“Consider a fun park in Singapore seeking to meet and convey its message to its target audience. Sharing the actual reality with the consumer becomes a fundamental task for the marketer. Imagine that we could use AR/VR to create a tiny image of the entire park and display it to a customer. It will offer a first-hand insight to a customer who is unaware of what he will get, resulting in high buying intent.” explains Amit Gupta, Managing Director, Httpool in India.
Many other verticals too, such as education, travel, medical, communications, and gaming, are benefiting immensely from the use of AR/VR.
Snapchat, one of the largest digital platforms, has even enabled voice to its augmented reality filter lens. This trend provides marketers with the opportunity to leverage such features to sell products under a ‘try and buy’ capacity and leaving a space for unique ad formats.
“The use of AR has become a daily habit on Snapchat, with on average more than 200 million users playing with the AR lenses daily,” highlights Diana Coman, Regional Client Partner, Snapchat, Httpool.
Imagine shopping for a perfect T-shirt and being able to see yourself wearing it through an AR lens, before deciding upon the purchase.
Imagine having the ability to transform your face and your surroundings, the lens gives users the ability to interact with animals, light up the night sky, transform buildings into giant pizzas or simply translate products into shoppable pages. This is the power of AR, perhaps the most notable and popular feature that stands at the company’s core.
Diana Coman
Regional Client Partner Snapchat
Some of the largest platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, have either introduced or tested new features this year that could play critical roles in engaging fans and drawing awareness to new users. Social commerce is growing big time!
The ‘marketplaces’ feature various collections of products, personalized recommendations, and a directory of merchants selling on the platform. How great is it to shop directly from your favourite social network!
Thus, Facebook shops have recently been launched and rolled out to new markets such as the UK and Canada, and some bands, such as Shopify, have partnered with shopping platforms like TikTok to leverage the full potential of social commerce.
Moreover, social commerce is now a vital consumer focus group. Catalogs are available to consumers online, allowing the chance for review and for consumers to provide feedback to the brands. Harness the power of social commerce and superscale your targeting. Utilize the incredible wealth of data available on Facebook ads manager to deliver optimal results.
“The pandemic has pushed everyone around the world to adapt, requiring brands to think on their feet to remain connected to their consumers,” explains Rohan Noronha, Httpool’s Facebook Lead in Bangladesh. “Another highly effective tool is Facebook Live. Brands can use it to entice and maintain consumer interests while increasing potential direct sales avenues. Livestream shopping is already the next big thing.”
Once you’ve considered the technology, established a native strategy and positioned your brand, it’s time to drive those ROIs!
This can be done through the tactics of performance advertising.
Driving conversions and leading your customers through the entire sales funnel is not a simple task, but technology makes it easier. All major platforms, from Twitter to Facebook, and Snapchat offer possibilities for advertisers to leverage their native tools or their API partner tools, such as Wise.Blue for Twitter, for maximum results. Making sure that your customer base is regularly reminded of your brand and products is key to success in a world, where competition is as fierce and as global as ever.
Just like other platforms, Twitter has identified how vital the role of performance advertising is for most advertisers. Twitter has therefore begun to shift their focus to ensure their platform remains a strong competitor, recently rebuilding their app install and website conversion algorithms.
Pauls Pērkons
Regional Twitter Performance Director
Today’s consumers have adapted well to the post Covid-19 reality and new digital shopping experiences, therefore leading to the need for a more robust omnichannel 2021 strategy. To have an omnichannel approach means to develop an integrated customer experience, in which consumers can transition from digital avenues to physical stores smoothly. The merging of both the digital and physical shopping worlds is an essential step for the future.
“Omnichannel marketing is a method of building brand identity through various online (website, smartphone, social media, text, SMS, Whatsapp) and offline (retail store, events, etc.) platforms while maintaining a meaningful and reliable consumer experience,” states Sunny Nagpal, Co-founder and Regional
Managing Director, Httpool APAC.
Today, approximately 2 billion people access the internet solely from their smartphone devices, equating to 51% of the 3.9 billion mobile users globally, according to WARC. By 2025, we will see a surge in smartphone usage across large markets such as China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan. There’s no time to waste. Make the most of all the colours of mobile advertising!
If brand goals and messages are compatible across the platforms, an omnichannel approach can facilitate conversions. Take Amazon, for example; they continue to grow their offline presence and outlets; the future will belong to those who are best able to unify the digital and physical retail worlds. A new shopping reality is evolving for consumers, one that is easy, a pleasant experience, and omnichannel.
Sunny Nagpal
Co-founder, and Regional Managing Director, Httpool APAC
