by Craig Page-Lee (@cpl_ignite) It’s a given that ‘mobile is a part of life’, with more and more people spending more and more time on their mobile devices daily, and more and more shoppers making the transition to m-commerce.
According to The Marketer’s Guide to Mobile Engagement: Strategies, Tools (IBM Marketing Cloud), it is anticipated that there will be in excess of 6.1bn smartphone users globally by 2020, and at least 28bn connected devices talking to each other by 2012. Taking this into account, and as per the eMarketer Roundup: Optimizing Mobile Advertising — April 2016, it’s no wonder that US advertisers will spend US$28.72bn to reach their target audiences on mobile devices in 2016.
What does this really mean?
We know that the world of marketing has evolved from a “push” mentality (one-way dialogue directed ‘at’ consumers) to a “pull” mentality (enabling meaningful two-way conversation ‘with’ consumers). How better a way to connect with these consumers than through the ubiquitous mobile device? Understanding the consumer-experience journey, though, is a prerequisite in ensuring that the opportunities to engage in conversation with consumers are:
- presented in the right way (correct format and message to suit device)
- at the right time (real-time marketing aimed at consumers in a receptive mindset — at point of purchase and/or consumption), and
- to the right target audience (hyper-targeted based on analytics/geo-metrics and needs-state understanding)
From the above, it’s obvious to see that marketers generally have the same objective: connect with consumers in the moments that matter.
Enter the world of programmatic
It is important at this stage to provide some context to the term “programmatic” and, as expected, the Internet is littered with various iterations on this ever-important concept in the advertising and media industry. I’ve included a few examples to ensure that a broad understanding of term is achieved:
- Programmatic advertising helps automate the decision-making process of media-buying by targeting specific audiences and demographics (source: Marketing Land)
- Programmatic buying allows marketers to reach potential customers at the exact moment they’re ready to commit (source: DoubleClick Advertiser Blog)
- There are really two main drivers for the growth of programmatic in recent years (source: Marketing Land):
- Ad-buying efficiency: programmatic uses software and technology to automate the ad-buying and -selling process with the speed and scale that humans can’t achieve manually
- Ad targeting relevancy: programmatic offers advertisers the ability to incorporate large amounts of data, sometimes from multiple sources, to serve users with ads that are more likely to be relevant, based upon psychographic, demographic, behavioral and intent signals
In summary, while marketers have been accustomed to purchasing digital ads on a range of pre-defined websites, with extensive media-planner interventions and decision-making, programmatic advertising provides the opportunity of reaching a well-defined and carefully targeted audience, regardless of which website is being visited. And with the ever-increasing use of mobile (smartphones, tables, smartwatches and other devices) to access the internet and engage with brands, it’s no wonder that more and more marketers are embracing mobile programmatic buying to deliver relevant and engaging experiences to their target audience.
Enter the world of mobile programmatic
According to Alex LePage, VP — marketing and product strategy, Buyer Cloud, Rubicon Project, “Mobile programmatic is set to be a game changer that is showing no signs of slowing down as the technical hurdles that once prevented programmatic targeting on mobile are now largely a thing of the past.” (Reference: Why Mobile Programmatic Is The Next Frontier, Marketingland.com, 21 May 2015)
No wonder eMarketer estimates that US advertisers will spend US$28.72bn (as noted earlier) and UK advertisers will spend about US$7bn (or 27% of UK total advertising spend) to reach their target audiences on mobile devices in 2016.
This is further validated by Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB )Europe, which reported that the total programmatic buying market increased by 70.5% from 2013 and 2014, while high increases were also reported for North America. A key point to note though is that this is not yet the case in South Africa, where “site direct trading still accounted for 92% of digital ad spend in 2014. Online advertising revenues did however rise from R452m to R566m and search Internet advertising revenues hit R865m, up from R680m from 2013 to 2014”. (Reference: The annual IAB SA Internet Advertising Revenue Report, conducted by PwC)
Gustav Goosen, IAB SA board vice-chair, goes on to say that “fuelled by factors such as greater availability of mobile data services and increasingly affordable smartphones, mobile internet subscribers are estimated to increase from 36.6% to 69.1% of the country’s population in the next five years. Already, 61% of South Africa’s web traffic is generated by mobile devices.” With this level of expected growth in mobile (internet) usage in SA, there surely has to be a higher adoption of mobile programmatic buying in the not-too-distant future.
Both SA (no. 28 — with 59.474m mobile phones) and Nigeria (no. 7 — with 167.371m mobile phones) currently rank in the Top 30 List of Countries — Number of Mobile Phones in Use (Wikipedia) and SA (np. 24 — with 37% of population = 18.717m smartphones), Nigeria (no. 27 — with 28% of population = 49.603m smartphones) and Kenya (no. 29 — with 26% of population = 10920m smartphones) rank in the Top 30 — List of Countries by Smart Phone Penetration (Wikipedia and Pew Research Report). With the expected take-up and growth of mobile internet subscribers in SA (as per Goosen’s predictions — taking SA to about 34.955m smartphones), coupled with the volumes in Nigeria and Kenya alone, I’m sure that we will soon see more than just SouthernX (which purchased programmatic technology from AppNexus) being the lead programmatic-buying platforms in Africa.
Clear and obvious
In closing, it’s clear that advertisers are obviously going to pursue more-targeted audiences and, with the expectation that there will be 1bn connected devices — through the internet of things (IoT)— in Africa by 2020 (Liquid Telcom — 5 Trends Transforming Business across Africa), it is worth referencing Goosen one more time: “While it goes without saying that advertisers will increasingly target consumers on their mobile devices, the challenge will be to communicate a unified message over a multitude of devices and platforms. This will lead to challenges in the measurement of the value of mobile advertising, when the lines between devices and platforms become blurred.”
That in itself is a topic for another conversation, possibly in my next column.
Craig Page-Lee (@cpl_ignite) is the former group managing director of Posterscope South Africa and is now an independent consultant servicing the broader brand, marketing and communications industry. He is also chairman of the FM AdFocus Awards for 2016/17. Craig’s monthly column on MarkLives, “Beyond Borders”, focuses on doing business in various African markets. Don’t forget to tune into his #eBizRetail slot on www.ebizradio.com.
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