Can advertisers expect a better engagement level with their target audience on the mobile phones than the wired internet? Possibly so, if a recent study by InMobi, a mobile advertising network is anything to go by. According to this new report, nearly three-fourth of the mobile internet users in India positively engage with the brands that advertise on the mobile phones!
But be forewarned, this report is nowhere close to a scientific study. The advertising network surveyed 205 students from Mumbai IIT School of Management. 57% of the respondents had accessed Internet from their mobile phones. Of this 57%, 72.5% agreed to have engaged with the ads in some way or the other. 10% of them had called the advertiser for more info while 17.5% had gone ahead and made a purchase.
I cannot digest these numbers for the simple reason that neither are they a diverse sample set nor is the sample set large enough. But it is worth discussing if engagement levels on the mobile phones are in fact better than those ads that people view from their desktops. In my opinion, mobile phones are one of the best targeting platforms.
There are two primary reasons for this. Firstly, unlike websites, WAP sites are designed to be way more simpler with little to no complexities. Hence, the visitor is more likely to read an ad on the WAP site than on the website. A second important reason is more generic. Mobile phones can make great marketing tools for targeted advertising. Advertisers can tie up with mobile network operators to serve ads based on the subscriber’s age, gender and geographic location (With network operators, it is possible to even know if you are at Andheri or Bandra in Mumbai!). Such a partnership might not exist as of today, but just think if there could be a partnership among the WAP site publisher, the advertiser and the network operator to serve ads based on the demographic targeting. It could make up for some of the best targeting possible!
Having said that, we will indeed have to wait for more in-depth studies on user engagement levels on the mobile phones vis-a-vis the internet. Ironically, a recent article on Techcrunch draws an entirely opposite conclusion that mobile users are not actually clicking on ads. I believe statistics wouldn’t be so drastically different if a comprehensive and unbiased survey were conducted which will serve both advertisers and users alike.
