Marketing budgets are starting to shift toward mobile, and for good reason. Customers on mobile have a higher tendency to buy something, and are often searching for location-specific products or services. With these best practices, you’ll have a good head start into the world of mobile.
Logistics
Before you launch a mobile ad campaign, you should familiarize yourself with the basic logistics of how to run one. Tracking is a major change for those coming from affiliate programs that rely on desktop computer access. Some banner advertising is displayed as a unit within an app that is already running, which can cause confusion if your conversion pixel fires before the user sees the page. Application ads can also display as rich media, or moving pictures. Using this technique, you can show customers more than one image that rotates as they look at it. Video ads are also becoming popular, but mobile screen size can be a factor when you use them.
Tracking is a concern for users who will see your ads while they are offline.
Creative Guidelines
You should be acutely aware of the specific sizes you will need to use for your banner advertising creative, and the design constraints within those sizes. On a smartphone, you’ll have the best success with ads that are about 300×250 or 300×50, but 320×50 is also available. Feature phones, meaning those that are Web enabled, will require sizes closer to 100 pixels in width. Most mobile ads can be saved as a JPEG, PING, or GIF image.
Landing Page
The landing page is often overlooked when you try to scale a campaign into mobile. It’s difficult to make a new landing page without any previous testing. All of your forms will be much harder to see, and you must make economical use of the space on your page. You should also test your landing page to make sure every element is easy to tap. Be sure that you view your page for visual inaccuracies as well, like jumbled text or images that are too small.
Final Thoughts
Mobile display advertising is a trend that is catching on, but it’s still fairly new. Knowing which ad formats are likely to bring you the most success will be helpful for newbies, but don’t forget that you will need a solid mobile-enabled landing page.
Bio: Ted Dhanik is an executive and co-founder for engage:BDR. Ted Dhanik got his start with brands like MySpace and LowerMyBills. Find out how display advertising on mobile can boost your business with tips from Ted Dhanik.