Why 2014 is the Year of Mobile Marketing

Why 2014 is the Year of Mobile Marketing

Most companies by this point have considered building an app or have taken the plunge and built an app for their business. Business owners have been sold on the promise of more responsive and engaged users and, in turn, higher revenues. With customer reliance on mobile devices getting stronger everyday, it would seem that mobile apps would be getting more popular, but some companies are losing faith in their apps. Globally, in 2013 there were 102 billion app store downloads so it isn't the apps that are the problem but more the marketing of the apps. Prototype investigates why 2014 is the year for mobile marketing:

Currently businesses are stuck in a cycle where they build an app, they advertise, customers download and then they abandon the app. This is because they stumble upon a marketing problem in that they haven't been capable of measuring conversions and active users. With the price of generating installs rising, marketers need to pick up their game and see profitable results.

Luckily, there are emerging technologies in the app market that can help make marketing much more lucrative. Here are the concepts:

• The in-app marketing funnel: helps to measure all aspects of the app.
• Tools to generate personalised mobile app ads that keep consumers returning for more.

The Technology:Mobile Measurement: You can track all your different marketing channels along with the activity on the app with new third party solutions. This helps marketers analyse what is working within the app and what needs less attention. You can start putting your money into strategies that work instead of guessing.

Advertising IDs: Smartphones have advertising IDs that allow businesses to treat apps in a similar way to cookies on a desktop. Marketers can track which users are interacting with their app, what they are doing and then they can use this information to tailor a personalised experience. For example, if you are a clothing store and you know 'Fatima from Abu Dhabi' browsed a dress on your app, you can send her a push notification reminding her of this dress with a 10% off coupon.

Deep linking: This is useful for advertisers. There is an opportunity now for advertisers to use banner ads to send users directly to a specific place in their app. This immediately increases engagement because you are sending users to a useful place, removing the awkward steps they have to take in between. You are doing the work for them, which users love.

We all know that the future of marketing and advertising lies in mobile and with these latest developments 2014 looks set to be an exciting time in mobile marketing.