Following reports the other week that the majority of mobile users don’t want mobile advertising – well not in its present form at least – a new study from mobile ad company Upstream reveals the types of mobile advertising that consumers do want to receive. And the answer is… adverts tailored to their individual interests and tastes.
In a continuation of the company’s North American Consumer Attitudes to Mobile Marketing research, undertaken by Luth Research, survey respondents indicated that mobile advertisements that are tailored to their “tastes and interests” far out-perform other offers that are based on time, lifestyle or location. The research polled more than 2,000 American adults and found that feature phone users ranked personalized offers at 59% over those focused on timing (18%), lifestyle (16%) or location (8%).
Smartphone users responded in similar fashion, with 60% preferring personalized offers over promotions based on timing (17%), lifestyle (10%) or location (14%).
“Comparing the importance of personalization versus location in receiving mobile ads is especially interesting, given the hype around location-based players such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places or even Google+ with its Latitude check-ins,” explains Assaf Baciu, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Upstream. “While location remains an important factor in delivering mobile ads, tailoring interactions via mobile to consumers’ ‘tastes and interests’ clearly presents much greater potential for driving higher response and conversion rates.”
Regarding other consumer advertising preferences, research indicated that smartphone users are strongly interested in viewing ads for content for their mobile device, followed by movies/entertainment, including tickets; offers from their mobile service provider; and consumer goods. Feature phone users indicated that they wanted offers from their mobile service provider as a top choice, followed by movies/entertainment, including tickets; content for their mobile device and consumer goods, which were tied; and offers from retail stores.
Survey respondents also indicated which mobile phone advertising channel is most likely to lead to a follow-up action. Smartphone users indicated that mobile coupons were their top “channel of influence,” followed closely by an opt-in text alert or message; an email received on a mobile phone; an ad on a mobile website; and an ad that appears during an internet search of a product or service.
For feature phone users, their first preference is an opt-in text alert or message, followed by mobile coupons; a notification from their service provider; text-based messages that flash on the screen of their mobile phone; and an email received on a mobile phone.
“Interestingly, despite more sophisticated forms of mobile marketing out there, opt-in text alerts or messages still score very highly with regard to consumer responsiveness,” says Baciu. “This data reinforces the very intimate, personal nature of consumers’ mobile devices, and the singular priority for mobile marketers to carefully manage and optimize their engagement and number of interactions with customers.”
Upstream is a global mobile marketing technology and solutions provider, offering its Marketing Communications Suite (MCS) that combines real-time, optimized communications; game mechanics and dynamics; contextualization and personalization with advanced analytics and consumer insights to provide the best possible customer response rates.
