Study Finds Users Respond Positively To Relevant Mobile Advertising; Is Personalization In Marketing A Must?
The heightened interest in more relevant advertising and the raft of recent consumer surveys — revealing people would appreciate (and hence be willing to accept) mobile advertising aligned with their preferences – combine to underline the pivotal importance of personalization.
The excitement in mobile may be relatively new, but players in the online space are well aware of the business benefits personalization delivers. In the online space personalized recommendations (similar to Amazon model) – once a source of competitive advantage – are fact becoming table stakes. The real edge is in strategies that personalize the whole experience, from advertising to purchase.
New consumers and new demands
As the August 2010 report from global consulting firm Accenture points out: the current economic slowdown turns up the pressure on marketers to work harder and smarter than ever before. It surveyed 400 senior marketing exec worldwide to find out how companies plan to grow profits (and satisfy consumers’ increased demand for value and service) after a brutal recession that has seen marketing budgets slashed and resources reduced.
Business got a lot tougher. In fact, the majority of marketers believe their customers will need more convincing and customization to clinch the deal. As one respondent put it: “Marketing will have to become more focused on the individual customer and with more personal information available, the individual can be targeted more effectively.”
Connect the dots, and the economy has changed customers’ perception of what is good value and a good use of their time. These consumers expect to spend less and get more. More importantly, they want their interactions with providers to be efficient and convenient.
How can marketers achieve this?
Accenture concludes that mastering analytics capabilities to bring tailored experiences to customers through a variety of channels and in ways that are most relevant to customers will be critical.
Little wonder that companies such as Criteo, a provider of pay per click (PPC) personalized retargeting solutions for online environments, are lining up to streamline the user experience by presenting people with relevant ads that feature the brands and products where they’ve previously expressed interest.
The company, which was profiled in a post (via BizReport), is predictably bullish about the outlook for personalized ads on websites and expects most brands to integrate retargeted ads into their online arsenal over the next two to five years.
Vendor spin aside, personalization is poised to play a much larger role in online advertising. There the approach is to retarget ads, tailoring what people see based on a variety of factors, including the time spent on product pages, where they clicked from and the price points they seemed most interested in.
Amdocs mobile advertising and relevance report
People want what they want – and they want marketers to get to the point.
It’s even more important not to waste our time when we are on our mobile phones.
Mobile advertising should therefore be closely aligned with our preferences. This is where permission-based marketing (asking people straight out if they want to receive advertising and interact with marketers) has obvious advantages.
However, personalization technologies can also significantly increase the relevance of mobile advertising.
This is the key takeaway of a recent report from Amdocs Interactive based on an analysis of over 200,000 users over a four month period.
By way of background, Amdocs Interactive has developed a suite of solutions in areas such as content recommendation, mobile search and mobile advertising. Sitting at the core of this platform is a profiling and personalization engine that is capable of capturing subscriber intelligence by automatically monitoring the implicit behavior of how users use and navigate the mobile Web. The solution has been deployed by 50+ mobile operators around the world.
The personalization engine leverages subscriber intelligence to develop a comprehensive model of a user’s interests and those of other like-minded people (known as UCP – User Community Profile). This model is also harnessed by the Amdocs Interactive Ad Personalizer, a solution that combines the learned preferences of mobile users to identify, select and deliver more relevant advertising.
By looking at individual profiles and profiles of like-minded people the Ad Personalizer builds up an Ad Signature. In simple terms this signature is what users (UCPs) find interesting about a specific ad and which characteristics drive users to click on a given ad.
Because the system learns in real-time, it can change the ads shown people on the fly. It can also pick up on important clues regarding what people like/dislike to determine which audience is right for the message.
Better than demographic targeting
The Amdocs Interactive study compared the user response to Ad Personalizer Ads (ads shown because they match the UCP) and ads targeted according to ordinary demographics (age group, for example).
The findings: Ad Personalizer targeted adverts were, on average, almost twice as effective as the other adverts.
The bottom line: targeting according to demographics does not significantly improve user click-thru. In fact, ads that matched the UCP Ad Signature achieved 5 times the improvement in click-thru.
My take:
People have come to expect (demand) that their interactions with marketers are efficient and convenient. This trend is driving companies to revamp their online approaches to deliver consumers relevant advertising and retail experiences. On mobile – the fiercely personal device we take with us everywhere – the requirement for relevancy is even greater. Marketers can glean a lot from user demographics. However, personalization and solutions such as Ad Personalizer go a huge step further. They pave the way for marketers/mobile operators to be potentially more effective by arming them with the analytics and insights to determine (even predict) what audience is right for a marketing message.
Disclaimer: Amdocs Interactive is an MSG client and supporter.
November 22nd, 2010 at 11:12 pm
I’ve been testing out a mobile platform that personalizes “conversations” with customers vis a vis virtual characters or salesclerks.
Emotionally, it seems extremely satisfying and appears to create more of a bond between the retailer and the customer than many mobile formats I’ve encountered.
In addition to personalization, it also contextualizes the experience so that each customer receives a relevant incentive based on their input.
I’d read a blog post that really addressed this topic well:
“Think of use of the mobile website as akin to a brief conversation…” http://goo.gl/Sgd8u
When you can literally engage in a conversation, even if automated (but, not like a dumb IVR), then you’re getting somewhere uniquely mobile.
November 23rd, 2010 at 7:58 am
[...] The excitement in mobile may be relatively new, but players in the online space are well aware of the business benefits personalization delivers. In the online space personalized recommendations (similar to Amazon model) – once a source of competitive advantage – are fact becoming table stakes. The real edge is in strategies that personalize the whole experience, from advertising to purchase” Relevant Mobile Advertising – Marketing Must Have [...]
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:18 am
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