Moving from mobile-first and UGC: How the advertising industry is set to change in 2019

As the start of a new year dawns, it's time to reflect on 2018 and consider how the advertising industry will evolve in 2019.

Data’s been the word on everybody’s lips, with regulatory changes shining a light on how companies process, store and share information. Transparency and marketplace quality remain hugely important and a top priority for all advertising companies – and it’s been very rewarding to see the industry take some huge leaps forward in...

8 January 2019 | Content Marketing

A mythbusting look at proximity marketing: Integrations and campaign best practices

The opportunities through location and proximity based mobile advertising are well recognised now, and retailers wanting to increase sales by bringing more people into their store have a variety of options when it comes to footfall tracking capabilities.

These allow retailers and advertisers to estimate the number of visits to a store and measure the incremental impact of proximity focused campaigns on the number of visits to that store. Ideally, these measurements can be made in...

6 November 2018 | Advertising

Gone in six seconds: Getting the balance right between viewability and message in short form ads

The temptation to skip an advert when it is forced upon us is never terribly far away. When that option isn’t there, like the data capture gatekeeper making sure we can’t yet access the oasis of content ahead, it is almost as if a sense of foreboding has come over our very souls.

This admittedly might be a slight overreaction. Plus it could be worse – non-skippable ads are usually only six seconds in length, so it’s not a disaster. New research, however, has...

1 November 2018 | Advertising

US telco giant Sprint sells mobile ad arm to InMobi

US telecoms firm Sprint has sold Pinsight Media, its mobile and data advertising company, to Indian-headquartered martech group InMobi.

The all-stock deal, the terms of which weren’t confirmed, comes as the carrier awaits approval from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to merge with T-Mobile.

According to a statement by InMobi, Pinsight works by partnering with leading US telcos and using their data to help companies better target ads on smartphones to the right...

17 October 2018 | Data-driven marketing

The rise of the commuter-shopper: Driving digital commerce in surprising environments

Thanks to the hyper-connected, ‘always on’ world in which we now live, the opportunity for brands to drive commerce is literally everywhere. As with other areas of our lives, connected mobile devices have changed the way we think about buying things; when it comes to shopping, we’re no longer bound by ‘restrictions’ such as location and time of day.

Last week, Instagram announced that it will be making some updates to its shopping capabilities,...

27 September 2018 | Advertising

Just how realistic a goal is augmented reality marketing?

Marketers are always looking for new and innovative practices to attract new customers and business. And in the tech world, there are few concepts more innovative than virtual and augmented reality. This blog will detail the differences between virtual reality and augmented reality, and how the latter can be used in marketing. We’ll then look at whether augmented reality is yet mature enough to be used on a broad scale by B2B marketers.

The difference between virtual and...

14 September 2018 | E-Commerce

Mobile marketing mystics: Unlocking the potential of in-app advertising

Imagine it’s the 1980s for a second. You, a crystal-gazing marketeer, explain to your CMO that the future of marketing lays in mobile telephones.

‘Mobile phones! Pfft. They’re a yuppie fad, we don’t advertise to bricks,’ might come the scowling response of this 80s stereotype.

The derision wouldn’t be misplaced. For the first four decades that mobile phones existed, they were just that: mobile (as in, portable); phones (as in, well, a...

6 September 2018 | Advertising

The $70bn WhatsApp business story nobody’s talking about

 When WhatsApp unveiled its new Business API last week, most tech reporters determined Facebook was getting serious about monetising the chat app it purchased for $19bn in 2014.

They’re probably right about the money, but wrong about where it’s most likely to come from.

The business model question 

4 September 2018 | Advertising Technology

WhatsApp launching pay-to-use tools for brand marketers

WhatsApp is launching a pay-to-use advertising service for brands looking to engage their customers directly on small screens.  

The move opens up a new revenue stream for the Facebook-owned messaging app since removing subscription fees in 2016 and allows businesses to send information or services updates, such as delivery information or tickets.

According to BBC news, the fee will be based on confirmed delivery, on which advertisers will pay between 0.5 cents to 9 cents...

3 August 2018 | Customer Experience

12% of UK Instagram influencers are still buying fake followers

Despite surging popularity in the emerging marketing channel, it seems a large chunk of influencers still refuse to play by the book in order to make a quick buck.

A study by independent campaign measurement firm CampaignDeus found 12% of UK influencers to have bought fake Instagram followers in the first six months of 2018. The findings were based on analysis of nearly 700,000 posts, identifying ‘bot-buyers’ by those with low UK followings, inexplicable jumps in follower...

1 August 2018 | Campaigns