According to a report published in the Search Engine Watch, mobile advertising is a $20 billion gold mine. To give you a glimpse of the potentials of mobile advertising, let’s take a look at Dong Nguyen. Before removing his game from the App Store, the creator of “Flappy Bird” was earning $50,000 from in-app advertisements on a daily basis. This is obviously just one part of a larger picture. Another part of the picture would tell us more about advertisers’ successful marketing campaigns on the mobile front. Before jumping deep into the mobile advertising front, let’s learn about some important elements of our story.
Ad Networks
An Ad Network is a bridge between advertisers and ad locations on the web. Google’s AdSense & AdWords are the classical examples of Ad Networks. The three primary variables of every ad network are Placement, Pricing and Relevancy. If you are willing to advertise, regardless of platforms, pay close attention to these three variables and your advertising campaign will yield good results.
Facebook Audience Network
The Facebook Audience Network creates a great opportunity for mobile app publishers, allowing them to embed Facebook ads in their apps for monetary gain. This increases Facebook’s ad reach on mobile platforms, creating a win-win scenario for advertisers and publishers alike. Initially, it has been rolled out to a select group of development partners and advertisers, but will soon be available to the general audience as well.
Mobile Advertising Front
According to eMarketer, last year advertisers spent $17.96 billion alone on mobile advertising, and it is predicted to reach $31.45 billion this year. IBM revealed 2013 Cyber Monday’s statistics, mobile traffic was 31.7 percent of total online traffic. In January 2014, Facebook has reported that 53 percent of its revenue is coming from mobile advertising. All of these statistics suggest an inclination of users towards mobile, ultimately forcing advertisers to move towards mobile advertising.
Facebook Audience Network could help Facebook big time
Facebook tried their luck on mobile advertising back in 2012, but it didn’t work. Reason? A lack of focus, perhaps. However, they tried it again in 2013, this time they focussed on implementing a native ad network, which worked directly with the advertisers and publishers. Earlier we discussed three primary variables of an ad network. Now, an ad network “working directly” with advertisers and publisher allowed more control over those variables.
Based on what we have seen so far from the Facebook Audience Network, a lot of features remain the same; such as setting the target audience. As for the appearance, the ads are displayed in the banner and native forms, so it is not creating any hindrance towards a good user experience.
Wrap Up
According to the eMarketer report, the future of Facebook mobile advertising is luminous, thanks to the Facebook Audience Network. The report predicted that it would capture 21.7% of the mobile advertising market share in the year 2014, right next to the Google’s 46.8%.
