By Vaibhav Agarwal
Simple display advertisements are passe. Ads have become personal and intelligent on the Internet. But its a whole new scene when it comes to mobile. Multiple screen sizes, operating systems, lower interactivity and slower data speeds pose challenges to advertisers wanting to reach millions of mobile users.
Silver Push, a GSF accelerator company, is trying to ease the process of targeted advertising on mobile with its mobile ad re-targeting technology. Though there are a bunch of Indian digital ad networks that provide dynamic re-targeting on the Internet, there aren’t many such on mobile Internet.
With India becoming the third largest smartphone market in the world, this is the kind of real estate brands can’t afford to miss. Indian brands spend more than Rs 600 cr on display advertising out of a total online spend of Rs 2,262 cr.
What is Re-targeting?
Its a step ahead of normal display advertising where a brand tries to capture new audience, create loyalty and trust, spread awareness and targets maximum reach. In re-targeting, ad dollars are spent to capitalize on consumers who have already visited the website and had at least once experienced the brand, creating more probability of conversions explains Hitesh Chawla, Co founder, Silver Push.
Re-targeting tracks a user’s online behavior which is then used to target consumers with tailored advertisements and improves conversions and speed up the decision making cycle. Promotional campaigns effectively use this to identify and then address a particular set of consumers. Although it can be annoying for users at times, for brands, this is a great way to improve sales.
Real Time Bidding and Ad Exchange
For tracking the behavior of users, Silver Push integrates an API in the mobile website or the app on the client’s side and data is collected and analyzed for more than 50 data points. When a user with relevant attributes for re-targeting is identified, then a Real Time Bidding (RTB) is done to acquire the display Ad Spot. Silverpush has developed its own Real Time Bidding Platform (RTB) which is the core of dynamic re-targeting.
When a user access a mobile app, website or a browser a call is made to the Ad exchange via Supply Side Platform (SSP) which contains user attributes (age, location, gender etc). Ad exchange serves as a stock exchange and broadcasts this request to advertisers using Demand Side Platform (DSP) which then selects the highest bidder on the fly. Selected Advertiser can now display their ad customized for this user. The whole process from request to broadcasting to bidding and then displaying happens in less than 100 milliseconds with user unaware of the background process.
Re-targeting – Different on web and mobile
The difference between re-targeting on the web and re-targeting on the mobile is the use of cookies. On the web, when a user visits a website, a piece of code or cookie is installed on the users system which is used to track subsequent behavior. Internet access on the mobile happens mostly through apps or platforms that do not support cookies. This makes tracking difficult. However, digital footprints or signatures comprising of a collection of data including the type of operating system and device configuration, can be used to uniquely identify a mobile user.
The startup has a straightforward revenue model. It charges advertisers based on the Cost per Click (CPC) while it buys out the inventory on Cost per thousand Impression (CPM) model from the Ad exchanges. Though mobile ad networks such as Inmobi and Vserv claim to provide re-targeting feature, they are limited by the reach of their network and set of publishers. SilverPush makes it possible on cross platforms and devices. For this it has tied up with four mobile ad exchanges including AdIQuity and PubMatic.
The company has raised Rs 15 lakh each from GSF Accelerator and Siddharth Puri, CEO, Tyroo. It plans to raise more funds in the coming months to compete better with global players such as C3 Metrics, Adroll, Tapad and Tapcommecre.