With 2015 rapidly winding to a close, the time is now to gaze into one’s crystal ball and attempt to predict what 2016 will likely bring to the mobile advertising world.
To help us gain the most insightful predictions possible, MAW reach out to a multitude of company CEOs, CMOs, and other top execs for their outlook, enabling us to compile these exclusive mobile round up predictions for 2016.
So what do the top execs from AerServ, Opera Mediaworks, Factual, AppLift, and elsewhere anticipate for the new year? Check out their interesting prognostications below.
AppLift
Tim Koschella, CEO and Co-Founder
Apps. vs. Mobile Web and what this means for Apple vs. Google – In 2015 Apple tried decreasing Google’s power in the market by putting pressure on their revenue stream (which represents 90%) by introducing an ad blocker functionality as an integral part of iOS. Google will continue to drive users back to mobile web as it often begins with search. Therefore, the app economy is pushing user behavior to change patterns, using dedicated apps for search (seen in examples that include local businesses, such as Yelp and OpenTable).
Taptica
Galia Reichenstein, COO & Head of U.S. Sales, Taptica
In 2016, brands and technology will continue to innovate and disrupt the way we are consuming content, the way we are connected to our different devices, and the way we are willing to pay and interact with brands.
As a result, marketers are continually challenged in getting their message out to the right user at the right moment. However, they have more channels available to monetize, and more data points to make decisions on those moments and users.
Social advertising will continue to become a strong channel and an important part of the marketing mix. Brands and marketers should be more innovative with regard to the way they are reaching those users. The fear of working with multiple partners to avoid “cannibalization” needs to fade out. Social on its own is not enough. Companies that know how to marry non-social and social channels, looking at the user centric level, will be ahead of the game. This goes for all channels. As an example, the way we consume video content will continue to impact connected TV. E-commerce and mobile payments will make huge leaps this year. Reengagement and uses of past data will be a must for companies to grow and maximize their spend.
The way we look at the mobile space now, with clear divides between the channels (social, video, mobile web, in app, connected TV, etc.), is incorrect if viewing from a users perspective and behavior. Next year, the companies that will succeed in holistically managing their marketing strategies and data across the varying channels will be ahead of the game. Although there are still many holes in tracking, and will continue to be throughout next year, there is a tighter bridge between the different channels, and we will see more of that in 2016.
Factual
Ocean Fine, Director – Agency & Strategic Accounts at Factual Inc
In 2016 I believe mobile will become the main channel and the first channel considered around which brands will create their overall marketing strategies. The question is no longer “Should I plan for mobile?” or “How much should I spend on mobile banner ads?” but “How do I use mobile to provide value to my customers throughout their daily lives?” Brands and agencies will focus on how to reach, interact with, and create extreme value with customers on a daily basis. The goal will be to use mobile to fulfill the customer’s needs with a more enjoyable and more seamless experience as opposed to disrupting their desired action or their attention with traditional media like banners, pop-ups, and video interstitials. Other screens and media will continue to be important, but television, print, and radio will be used to reinforce the brand experience being created on mobile as opposed to mobile being a supporting channel for other media.
A key factor driving mobile’s dominance will be the increased use of data. Quality data, including location data, local weather, and historical consumer behavior such as shopping patterns will give brands the insight they need to build engaging and valuable mobile experiences. The more trusted, actionable data that brands and agencies have accessible to them, the easier it will be to create smart, relevant mobile experiences. Additionally, programmatic media buying will only become more effective and popular as data is made more accessible in programmatic systems and platforms.
Opera Mediaworks
Will Kassoy, CEO
Mobile video is a natural complement to more “traditional” marketing efforts like TV for brand advertisers — and those are the companies that will drive the most growth in mobile video next year.
Nikao Yang, SVP of Business Development & Marketing
It’s still in the early innings, but native video ads are gaining momentum, largely due to the heavy weight of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. In 2016, we’ll see increased adoption of these native video formats amongst premium publishers and advertisers.
Vikas Gulati, Managing Director, Asia
Mobile is now the first screen, surpassing both the TV and the desktop in terms of time spent — and video became the mobile ad unit of choice for both brand and performance marketers Video will continue to explode. In fact, consumption and spending will get bigger than anyone can even imagine.
AerServ
Josh Stivers, Advisor for AerServ
The traditional mobile ad networks that used to directly handle both ad campaign and supply management for agencies are disappearing. Mobile ad networks are being bought up, integrated into and replaced with the DSP and SSPs who can now offer a wide spectrum of mobile ad inventory. Yet automated, RTB acces by buyers to mobile has introduced many new complications to the mobile marketplace.
In 2015, the industry began shifting to programmatic buying platforms for mobile to and away from direct mobile sales teams, abandoning traditional IO buying practices in favor of self serve procurement and real time bidding. DSPs compete with each other to offer access to the widest selection of mobile properties. This increased access has driven down the cost of mobile inventory and CPMs are drastically decreasing (last year was just about double what we have seen this year). SSPs, once just infrastructure, must now help publishers add more value to their offerings as CPMs fall and ad revenues drop. DSP access to both desktop and mobile inventory has also drive a surge in cross screen buying. Mobile is becoming rapidly mainstream, where buyers just want screen and audience with little care of it placement or content. VPAID will be a dominant standard for video as buyers demand uniform creative performance and reporting across all screens. 2015 marked the end of the mobile experiment 2016 will be about multiscreen audience engagement at scale, as Buyers demand better performance regardless of the channel or platform in return for increased ad spend.
engage: BDR
Ted Dhanik, CEO
We definitely see mobile as a key area of expansion in 2016. It has been a hot topic for marketers for a while already, but we think that in 2016 people will cease to treat it as a single channel and start to break it down. There is so much nuance within the mobile umbrella: mobile display vs mobile video, in-app vs mobile web inventory, smartphone vs tablet placements, etc, and we are working with clients to understand the differences between these niches and how to target based on their specific goals. Too often, campaigns are sort of ham-fisted or clunky as it relates to mobile strategy, so we are using internal data to identify trends and bring light to the space.
ChatWork
Toshi Yamamoto, ChatWork CEO and Founder
We anticipate chat apps to begin integrating with media companies much like the way Netflix delivers original content, movies or network TV series so that chat apps become a delivery channel directly to the user.
Connecting/sharing in more visual ways via chat, e.g. GIFs, drawings, custom emojis, stickers, videos, audio files, etc.
We’ll see more enterprise, Fortune 500 companies and IT departments starting to use enterprise-level, secure chat messaging platforms. Chat app companies will start adding enterprise-oriented functionality and higher levels of security.