How Ad Agencies and Advertisers Are Adjusting to Mobile

I was talking with a large ad agency person the other day (off the record so no names) and they told me that the last year saw the biggest single year of identifiable movement away from traditional media (broadcast, print, etc.) to mobile. Meaning that there will be no slow down of dollars transitioning into mobile advertising.

And it is interesting to me how little interaction and mutual understanding there is between app publishers and advertisers/ad agencies, especially considering how instrumental these agencies are in deciding how the tens of billions of dollars are distributed through the mobile ecosystem.

So every so often, I like to point out thoughtful insight into challenges that these agencies face when deciding how to leverage their customer’s ad spend. In a recent article by Jon Hook, an Advertising Evangelist at Phunware, he discusses “how media agencies can’t simply hire a mobile expert and pretend they’ve solved mobile. You need people who understand the entire mobile ecosystem – mobile media, mobile strategy and mobile technology (automation, analytics, CRM, location/mapping and ad serving).”

Consider this as he points out, “[Agency] clients need to have comfort that the campaign they have signed off is what is actually being delivered. They often ask for a whitelist of pre-approved sites because they want to know their brand is in safe hands. All too often, however, mobile adverts end up where they shouldn’t, events that discourage future investment in mobile.” 

The ability to target like never before provides tremendous opportunities for advertisers but also come with tremendous challenges as the staffs of these agencies try to stay on top of the ever increasing and diverse availability of data, metrics, insights and more.

So check out the article for yourself and see the challenges that the people that are writing the checks for mobile advertising are facing.