Do People Click On Mobile Ads?

The Heavy Chef Project

Practical Learning About Digital Marketing

Do People Click On Mobile Ads? Posted in Featured Articles, Mobile Marketing, Concocted by Fred Roed, 2 comments
Published on 28 March 2011

Ask yourself – have YOU ever clicked on a mobile advert? For that matter, have you ever clicked on any online advertising of any kind? I can’t remember when I last did. Sometimes, I get directed to a banner ad cos it’s so good – but that’s more about the ad, than the product that the ad is advertising.

Yet, at last month’s Heavy Chef, Nic Harry and Vince Maher spoke about the incredible amount of user-registration they’re achieving on their start-up Motribe, a site that allows you to create mobile communities on the fly. How are they achieving this growth? Mostly through mobile advertising. I guess the answer to the question ‘Do people click on mobile ads?’ is… it depends.

According to Motribe’s Nic and Vince, they saw the greatest amount of click-throughs in niche audiences across the globe. The example Nic gave was the online group “Emo Fwendz”, which had seen remarkable growth over the 5 months that Motribe has existed. The group consists of black-eyeliner wearing, My Chemical Romance-listening, semi-depressed (mostly smart) kids.

There are a few lessons we can learn here, so I’ll list the three main things that come to mind:

1. Niche works

If you’re trying to sell something in a hyper-competitive, broad market like, say, mortgages, it’s going to be hard. If, like Emo Fwendz, you’re selling conversations and kin-ship with like-minded people, it’s a whole lot easier.

2. Targeting works

If you’re selling My Chemical Romance tracks to News24 readers, it’s gonna be hard. If you’re selling Blink-182 to the crowd at Emo Fwendz you may get lucky.

3. Context works

If you speak in ad-lingo “Buy now!” or “Free Prize!” to a group of cynical and savvy kids, you’re going to falter. First seek to understand your audience, tailor the messaging accordingly, and you’ll get conversions a whole lot easier.

In other words, as in the Emo Fwendz example, Motribe attracted people to start groups using their product through a tailored, targeted and relevant mobile messaging approach.

There are many other points to factor into mobile advertising, such as using phone numbers in the messaging (since people can click on ‘em and phone you immediately), regional targeting, increased data and metrics, and so on and so on… but we’ll talk about those later (all fodder for more Heavy Chef awesomeness).

Here endeth the lesson. Mobile advertising works, since like most online media, it’s accountable. But apply the points above or you’ll hear crickets.