Why In-App Programmatic Advertising Is More Effective

If you?re following our series of blogs about programmatic advertising, you?ve already taken our crash course on programmatic and unlearned some of its myths. You might recall that in-app advertising performs remarkably better than mobile web. Today, we will be taking one step further and examining three reasons why in-app programmatic campaigns are a way more effective method for brands to reach new, engaged audiences worldwide.

? In-app programmatic is driven by hard data

Programmatic cuts out any room for human error with advertising that relies on continuously updated, real-time data. Instead of cookies, in-app SDKs collect device identifiers, the basis for user targeting and tracking of conversions and post-install events. Identifiers persist throughout the entire sales funnel, ensuring the accuracy of tracking.Advertisers can use in-app SDK information to view impressions at the app level or the device level. On top of that, mobile apps can collect location, device type, operating system, connectivity, post-install actions, and ad viewability. This data transparency also improves fraud detection, increasing brand quality and equity.Through programmatic, advertisers and DSPs have an easily-accessible array of data as well as real-time reporting that can be used to optimize campaigns and target audiences more effectively (see #3).

? In-app programmatic lets you reach the most engaged audience at scale

Who is the most engaged audience? Mobile gamers. However, we might be a little biased here. ?Mobile gaming is no longer a niche industry, it?s truly mainstream entertainment. In the US alone, over half the population is now gaming on the go with no signs of slowing. Lesser known is the fact that this audience is broad, highly-engaged, and rich with disposable income.75% of iOS Apple Store revenue is generated by mobile gaming, 62% of all smartphone owners install a game within a week of getting their phones, and 43% of users? mobile app time is spent on games. Mobile gaming is clearly a huge distribution platform for marketers who want to establish their brand, but would be difficult to successfully penetrate multiple global gaming markets through traditional advertising. In-app programmatic is the surefire method that brands need to scale global campaigns aimed at gamers, using creatives that gamers will respond to.

? In-app programmatic lets you target audiences more effectively

Thanks to the plethora of instantaneous information collected by in-app SDKs, advertisers have a bird?s-eye view of their campaign successes and failures that they normally wouldn?t with traditional advertising campaigns. Programmatic allows for real-time campaign optimization that is guided by hard numbers rather than flawed human insight, combining first- and third-party data to build richer audience segmentations.Programmatic therefore saves money and resources when targeting audiences across devices. Moreover, advertisers can blacklist or whitelist certain mobile app publishers for better control over which audiences view their brand?s content.

Programmatic advertising also offers real-time optimization of creatives and prioritizes engaging, mobile-first ad formats such as playables, rewarded video, and other rich media. In our next blog, we will explore these ad formats and their important role in the programmatic ecosystem. Stay tuned!