A new Verve study has shown that relevance plays a vital role in smartphone advertising success.
Mobile ad relevance to a consumer can drive twice as much engagement as a generic advertisement, says a new Verve study. Ads that make reference to a consumer’s location or interests encourage far greater response.
The survey involved the participation of 2,000 adults throughout the United Kingdom.
Location based mobile marketing platform, Verve, conducted the research about mobile ad relevance. Fifty six percent of respondents said they found the majority of ads they saw on their smartphones to be dull or boring. Only 11 percent said they saw helpful advertisements on their phones.
Furthermore, only 17 percent said that they were either “likely” or “very likely” to interact with a generic mobile advertisement. That said, when there was greater mobile ad relevance to the individual, that figure jumped to 38 percent. This was particularly true when it touched on the user’s own hobbies or interests. If the ad was related to the user’s present location, they were 34 percent likely or very likely.
Moreover, mobile ad relevance also rose when it featured a place where the individual was headed.
One in three study participants said they were likely to interact with an ad that had something to do with a place where they planned to go in the future.
Verve showed that smartphone users are essentially inundated with ads. They have come to see them as clutter and are accustomed to ignoring them. In fact, they will typically ignore more than seven ads per day. This equates to about 20 million ignored mobile ads per hour across the United Kingdom.
The firm also determined that while mobile ad relevance is critical to driving engagement, it is not all that is needed. Marketers must also make certain that their advertising format is mobile friendly, said Verve.
Seventy eight percent of people in the United Kingdom said they had seen ads that were too tiny for them to read or that were made up of too much text to be appropriate for mobile marketing. Part of Verve’s report included suggestions for improving engagement, particularly through mobile users.