How to Create the Best Mobile Ads
Example of an appealing mobile ad.
A lot goes into making an effective mobile advertisement. They’re meant to grab your attention and drag you into buying the said product, but how? I wanted to dig into how to make the ideal mobile ads. Not the ones that will just flash in front of you and take up your entire browser, but ones that intrigue you to look further into the product.
The Steps
PadSquad’s article on Design Best Practices for Mobile Advertising discusses some useful steps for fully planning out and executing a mobile ad. Some steps I found quite useful I listed below.
Add images to increase engagement. “Research has shown that using an image that relates to the service or product being advertised or that of a human being has a significant positive impact on conversion rates.”
Use creative GIF animations. “Another unique creative tactic that you want to consider for mobile advertising is adding a subtle GIF animation. This can help to boost the click-through rate performance of your ads and engagement.”
Leverage the location of the ad. “Location-based marketing techniques allow for more specific targeting and personalization. It effectively boosts response rates and generates higher customer engagement.”
Use personalized messages. “Always target your audiences with well-crafted personalized messages. Research shows that 44% of consumers are willing to switch to brands that use personalized messages.”
A good way to gauge images when creating mobile advertisements.
I think out of all these steps, the adding of images seems most important to me. It’s the first thing viewers see, so it has to be appealing and nice to look at. Our textbook, Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion by Nathalie Nahai, states that “when it comes to ecommerce we rely primarily on visual cues to establish the quality and value of an item before we buy. This means that the way in which a business presents its goods and services online can significantly impact sales,” (Nahai 88). Our eyes are immediately drawn to what’s in front of us, so if it looks nice, then we’ll most likely further pursue it.
Downfalls
MarketingDive’s Dirk Rients went through and outlined some of the common downfalls mobile advertising faces in What's still wrong with mobile advertising? I picked out two that I thought resonated with some of the common things we see with bad advertisements.
Creativeness and scaling of the ads. Rients states that “...many of the mobile rich media ads currently being built either fail to render properly, or only run on a limited number of mobile sites or applications.”
Viewability of the ads. “Some industry reports have pegged mobile viewability rates to be as low as 50 percent due to factors such as stacked images, load time, 1x1 pixel fraud, bots and improperly executed tags.”
Examples of bad mobile advertisements.
I feel that these are two common flaws we see over and over again with mobile advertising. It’s frustrating seeing an advertisement that doesn’t even look good and just takes up your screen. We want beauty, it’s what we’re attracted to, so if these companies start utilizing the proper steps, it not only benefits us but them as well.
By Tyler Grupac on 01/30/23
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“6 Creative Design Best Practices for Mobile Advertising.” PadSquad, 13 Sept. 2022, https://padsquad.com/blog/6-creative-design-best-practices-for-mobile-advertising.
Nahai, Nathalie. Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion. Pearson Education Limited, 2017.
Rients, Dirk. “What's Still Wrong with Mobile Advertising?” Marketing Dive, https://www.marketingdive.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/opinion/columns/18716.html.