If you’re in another line of work, however, you may only be thinking of mobile as a marketing channel or as a utilitarian tool for things like wayfinding, property management, or simply sharing helpful information. If that’s the case, you’re leaving money on the table.

What Is an App Monetization Strategy?

Simply put, it’s a plan for driving revenue via your mobile app, using one or a combination of different app monetization models. It’s best to consider and plan for monetization during the Strategy phase, so you don’t have to force-fit something later.

Outside of direct mCommerce, there are five basic options:

• Pay-to-download (or “Paid”): Pretty straightforward. These are apps that you pay $X to download.
• Subscription: Users pay a monthly fee via the app stores.
• Free (“Freemium”) with in-app purchases: The app is free to download but the publisher makes money on in-app purchases that provide an enhanced, “premium” experience. In games, these are usually micro-transactions such as special gear, extra lives, weapons, gaming levels, etc. In other types of apps, these could be access to exclusive content behind a paywall.
• Limited Freemium: The app is free to download but is limited in one of two ways—either the user can access full functionality for a short time only OR the free version only offers basic functionality, such as a few game levels. The idea is to entice users to try before they buy, hoping the app experience is compelling enough to convert them to a fully paid or subscription version.
• Free to download, with advertising: In-app advertising is an increasingly common way to monetize all types of apps. Users will welcome ads if they are well-targeted, relevant, interesting and non-disruptive to the user experience. It’s even better if the advertising adds value by connecting users with rewards or exclusive content (as in sponsored gameplay integrations).

According to App Annie’s recent worldwide survey of app professionals, in-app purchases and in-app advertising were the most popular monetization strategies, however many of those surveyed expected subscription and mCommerce to become more popular over time.

Developing a Sound Monetization Strategy

There is no cut-and-dried monetization strategy that works for every industry or every type of app. Ultimately, your team will determine the type(s) of monetization you want to include in your app by carefully evaluating a number of considerations, including:

• Your app experience: User experience (UX) should be your most important consideration. Any monetization strategy you choose should align with the overall experience and preferably enhance it.
• Your audience: Across various demographic categories, people feel differently about paying for an app or making in-app purchases, and their behavior varies accordingly. According to Gartner, people in the 25-34 age bracket spend the most on both paid apps and in-app transactions (thanks, older Millennials!). Those on the younger side of Gen X (35-44) come in second, but they spend more on in-app transactions than paid downloads. In addition, women spend less overall on paid downloads and in-app transactions—but they’re more likely to try a freemium approach.
• Your business goals: Monetization should always complement your overarching business goals, not take away from them.
• What the competition’s doing: Check out other apps in the same category. How are they monetizing? Does their approach complement or detract from their UX?

Though game developers pioneered it, mobile app monetization is still a developing field. If your team lacks expertise in monetization, consider working with an expert partner. And if in-app advertising may be part of your mix, seek out a monetization partner with not only the requisite experience but also trong brand relationships and robust data sharing. Want to learn more? Download our checklist, 6 Smarter Questions To Ask Your Monetization Partners.

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The post Understanding Monetization Strategies and Why Your App Needs One appeared first on Phunware.

The same effect occurs in business with use-it-or-lose-it budgets. In many organizations, if a department doesn’t spend its full budget for the year, next year’s budget will be cut back accordingly. While it’s a nice idea to make the department accountable for using its allotted budget, requiring a group to use all allotted dollars can lead to unfocused, “experimental” or wasteful spending. Loading up at the buffet on food that doesn’t even look appetizing, as it were.

But there is one way businesses can use their remaining 2017 budgets more wisely: by putting them towards mobile. According to The CMO Survey (co-sponsored by The American Marketing Association, Deloitte and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business) mobile marketing made up only 6% of marketing budgets in 2017. This is despite the fact that comScore’s 2017 U.S. Mobile App Report found that mobile apps drive 57% of all U.S. digital time spent.

Got that? Marketers are allocating only 6% of their budget to a channel that makes up almost 60% of digital time spent. If your spend for 2017 falls far short of 60% (and I’m willing to bet it does) it may make sense to spend your remaining funds on closing that gap.

5 Wise Ways to Invest Your Use-It-or-Lose-It Budget in Mobile

1. Get off square one and start building a mobile presence.

If your brand doesn’t already have a mobile app, take the first step now. Internally, start strategizing the type of mobile experience that would best meet your business and marketing goals. You could put some resources toward building a mobile RFP for 2018 or use budget dollars for mobile discovery and planning with an expert partner. The last months of the year are often slow and can be an excellent time for strategic thinking and planning.

2. Refresh an existing app with new capabilities.

The mobile app lifecycle never really ends. Once you have a mobile presence, it’s important to keep that presence vibrant, technologically up-to-date and aligned with your current objectives. Mobile SDKs are a relatively quick and cost-effective way to enhance an existing app with features that improve the user experience and/or drive toward other business goals. Options include indoor wayfinding or blue dot navigation, mobile engagement, monetization through advertising, and even analytics you can use to inform your overall marketing strategies.

Renew or Re-do: What to Do with an Aging Mobile App

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eBook: Mobile Marketing Automation: Why It Matters and How to Get Started.

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3. Build a better audience by converting more high-LTV users for your app.

Mobile game developers realized long ago that not every install results in a valuable customer. By focusing on reaching and converting users who will generate high lifetime value (LTV), game developers are able to tune their marketing efforts to drive revenue.

LTV will mean something different for every brand and every type of mobile experience—it’s all in how you define value, based on your overall goals. An expert audience-building partner like Phunware can help you access and parse finely segmented mobile data to better understand your high LTV users and target them effectively.

Want a better understanding of the fine art of audience building? See how savvy game developers do it in 5 Steps to Driving Quality Installs for Your App.

4. Leverage contextual data to enrich customer profiles and improve targeting.

Many mobile marketers have only limited data available for segmenting audiences and targeting ads. If you’re working with third-party data, there’s often no way to know how audiences are built or how often the data is refreshed. On the other hand, if you’re working with a typical mobile advertising partner, you’re limited to the data available from that partner’s advertising SDK.

In reality, mobile data can provide much richer insights, thanks to the daily digital trail generated by each user. This trail of mobile data envelops users in a cloud of context that can tell brands what people do, where they’ve been, which types of apps and other content they like, where they are, and many other highly specific details. Learn more in Mobile Data: The Missing Link in Your User Acquisition and Engagement Strategies.

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5. Get beyond the banner with uniquely powerful ad formats.

The days of the boring banner ad should be well in your rear-view mirror. These days, mobile ad formats can work much harder for your brand. Q4 2017 is an ideal time to explore the possibilities.

• Try rewarded video to give users in-app rewards in exchange for watching a branded video. Users are much more willing to watch a video ad (and be engaged in watching it) when they are rewarded for doing so, plus these formats provide very clear attribution from campaign to conversion.
• Looking for something more immersive? Sponsored gameplay integrations like Phunware’s Phusion are like a hybrid between a sponsorship and an advertising experience. In sponsored gameplay, the brand is integrated into the game itself, generally through sponsoring a customized level. These unique formats work best when there’s strong alignment between the brand’s audience and the game’s audience, as well as synergy between the brand and the gaming experience.

The Future Belongs to Brands That Are Mobile-First.

Looking back to comScore’s 2017 U.S. Mobile App Report, in three years mobile will still only make up 13% of marketing budgets. This is a strong indicator that most CMOs can’t see what’s right in front of them—consumers are already mobile-first, and their brands are late to the party (and underdressed, too).

But better late than never. Before EOY, you can start investing more wisely in your brand’s future and shifting your organization to a mobile-first mindset. You just have to get started. Contact Phunware for options.

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The post Use It or Lose It: Investing Your Remaining 2017 Marcom Budget Wisely appeared first on Phunware.

Trying to convert users to high lifetime value is expensive, too. According to the most recent Liftoff data, the average developer cost to acquire a user who makes at least one in-app purchase now hovers around $50.

But don’t lose hope. A good rewards program can help you keep users coming back to play more, experience more and spend more. Put simply, a rewards program consists of a set of desired actions with accompanying incentives for completing them. Anybody can offer a few in-app tokens to make users feel special, but the secret sauce for the best mobile app rewards programs lies in how you construct them to works towards your business goals. Let’s take a closer look.

Step 1: Define Your Goal(s) for In-App Rewards

Rewards can help you achieve a number of different business objectives, and you can use a combination of rewards to achieve multiple goals:

• Learn more about your users
• Increase revenue through brand partnerships
• Boost engagement / drive habits
• Convert habitual users into premium users

Be specific and clear—the goal should drive the rest of your strategy.

Step 2: Identify the Right Actions to Warrant In-App Rewards

For each goal, there are logical actions that you might ask users to take.

• Learn more about your users. Actions in this case could be taking a survey, turning on location services (so you can gain more context about their daily lives) or sharing more personal information (birthdates, etc.) in the user profile.
• Increase revenue through brand partnerships. Actions in this case could be watching a rewarded video ad or even visiting a brick-and-mortar store. When you share your rewards program with a brand, you can realize much higher payouts than you would with traditional media.
• Boost engagement / drive habits. Actions in this case are behaviors that tie users more closely to your app, such as sequential days of usage. Your data can help you identify the actions that are most likely to be habit-forming. Let’s say your data shows that users who share content from your app with at least two people are 40% more likely to become habitual users. You might offer a small incentive for sharing, like access to a gated article or an exclusive photo filter.
• Convert habitual users into premium users. Actions in this case emphasize urging users to subscribe or pay for premium access to content in your app. Let’s say data shows that 80% of app users who engage for three consecutive days ultimately buy a subscription to your pro service. You might design a rewards program that offers an incentive for interacting three days in a row—such as a small amount of in-app currency—to reward the user’s loyalty or diligence.

Step 3: Define the In-App Rewards

The most successful rewards give the user something they find valuable. Examples include:

• In-app currency. Tokens, extra lives, etc.
• Customization. Many games and other apps provide unlockable personalization options such as new colors or decorations. These digital goods don’t change the app’s functionality or the game’s level of difficulty, but they do add a layer of entertainment, personalization and delight. Even better, they can be branded, providing an additional avenue for revenue generation through brand partners.
• Exclusive content. Exclusive content is a way to reward users for taking a one-off action, such as a newsreader offering premium content access as a reward for social sharing or a dating app unlocking profiles of people who have indicated interest in you if you pay real money OR watch rewarded video. This exclusive content can be branded and often highly engaging—as in a sponsored gameplay integration.

While you’re defining rewards, keep in mind the importance of matching the perceived value of the reward with the amount of effort required to achieve it. For example, a daily app visit might merit just a few tokens as a reward, while completing a long survey or an extended period of app usage deserves something of higher value. For a game, larger weekly challenges could offer in-game currency (which would normally cost real money) as a reward, while smaller daily challenges offer timer boosts only. For a dating app, users might unlock access to users who have already viewed their profiles by visiting a real-world location, while a smaller action like opening the app daily may only unlock a few extra “swipes.”

Step 4: Set Parameters for the In-App Rewards Trigger

How many rewards opportunities will each user receive in a given day, week or month? You may risk devaluing your own currency or content by making too many things accessible for free too often. If your rewards include exclusive content that users would otherwise have to pay for, you might end up cannibalizing their in-app purchases. Stick to offering users a few lower-value reward opportunities per hour or day and consider creating a weekly challenge to earn higher-value rewards.

Keeping App Users Engaged Is a Challenge for Everybody

You’re definitely not alone here. The good news is that while 23% of users only use apps once, 39% of them come back for 11 or more sessions. A strong rewards program is one smart way you can make sure your users are in the second category.

Looking for more ways to improve your user retention? Check out our eBook, Sticky Notes: How to Re-engage Your Users Like a Boss.

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Contact us to find out more about how in-app rewards programs can help you attract and engage the right audience for your mobile experience.

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The post 4 Steps to a Successful In-App Rewards Program appeared first on Phunware.

That should sound pretty familiar to brands engaged in mobile marketing. Many brands try to segment and target their audiences using third-party data—with no insight into how often that data is refreshed or how the audiences are built.

Others work with an advertising partner that targets solely based on data it gets back from its advertising SDK. Both approaches use only impressions, clicks and general location to segment and target mobile audiences—which leaves them with a very limited view and limited effectiveness.

Like the incomplete orange story, if you only have access to a tiny slice of information about your target consumers, your understanding of the big picture can be thrown off significantly. Fortunately, mobile applications yield much more information about consumers and can help you piece together the whole picture.

Gathering insights all along the daily digital trail

Consider this: In Phunware’s 2017 Future of Mobile survey, we found that daily mobile users spend six hours per day on their devices, primarily on smartphones. And according to comScore’s 2017 U.S. Cross-Platform Future in Focus, mobile now accounts for almost 70% of all time spent on digital. In fact, mobile apps alone account for 60% of all time on digital.

All of that activity creates a daily mobile data trail that tells brands who these users are, where they have been, their preferences, and even where they’re likely to go next. Best of all, this trail of mobile data envelops consumers in a cloud of context which brands can leverage to discover:

• What people do when they’re in an app you own
• What other apps they use on the same device
• Which types of content they read, listen to and engage with
• Where they are, in specific latitude / longitude coordinates, thanks to their Wi-Fi connections, check-ins, GPS and app location services
• Precisely where they are within certain physical environments, thanks to sensor technologies (like beacons)

Download Mobile Data: The Missing Link in Your User Acquisition and Engagement Strategies.

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Finding a larger lens for consumer context

Millions of devices interact with Phunware apps and ads every day, and our platform continually ingests data from these interactions. In terms of scale, our platform:

• Touches about one in every ten mobile consumers globally and over 700 million devices and every month
• Registers more than 70 types of mobile event, totaling 40 billion mobile user events every month. Events include opening one of our apps, tapping on an ad, appearing around certain locations, etc.

What’s meaningful about this scale is that it allows deeper insight than app publishers would normally be able to get through their ad campaign and app analytics. Many publishers rely primarily on those two data sources, leaving them with an incomplete picture—they can’t see the whole orange. Phunware’s targeting and insight is extended with data from the apps we’ve built and those within our ad network, as well as first-party data we collect with help from our platform partners.

Every opted-in device that encounters Phunware’s mobile app ecosystem or monetization platform is assigned an anonymized Phunware ID, which acts as a way to associate and begin to understand all of the contextual data associated with that device and its user. Because Phunware IDs have reach beyond an individual app or campaign, they allow brands and publishers to segment audiences and target users in many powerful ways.

We’re here to help you design, build and target highly specific audiences more precisely and effectively than ever before. Want to learn more about Phunware IDs and the power of data-driven mobile marketing? Visit www.phunware.com/platform/data, or feel free to drop me a line.

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The post How Mobile Marketers Can Unlock Deeper Consumer Insights appeared first on Phunware.

Making Strides with Digital and Physical Feedback

Neil Blumenthal, Co-CEO of Warby Parker, told The Wall Street Journal back in January: “I don’t think retail is dead. Mediocre retail experiences are dead.” Elevating the retail experience to meet the demands of today’s on-demand and omnichannel consumer, however, requires understanding the digital and physical feedback that tells you what they want. In other words, it takes data—and lots of it.

In her Internet Trends 2017 report, analyst and author Mary Meeker spotlighted men’s shirt retailer Untuckit, which creates a synergistic digital / physical feedback loop between advertising, in-store and online interactions. The company reports a more than 2.5x increase in website visits from 2015-2016. Meeker also pointed to women’s professional-wear retailer MM.LaFleur, which is combining its data-driven, online styling / e-commerce site with a new high-touch, appointment-based, brick-and-mortar experience. Presumably, an individual’s online data is leveraged for the in-store personal styling session and vice versa. According to Washington Post, MM.LaFleur has experienced 300% year-over-year growth since 2013.

Both Untuckit and MM.LaFleur are clearly innovators, yet they lack a dedicated mobile app solution. That means they’re missing out on leveraging the vast amount of uniquely contextual user insights a mobile portfolio can deliver. This “daily digital trail” could give them a more detailed and personal understanding of their best customers than ever, enabling more relevant engagement at every touchpoint—whether it’s online, in person or via mobile app.

Where Retailers Are Missing the Point

The fourth-annual CEO Viewpoint 2017: The Transformation of Retail survey from PwC and JDA Software Group, Inc. indicates that 85% of global retail executives said they are investing in mobile-enabled applications (or plan to) over the next 12 months. 86% reported current or planned investments in big data. And overall, the survey found that a digital transformation strategy is the #1 priority for 2017.

Many U.S. retail execs…still have not defined or begun implementing digital transformation strategies, and some of them appear to be really struggling.” – Retail Dive

Yet, Retail Dive’s analysis of CEO Viewpoint 2017 noted that “The more interesting thing is that many U.S. retail execs, according to the survey, still have not defined or begun implementing digital transformation strategies, and some of them appear to be really struggling.” Digital transformation, as Retail Dive sees it, is about getting the organization on the right footing to compete at the highest level. This seismic shift needs to happen before adopting new technologies or ingesting huge new volumes of data. All the new toys in the world will do retailers absolutely no good if they’re not positioned to take full advantage of them.

Are you ready for a true digital transformation but not sure where to start? Download our eBook, Mobile First: Harnessing the App Lifecycle for Transformative Business Success, to learn what steps to take.

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So What’s the Remedy?

Retail Dive says it’s likely that “retailers need to do their best to transform themselves from digital immigrants to full-fledged digital citizens, or they need to hire more digital natives to show them the way.” Actually, they need to do more than that.

Retailers, like all brands today, need to recognize and accept that they can’t treat mobile like a bolt-on to their larger digital strategy, because mobile drives the in-demand experience and customer journey. It’s time to build smarter strategies around the mobile application lifecycle and adapt organizational structures accordingly to achieve the digital transformation that’s necessary now.

Circling back to Amazon / Whole Foods implications, Bain & Company’s Darrell K. Rigby echoes the theme, noting that traditional retailers have got to relearn how to innovate and move to adaptive, agile and multidisciplinary teams (like software dev teams—there’s that mobile app lifecycle again!), all of which takes a deep commitment and a significant financial investment. As cited by Rigby, Amazon spends more than 11% of sales on “technology and content.” This past January, IHL Group reported that top retail CIOs were increasing their IT budgets by 4.7% in 2017. Yet those same CIOs said they’d need to increase their budgets up to 236% to compete effectively against Amazon.

They may be right, and yet that giant forklift isn’t likely to happen soon. What can happen is that retailers find a mobile partner who deeply understands mobile application lifecycle management and can help digitally transform in a stepwise, cost-effective way. With an integrated mobile solution, retailers can continue to iterate and expand their mobile strategies in a nimble way that moves towards their overall business objectives, gaining momentum as they go. Sometimes transformations are “overnight;” sometimes they’re gradual. The important thing is to begin with a partner who can help you succeed, every step of the way.

Wondering how to integrate an authentically mobile-first solution to your retail strategy? Drop us a line at sales@127.0.0.1 and let’s talk.

Learn more about how the latest mobile technologies are redefining retail in this on-demand webinar: Redefining Retail: Surprising Mobile Use Cases Keeping Retailers Competitive.

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The post So Amazon Gobbled Up Whole Foods. Here’s How to Cure Retail’s Heartburn. appeared first on Phunware.

As always, brands want innovative ad formats to replace those that are becoming passé. They also need greater assurance about exactly where their ads will be seen and whether the audience has been targeted accurately and well.

At the same time, game developers need to protect their user experience and avoid displeasing loyal players. What’s the smartest way to meet all of these wants and needs? Sponsored gameplay integrations.

What makes sponsored gameplay integrations such a smart idea?

First off, in a monetization landscape where everybody’s going native, there’s nothing more native than a customized and fully integrated gameplay experience. For app developers, these sponsorships offer monetization with the least disruption to gameplay and user experience. In fact, having the right brand partner can actually add to the excitement of the game. Plus, sponsored gameplay integrations can attract big-name brands to your app—not just other games that might cannibalize your audience. For advertisers, these integrations let their brands become part of the gaming experience in a relevant way that can drive engagement beyond the capabilities of a static or video ad.

Second, sponsored gameplay integrations give brands assurance about exactly where their campaigns are running. They can even pick and choose a sponsorship partner with a user base that matches their target audience (and isn’t made up of bots). Better yet, that goes both ways: game devs can choose to partner only with brands whose messages and audiences match up with their players and add value to the overall gaming experience.

And let’s not forget about the users. Done well, a sponsored gameplay integration can offer users in-game value similar to rewarded video (offering in-game rewards like extra points, lives, etc.) or something even more precious—an exciting new way to play the game.

Discover how to integrate sponsored gameplay into your app, and download an exclusive case study to learn more.

1) Look for relevant ways to integrate a brand into the core loop experience of your game.

This can work for any type of game. Let’s look at the top five mobile game categories in terms of average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) metrics, as measured by Survey Monkey Intelligence:

• Role-playing. Let’s say we’re looking at a sandbox role-playing game (RPG). The core loop is tied to exploration, gathering materials and going on quests. A brand could sponsor a themed area of the world (e.g., an amusement park) for users to explore or sponsor uniquely relevant materials to support a quest (e.g., a sports drink sponsoring a branded flask that gives the player extra lives when consumed).
• Strategy. In a turn-based strategy game, for example, brands could sponsor unique scenarios for users to play or provide strategic intel that’s branded and relevant to the user (such as a travel media company sponsoring detailed maps for a specific area).
• Adventure. These types of games nearly all involve some level of problem-solving puzzles, which offer a perfect opportunity for sponsored branding, as do specific quests or objectives.
• Casino. Brands could sponsor specific games or areas on the casino floor, such as a whiskey company sponsoring the high-roller tables. If there’s an element of roleplay, apparel brands could sponsor specific articles of clothing, like a tuxedo or jewelry.
• Racing. For example, in a motorcycle racing game, the core loop might be competing against other players to collect bike parts in order to have the fastest bike in the game. This scenario actually offers multiple sponsorship opportunities that make sense for both brands and players: a brand could sponsor a specific piece of equipment (like boots or handlebars that would help the user race faster) or sponsor a custom track level for a limited time to allow users to earn branded in-app rewards (or even real-world rewards).

By working within the core loop experience, the brand sponsorship integration will feel more natural to the user—and, as a result, the user will be more likely to feel positive about the brand’s presence.

2) Build support marketing to promote the branded integration.

It’s all about the hype. In-app alerts and push notifications can help drive awareness and excitement among users, while more general social media can help boost the campaign’s profile and bring more users in to experience the sponsored gameplay. Rewarded video promotion will drive those all-important CPMs. Create enough buzz with a unique integration and strong support, and you might even grab the brass ring—a featured spot on the App Store and / or Google Play.

3) Work with a full-lifecycle partner who understands both brands and game developers.

Most platforms today are focused on mass-scale products like rewarded video. Only a few offer sponsored gameplay integrations, and not all work with both brands and game developers across the entire mobile app lifecycle.

Here are the phases of that lifecycle and why each one matters:

• Strategize. You want a partner who knows how to think strategically about long-term objectives and how to build experiences that can help you reach them.
• Create. Custom gameplay integrations require close collaboration. You need a partner who knows how app development and various modes of gameplay work, and has the creative and technical expertise to help you ensure amazing results.
• Launch. Expertise in launching a new app means your partner knows what it takes to drive awareness and user acquisition. Both skillsets will be useful in creating buzz and bringing new players to your game.
• Engage & Monetize. Driving user engagement and monetization is about mobile marketing. A partner who understands this can help support you in developing in-app alerts and push notification campaigns to keep users coming back to the sponsored gameplay (and help drive up your CPMs). Plus, and perhaps most importantly, a partner with deep monetization experience will also have extensive brand relationships. Unless your app is trending in the app stores or it’s featured in a media publication like Adweek, brands may never know it exists. You need a monetization partner who can help match your app with brands whose audiences and messages align with your user base. That’s a win-win for everybody. Once the campaign is complete, a full-lifecycle partner can also be a one-stop shop for other mobile initiatives, such as user retention and analytics. You can build on the relationship and synergy developed in the initial project without having to start from scratch.

Finally, don’t overlook the importance of customer support. Some platforms only offer a dedicated account manager to devs with a certain number of users across their portfolio. But a custom gameplay integration is a complex project with many moving parts. You deserve dedicated support with a single point of contact to keep things flowing smoothly.

Download our eBook to learn more about using the power of the mobile application lifecycle to meet your business goals.

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Interested? Consider Phunware’s Phusion solution.

Here at Phunware, most of us are crazy about gaming, and many of us have roots in the gaming industry. We work with major brands, media and entertainment companies and game publishers alike, across the entire mobile application lifecycle.

Drawing upon our experience and core competencies in app development as well as monetization, Phunware developed Phusion to provide a solution for native gameplay integrations, including a complete suite of supporting marketing efforts. For example, our Phusion integration with Trials Frontier and SBK15 in support of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation delivered big-time for both publishers. Results included:

• 12.6 million combined gameplay engagements
• CPMs 100-500% higher than industry average
• 16.7 million push notifications delivered
• 6.65% click-through rate (CTR) across entire campaign
• Featured in the Apple App Store

Want to learn more about it? Download our case study for Mission: Impossible.

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The post Game Devs: Here Are 3 Keys to Success with Sponsored Gameplay Integrations appeared first on Phunware.

Internet Trends 2017 is a 355-slide behemoth. It’s nearly impossible to wrap your head around the whole thing in one shot. That’s why, in this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the most striking takeaways regarding the world of mobile advertising.

There’s still a huge opportunity gap in mobile advertising.

An opportunity gap is a marketing scenario with substantially lucrative potential that is somehow going overlooked or unaddressed. Here’s how Meeker’s presentation sets things up:

• In 2016, American adult mobile usage hit three hours per day—for the first time.
  Meeker cites an eConsultancy stat where, just five years ago, this was under an hour per day.
• Mobile ad revenue in the U.S. is growing faster than internet ad revenue.
  Meeker’s data comes from an Internet Advertising Bureau survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which notes that mobile now—and for the first time—makes up more than 50% of all internet ad revenue.
• But when you compare how much of their media consumption time users give to mobile to how much ad spend brands allocate to mobile….you uncover a $16 billion opportunity gap.

Let’s unpack this for a minute. One of the great things about the Meeker report is how her team synthesizes data from disparate sources to expose underlying trends. This is a great example. The Meeker report shows that mobile represents 28% of media consumption time, yet only 21% of advertising spending in the U.S.. Both percentages have been increasing over time and advertisers have made up ground since the 2016 report— but they still have not caught up to how the public spends its time. This amounts to a roughly $16 billion opportunity gap. Brands are missing the chance to connect with consumers where they spend a great deal of their time—and publishers and app developers are missing out on a huge chunk of ad revenue.

User experience matters in mobile advertising. It matters a LOT.

Mobile ad blocking is skyrocketing
Citing data from PageFair, Meeker reports that number of people using ad-blocking software on mobile zoomed up more than 200 million users in just two years. In the US, this practice has only penetrated 1% so far, but it’s worth noting that users in India and Indonesia, which are both heavily mobile countries, ad blocking usage is at 28% and 58%, respectively. Generally, where these countries go in terms of mobile, the rest of the world follows.

At Phunware, we recognize that ad-blocking software has been around for ages on the desktop. It’s nothing new. As it continues to penetrate mobile, ad blocking will force publishers to be more selective about the ads they run and how those ads affect the user experience. It will also continue to spur the use of native advertising, which can offer a better user experience as well as higher performance for advertisers.

Remember: better user experience + better personalization and segmentation = ads that perform better (and don’t annoy people).

Users don’t want to give advertisers something for nothing.
Drawing from Millward Brown’s AdReaction Video study, one of Meeker’s slides highlighted the fact that more than 65% of respondents had positive attitudes towards online video ads that are incentivized with mobile app rewards. This makes sense because the incentive gives users something they find valuable in exchange for viewing the ad. The same report showed that 74% of users felt negative about social and in-banner autoplay video ads, and 80% felt negative about pre-roll video and mobile app video pop-up ads. This finding drives home the point that mobile ads need to provide some kind of value to the user and, overall, be less disruptive to the user experience.

The rise of “more than just an ad” ads.

Drawing upon the unique capabilities of mobile, brands and publishers are offering media formats that go beyond what we think of as an ad. In her report, Meeker highlighted the Gatorade-Snapchat partnership on “Serena Williams Match Point,” in which Snapchatters could swipe up on a Snap Ad to play a webview game, competing as an 8-bit Serena Williams in each of her Grand Slam victories. The engagement levels were impressive—users spent an average of three or more minutes playing the game.

Here at Phunware, we offer playable ad formats that deliver 2-3x higher engagement than traditional ads. These formats are available across a wide spectrum of apps within our advertising platform. We’ve also taken native and “authentically mobile” a big leap forward through our unique Phusion campaigns, which integrate uniquely branded mobile experiences and media within a native app environment. To learn more, check out our award-winning Phusion campaign for Paramount Pictures International’s Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.

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For another example, Uber is adding third-party content to its rider app, such as a partnership with Foursquare to bring its user recommendations into the ride experience. Meeker’s slide suggests that it’s only a short hop from there to incorporating local offers that are contextually relevant to the rider’s location, route and time of day.

Phunware takes this one step further. Our Rewarded Visit solution entices gaming users to earn additional in-game rewards by visiting a real-world location after watching a specific video ad. For brands, Rewarded Visit is a great way to serve up in-store promotions and directly track attribution. So, for example, an adventure sports retailer might partner with a relevant racing game. After watching an in-game video ad, users might receive in-game currency (such as coins or an extra life), along with a coupon from the retailer that can be redeemed by visiting one of the retailer’s physical stores.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Technology moves faster and faster every year. That’s why it’s great to have big brains like Mary Meeker’s parsing the landscape and helping us stay on top of everything—especially in the world of mobile marketing, which is only beginning to show its full potential. While the big picture is important, it’s vital for brands, publishers and developers alike to stay focused on their own business goals and initiatives. Try not to get overwhelmed—look for the sweet spot where internet and mobile trends align with your objectives. And look for smart partners who can help you drive toward them.

Want to talk more about the Meeker report and what’s going on in the digital and mobile world? Drop us a line at info@127.0.0.1.

The post Grokking the Meeker Report: What “Internet Trends 2017” Means for Mobile Advertising appeared first on Phunware.

AUSTIN, TX [November 17, 2016] – Phunware, whose Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS) real-time audience platform helps brands engage, manage and monetize their users anytime, anywhere, today announced a new partnership with Pixalate to continue the fight against ad fraud.

Pixalate is the first and only data platform with a comprehensive suite of products built specifically to bring transparency to advertising and eliminate fraud. Phunware will leverage Pixalate’s fraud prevention solutions across its platform, which touches more than 650 million monthly active devices every month, to monitor for and prevent fraudulent and non-human traffic across all mobile monetization and audience building campaigns.

“With mobile ad fraud rocketing from 22% to 37% from 2014 to 2015, this is now the biggest problem facing the mobile ad industry,” said CEO of Pixalate, Jalal Nasir. “By leveraging Pixalate’s Anti-Fraud technology suite, Phunware is ensuring that they have the best tools to ensure the integrity of their inventory. We welcome Phunware to the ongoing battle against ad fraud and look forward to supporting them in the future.”

With global mobile ad spend estimated at more than $100 billion, fraud is costing advertisers tens of millions of dollars every year. The partnership with Pixalate furthers Phunware’s long-standing commitment to fighting ad fraud, expanding on existing Phunware Protect tool, which uses proprietary technology and third-party verification to ensure campaigns are running in 100% brand-safe environments and in front of real human beings. Phunware’s partnership with Pixalate has already further decreased general invalid traffic on the Phunware platform to less than 1%.

“Our partnership with Pixalate is an important next step in improving transparency and performance in mobile advertising,” said Ian Karnell, Phunware’s GM of Audience Building and Monetization. “As a company that works with Fortune 500 brands and top-grossing developers every day, this partnership ensures that their campaigns not only run in the right places, but in front of real users who are interested in the product, brand and app at hand.”

For more information on Phunware MaaS platform products, solutions and data, including how the company is driving progress in programmatic advertising, please visit www.phunware.com.

About Phunware

Phunware is the pioneer of Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS), a fully integrated suite of platform products, solutions and data, that allows brands to engage, manage and monetize their anytime, anywhere mobile application users worldwide. Phunware creates category-defining mobile experiences for the world’s most respected brands, with more than 650 million active users touching its platform each month. For more information about how Phunware is transforming the way the world interacts with mobile in the virtual and physical worlds, visit www.phunware.com and follow us on Twitter @phunware.

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Insurance isn’t the only place first-party data is important. It’s critical for audience targeting in mobile advertising as well. Lots of ad networks use the same third-party data sources (like BlueKai, Datalogix and others) to find and target the audience segments their clients are after. These data sources are rich and can improve campaign performance, but imagine how much more effective you could target your audience if you leveraged deeper insights that got at the core of a user. After all, sorta your audience isn’t your audience.

The First-Party Data Difference

Over the years, Phunware has built thousands of apps that have amassed over a hundred million downloads worldwide. As users interact with those apps and Phunware’s platform, they create what we call “events.” Events include app installs and opens, content viewed, alerts set, beacons interacted with, even Wi-Fi networks devices connect to. Phunware’s big data infrastructure does not directly associate these events with the users creating them; it merely records that the events happened—for each of the 625 million monthly active device IDs on Phunware’s platform. (Side note: Here at Phunware, we make sure that our data gathering methods are 100% compliant with industry standard guidelines, and we are certified with TRUSTe who has a rigorous data/opt-out review process. So rest assured, everything is kept kosher!)

In fact, each device ID on our platform creates over 70 unique Phunware-specific events per month—which means that the platform is continually getting smarter about who users are and what they want. Our team is constantly extracting useful information and building valuable audiences that our customers can target with their mobile advertising campaigns. For example, if a user has an app that was either built by Phunware or leverages Phunware’s mobile analytics tools, the platform is able to see what Wi-Fi networks that device connects to over time. By gathering the device IDs that have connected to Starbucks’ free Wi-Fi at least 1-2 times a week, we can build a set of device IDs that represent Starbucks brand loyalists. Those users will probably convert better for Starbucks mobile ads than other audience groups segmented because they “look like” Starbucks customers based on demographics or other data.

There are infinite possible segments like this, and they don’t just benefit advertisers. Yes, advertisers see better campaign performance when their ads reach the right consumers, but consumers also have happier mobile experiences when the advertising they see contains products and offers that are relevant to them.

For more information about how you can start leveraging Phunware’s proprietary data from the biggest mobile apps, contact our Audience Engagement team.

The post How Big Is Your Data? Glimpsing the Future of Audience Targeting appeared first on Phunware.

At a recent mobile conference in Chicago, Carrie Bienkoski (CMO of mobile-based business PeaPod) declared, “Don’t think mobile-first, think mobile-only—and prepare your business for a world without desktop.” While I admire the sentiment and foresight, a world without desktop—while perhaps inevitable—is still years away.

While companies like Uber, Instacart and Square are making seismic impacts on marketing and consumer adoption dynamics, the lion’s share of the industry is still being driven by massive, entrenched brands with strong equity and legacy built in the physical world through traditional media and more recently through digital media, primarily desktop.

It would therefore behoove our industry to prioritize the en-masse marketer transition to mobile-first strategies. I recently returned from Cannes Lions, where I was heartened to see that marketers have finally absorbed that a mobile-first approach will be critical for driving revenue in coming years.

Mobile at the Hub, Not in a Silo

All week on the Croisette, I witnessed conversations on the necessity of going beyond simple mobile extensions of desktop campaigns to a more powerful, native approach. In this current environment where technology and consumer behavior evolve at warp speed, it doesn’t make sense to just tuck away small rainy day budgets when there is a $25 billion monetization opportunity for brands in mobile.

To realize the full potential of the marketplace, marketers must make significant investments in their business infrastructure and create more efficient, enjoyable and rewarding customer experiences. In other words, the long game is to build business infrastructure to facilitate mobile presence and engagement—and it appears that marketers are actually playing. Many brands are making their mobile presences the epicenter of their omnichannel efforts, which also feature desktop and traditional media. In this new, holistic model, mobile marketing is not in a silo, but the hub of the wheel.

Three Big Brands That Went Mobile-First

The splashy announcement in Cannes that WPP, Daily Mail and Snapchat were banding together to create mobile-driven native content shop Truffle Pig was a loud endorsement of how mobile has changed the dynamic between brands, publishers and the technology world. For me however, the great advances being made by three brands that have relied on traditional media—Major League Baseball, HBO and McDonald’s—are more meaningful. They should be lauded for setting shining examples of the power of a mobile-first strategy.

In an interview with Fast Company, MLB Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman articulated the wisdom and necessity of moving into a mobile world for traditional broadcasters. Bowman explained how transformational mobile has been for his brand as it streams baseball games to 3.5 million subscribers, of whom many are increasingly mobile viewers. Perhaps the biggest lesson here is the importance of speed-to-market. MLB.com exists at its present scale because it launched its streaming services all the way back in 2002.

As for HBO, after a few years and many dollars spent on internal technology and poaching staff from the likes of Zynga, Amazon and Microsoft, the entertainment company ultimately opted to bring in an external partner to build its back-end technology. By many accounts, HBO CEO Richard Plepler had an epiphany that HBO needed to go beyond its identity as the king of premium content and refashion itself technologically to remove all barriers preventing viewers from consuming HBO content. Its most recent foray, HBO NOW, was not only groundbreaking (it provided access to HBO programming and movies outside a TV subscription for the first time), but it also was the most profitable app in the Apple App Store in May 2015.

McDonald’s CIO Deborah Hall-Lefevre believes start-ups can be catalysts for innovation and inspire new, creative thinking. Start-ups can contribute the missing piece of a technology puzzle brands haven’t quite been able to solve in-house. For example, McDonald’s and its Chipotle brand signed a partnership with the start-up Postmates, a network of couriers delivering goods locally. Beyond the “cool” factor of partnering with a hot upstart—one that raised $80M in a Series C round—this kind of partnership delivers a win for both the brand and consumer. The consumer gets previously unavailable access to a product or service, and the brand gets valuable customer data and potential incremental revenue.

What Business Are You REALLY In?

Mobile technology is redefining age-old business models. Companies are being forced to re-architect their payment systems, business operations and in-store customer experiences to deliver the sought-after 1:1 customer communication abilities. They’re being forced to consider Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt’s famous question, “What business are you in?” Consumers are walking into your front yard armed with a price comparison tool, a payment system, a customer review engine and a directory of all your competitors. Brands can no longer be just retail outlets or auto dealers; they must now be nimble partners in real-time consumer engagement.

While customer data is crucial as it always has been, connectivity is the new oil—not data. The technology that captures, manages and monetizes this data must be the starting point. And the speed at which you can adopt mobile technology into your business strategy and operations will determine whether you sink or swim in this mobile-first world.

The post “Mobile-First” Is No Longer a Marketing Luxury appeared first on Phunware.

Mobile advertising is still the “wild west” of digital marketing. Like desktop/laptop advertising, mobile is rapidly evolving, precisely targeted and data-driven. Mobile advertising networks are not quite as evolved as their counterparts in other areas of digital publishing, though, and the entire system is poorly regulated if it’s regulated at all.

That means you need to be particularly diligent about vetting potential mobile advertising partners. There are, unfortunately, plenty of advertising networks willing to take money for returns they know they can’t deliver. There are also some really great networks that offer sophisticated targeting and ad delivery that are well worth the price.

The key to choosing advertising partners wisely is to carefully evaluate potential networks’ capabilities and offerings against your clearly defined business requirements. Asking ad network providers intelligent, probing questions like the ones below will empower you to make the best mobile ad spending decisions for your business.

1. How do you source your inventory?

Ask how much of the mobile ad network’s traffic is direct from a publisher as opposed to being purchased from an exchange or other networks. There’s nothing wrong with any of these sources, but unless you understand where the network’s traffic comes from, you won’t have any idea if the price they’re asking is appropriate for the kind of return you can expect.

Let’s say you talk to three mobile ad networks, and they are priced at $1, $2 and $3, respectively. When you ask each one how they source their inventory (a publisher’s available ad placements), you will likely find that the least expensive network picks up excess unsold inventory from a random collection of publishers of both high and low quality. Ads you place in this network would be less targeted and would probably appear in sub-prime locations (e.g. pages with low traffic, below the fold, and so on).

The most expensive network, on the other hand, probably offers inventory purchased directly from publishers. This type of network can offer far more precisely targeted ad service and perhaps even premium screen real estate on prominent publishers’ sites. The mid-priced network is likely a mix of inventory—some from exchanges or other networks, and some direct from publishers. If you want the best of both worlds, this may be the best compromise.

Again, it’s perfectly fine to go with an inexpensive buy offering “remnant” inventory from exchanges, as long as you know what you’re buying and understand what you should expect in terms of the return on your investment.

2. What are your capabilities to target within a specific proximity?

The answer to this question will reveal if and to what degree a potential advertising partner can digitally “fence” an area for more precise geographic targeting. No one targets the entire world, and for many businesses it makes the most sense to get as granular as possible about who sees their ads. If proximity targeting is important to your advertising strategy, you’ll want a network that can get more precise than a zip code. It’s possible to essentially “gerrymander” the geographic zone, but not all ad networks provide that level of refinement, and not all advertisers need it. Have a good idea of what you need in terms of geo-fencing before you ask this question.

3. How do you prevent click fraud or otherwise ensure my ads will only be served on brand-safe sites?

Click fraud is when a publisher has a bot click on ads to inflate the click-through rate (CTR) so that they can attract advertisers and charge more. Brand-safe sites are publications free of hate, vulgar language and other negative elements many advertisers would hesitate to associate with their brands.

A good mobile advertising network will actively monitor and blacklist fraudulent and offensive sites to protect advertisers proactively. If a network does not maintain a blacklist and does not convey that they understand this is important to you, don’t do business with them.

4. What are your cost models?

Look for a network that offers multiple cost models, such as cost per mille (CPM), cost per click (CPC), or cost per action (CPA). With CPM, you pay for impressions. Under a CPC model, you pay for valid click-throughs. With CPA, you only pay when an actual transaction takes place as a result of the ad. Depending on your business goals, one or more of these models may suit your needs at various times, so it’s good to have choices.

The only red flag to look for in terms of cost models is an ad network that offers only CPM. This shows they’re not willing to take risks and lack the confidence that their inventory will lead to clicks or transactions.

5. How do you target consumers?

Ask them if they use programmatic algorithms (i.e. automated targeting based on business logic input), audience segmentation, device type, proximity or combination of targeting methods. You’ll want a network that has a sophisticated algorithm that will let you target your ads precisely based on criteria you define.

So if you want programmatic advertising that targets a specific audience segment in a tight geographic area, put that scenario in front of the ad network and see if they can accommodate it.

Want to see the remaining five questions and answers?
Click Here for Part 2

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Like so many acronyms flying around the business world today, eCPM means different things to different people. It is frequently confused with similar terms in the publishing, media-buying and advertising network worlds. Here are a few acronyms in the same family of ideas:

CPC = Cost per click

Under a CPC model, the advertiser pays for each valid click-through, usually associated with a specific call to action, or CTA.

CPA = Cost per action

(also called PPA, or pay per action; also cost per conversion)

In cost-per-action advertising, advertisers only pay when a transaction takes place as a direct result of the ad placement.

CTR = Click-through rate

This metric measures the relative efficiency of an ad by showing the percentage of clicks per impression.

CPM = Cost per mille

(also called RPM, or revenue per mille)

Cost per mille, or cost per thousand, refers to the price a network charges for one thousand ad impressions. Impressions are just opportunities for people to see the ad, with or without any type of action or conversion taking place. The advertiser is essentially paying for eyeballs on the ad.

What Is the Difference between CPM and eCPM?

CPM can be a bit misleading since there are often exceptions that make the actual cost per thousand impressions different from the set price for one thousand views. For example, a niche company may get fewer than one thousand impressions but still have to pay in increments of a thousand. Or a very large brand might end up paying for one million impressions but actually get 1.3 million views without paying extra.

eCPM, which stands for “effective cost per mille,” accounts for such discrepancies so that advertisers can know what their real return on their advertising investment is and make more informed decisions about future ad buys. Think of CPM as the price on an invoice, while eCPM is a comparative metric.

Here’s where the math quiz comes in. Don’t worry, though; it’s not hard. To calculate eCPM, simply divide the total earnings from a particular campaign by the total impressions and multiply the result by one thousand.

Here is an example that illustrates the difference between CPM and eCPM:

• Gizmo Galaxy buys one million impressions for $3,000.00 on Network A. The company’s CPM is $3.00. Simple and straightforward. Also, not very helpful.
• It turns out that Network A was fine-tuning the campaign at the beginning and delivered an extra 200,000 impressions (a.k.a. bonus impressions). So Gizmo Galaxy actually got 1.2 million views for its $3,000.00 media buy. Using the eCPM formula, Gizmo Galaxy’s Director of Marketing can see that the real cost was $2.50 per thousand impressions. This is a more meaningful number upon which to base future ad purchasing decisions than CPM would be.
• As a test, Gizmo Galaxy ran a separate campaign on Network B under the same criteria: one million impressions at a $3.00 CPM. At the end of the campaign, the network had delivered exactly one million impressions. Since there were not any bonus impressions, the eCPM was $3.00.

When we at Phunware refer to eCPM, this is what we mean. It’s one of the tools we use to evaluate mobile ad networks, including our own. It’s a good starting point for comparing and contrasting the effectiveness of a campaign. Used in conjunction with other metrics, research and statistics, eCPM can help advertisers make informed decisions and get the best bang for their advertising buck.

Check out an exciting case study, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation Customer Snapshot, where Phunware’s expertise delivered CPMs 100-500% higher than average!

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