Consumers prefer ads that offer personalised offers over ads that are based on timing, lifestyle, or location. 

Thats the verdict of a new survey by mobile marketing company Upstream, which was carried out by Luth Research. 

The study polled 2,000 American adults, and found that 59 per cent of featurephone users said personalised offers were most attractive to them, compared to ads based on timing (18 per cent), lifestyle (16 per cent), and location (8 per cent). 

Smartphone users had similar opinions, with 60 per cent preferring personalised offers over promotions based on timing (17 per cent), lifestyle (10 per cent) or location (14 per cent).

“Comparing the importance of personalisation versus location in receiving mobile ads is especially interesting, given the hype around location-based players such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places or even Google+ with its Latitude check-ins,” says Assaf Baciu, SVP of product management at Upstream. “While location remains an important factor in delivering mobile ads, tailoring interactions via mobile to consumers tastes and interests clearly presents much greater potential for driving higher response and conversion rates.”

The survey is part of Upstreams North American Consumer Attitudes to Mobile Marketing research. The study also found that smartphone users are interested in viewing ads for content for their mobile device, followed by movies and entertainment ads, including tickets. Offers from their mobile service provider and consumer goods ads also scored highly. 

Featurephone users ranked offers from their mobile service provider highest, followed by movies/entertainment, content for their mobile device and consumer goods, and offers from retail stores.

Survey respondents were also asked to say what was their preferred mobile advertising channel. Smartphone users ranked mobile coupons highest and text alerts second, while featurephone users ranked text alerts highest. 

“Interestingly, despite more sophisticated forms of mobile marketing out there, opt-in text alerts or messages still score very highly with regard to consumer responsiveness,” says Baciu. “This data reinforces the very intimate, personal nature of consumers mobile devices, and the singular priority for mobile marketers to carefully manage and optimise their engagement and number of interactions with customers.”