John-Paul Burke, country manager, UK and Ireland at Gameloft, says that 2019 could be the year than in-app advertising takes off.

Brands that understand the potential offered by mobile marketing strategies are increasingly investing where it matters: in-app. We need to be talking louder about in-app as an industry, and the in-app opportunity needs its champions.

It was good to see Fyber’s research of brand advertisers and agency media planners backing this up in the piece on Mobile Marketing last week. Separate research from PubMatic published last year found that in-app advertising already represents more than half of mobile ad spend worldwide, and growth remains strong at 21 per cent. But these figures do not tell the full story on the in-app opportunity. There’s more to this tale.
Even though in-app continues to grow massively, as mobile does, there are still people in our industry, both agency and client-side, who are reticent to take the step into in-app, and that needs fronting.

What’s encouraging to see from the research is that the benefits of buying in-app are being recognised by brand advertisers, chiefly for the huge audience reach (49 per cent), and the high levels of engagement (32 per cent). Essentially, the benefit of apps is that they allow brands to get far closer to users; it’s where the brand audience is.

In the case of mobile gaming, which Fyber also looked at, it’s about getting closer to the players. Importantly, we create games that people want to play and engage with, and this includes how you integrate advertising into the experience. In-game advertising needs to be part of the content. Not obstructive or unwanted, as this will ruin the player experience. The industry has seen a shift in how in-game advertising works, as publishers focus on the players and make advertising more appreciated.

With in-app, you also get an audience that is sitting forward and engaged in your content when you show it, and not just people drifting through without giving their full attention. Taking gameplay as an example, it offers an immersive environment where people are relaxed and open to content, providing the best opportunity for a large audience to positively engage with brands.

Apps also allow marketers to be more targeted in terms of understanding and reaching audiences, as shown by the fact that brand advertisers consider one of the greatest benefits of in-app to be its targeting capabilities (27 per cent). This is a huge plus that shouldn’t be overlooked when compared to mobile web. Apps provide better clarity data through device IDs, compared with cookies, which can be refreshed or lost.

In-app benefits go beyond high audience reach, engagement and targeting capabilities. They also give marketers new opportunities to create rounded, creative campaigns through experimenting with new formats. We must challenge ourselves by integrating a range of formats to help with the overall brand piece. For a start, think beyond just video.

If 2019 is the year that in-app truly takes off, then we have to face up to our challenges and understand where reticence from advertisers comes from.  According to the Fyber study, just 32 per cent of media agencies include in-app in at least half of their media plans. The reason cited was the evidence needed on effectiveness, performance and measurement – and the perception that this is where in-app is failing to deliver compared to other options.

Now, this is important. It is in part due to the challenges around brand safety and transparency that are making brands more hesitant when it comes to digital and mobile spend, and in-app has suffered from a lack of coherence between publishers and how they operate. Now that publishers (ourselves included) are teaming up with credible third parties to ensure measurement, quality and safety is robust, we can start to make a change.

As one of the first-in app companies to receive the new IAB UK Gold Standard certification, joining the likes of Facebook, Group M, and Publicis Media, we are calling on other in-app publishers to do the same. As more publishers receive this accreditation, we can give brands the assurance they need and earn their trust.

As an industry, we also need to help guide brands on the right in-app approach. It shouldn’t be a leap or a jump into the unknown. It has to be an informed decision, and we’re not doing our jobs if we aren’t offering the right support.

If you are a brand and you are experimenting with in-app, ask questions of the publisher and of your agency. Ask for an app list and check the quality of what you are buying. Find out about audience data, viewability and safety. Decent in-app companies that have their end users in mind are the ones to work with. Putting the user first, ahead of advertising, means making the ad experience better, and you’ll see better results.

We are at a turning point for in-app, and we need to take active steps to deal with the challenges that brands and agencies are having. The industry is getting its house in order and this year we need more champions of in-app to come together and continue this conversation.

It’s going to be a great year.