Social and mobile media have changed marketing and advertising by providing a seemingly endless number of new opportunities for brands, content creators, and media buyers. Both platforms offer opportunities for paid, earned, and owned engagement with consumers (though paid opportunities are still being perfected).
Social media is growing in use, reach, and platforms. Smartphone use exceeded 50 percent of consumers a few months ago, and even pre-paid carriers are offering affordable smartphone plans, making mobile browsing a cultural norm.
All agencies should approach all projects -- from website builds to media campaigns -- from a mobile and social perspective. But good mobile and social campaigns are about much more than checking those elements off a list.
Mobile
With the amount of engagement happening on mobile devices, mobile provides a significant opportunity for media buyers -- from in-app advertising to mobile website display ads and incentivized engagement. Certain things we can approach with caution and with the tools provided to us; others, the industry is still working through. Here are some of the main concerns to consider before jumping into mobile advertising:
Tracking
Tagging mobile creative is more cumbersome and less consistent than standard digital banners. Tagging takes more time, requires more QA, and isn't always accurate once live -- DoubleClick and other mobile companies need to find solutions to these issues, and the newest release of DoubleClick's DFP offers some updates for mobile trafficking that will hopefully eliminate some of the discrepancies.
It is also up to the publishers and networks to get up to speed and provide flexible and transparent mobile set-up and results. No need to keep hiding behind the black box, it's time we all work together.
