The first UK PubAcademy of 2017 came at the end of a busy couple of weeks for our UK team, dominated by our presence at Mobile World Congress and the expansion of PubMatic’s ad decisioning solutions to mobile apps. This event was timed to coincide with the end of MWC and was designed to provide a high-level wrap-up of the core topics discussed at MWC and to build upon those conversations with commentary and opinion from our agenda of speakers.
As I stated in my introduction on the day, the one thing that became very clear at MWC (if it wasn’t before) is that the future of digital marketing is mobile. A lot’s been said about the ‘year of mobile,’ so I won’t go there, but with more than 2 billion smartphone users worldwide, I could be forgiven for saying that this could very well be the ‘decade’.
In 2016 mobile ad spend increased by 430% as compared to 2013, and it shows no signs of slowing down. By 2021, mobile ad spend is expected to account for 72% of all digital spend, according to Magna Global. This growth obviously presents opportunities for both publishers and advertisers—however, with opportunity comes challenges as well.
Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that much of the conversation at MWC was around how publishers and media buyers can align their strategies to take advantage of the enormous mobile opportunity without alienating their audiences… and then there’s the small matter of how they do that in a programmatic world. Now, I was under no illusion that my team and the audience would walk away with all the answers by the end of PubAcademy, but I was hopeful that we’d have some of them.
Helping us to come some conclusions were our speakers for the day, who discussed some of the challenges they were facing, shared their insights and suggestions for best practices that would help us all get the most out of mobile.
Trends From the Q4 2016 Quarterly Mobile Index
Dipti Patel, our Director of Publisher Development, took the audience through our latest Quarterly Mobile Index (QMI) report. She summarised the key trends highlighted in this edition of the QMI as follows:
- Publishers continue to realise the benefits of header bidding tactics as mobile growth exceeds the pace of digital growth;
- Shift of brand advertising to programmatic is propped up by mobile PMPs where buyers gain transparency and control over open RTB buys;
- Consumer buying models are evolving for mobile as they did for display;
- Mobile app advertising opportunities are becoming more on par with mobile web;
- Android is catching up with iOS.
Mike Reynolds, Senior Mobile Executive at the IAB UK attempted to condense four days of MWC content into 40 minutes and also shared some of the things he expects to see come to the fore as we progress through 2017:
MWC Condensed
- It’s (still) bloody massive;
- Everyone was talking about virtual reality/artificial Intelligence;
- Augmented reality continues to grow.
2017 Trends
- The consumer love affair with all things mobile will continue to go from strength to strength;
- Mobile will stimulate digital growth;
- Video will fuel mobile growth.
Lauren Dick, Head of Emerging Solutions for Mail Online, then joined PubMatic’s Adam McEnery, Solutions Engineer, to share the top three things that are keeping her awake at night. Specifically:
- Data: Pulling first party data is relatively easy, but how do you pull out the high-value user?
- Tech: There’s a trend for publishers to bring programmatic in-house, but should they buy or build their own ad tech?
- Viewability: The breadth of the definition of viewability within the industry is the biggest challenge.
Finally, Mark Giblin, PubMatic’s Associate Director of Media Solutions, facilitated a balloon debate on the best way to drive mobile spend. Participants included Jide Sobo, Head of Mobile at MEC Interaction; Lolly Mason, Head of Media Partnerships, EMEA at Celtra; Jonathan McCauley-Oliver, Digital Revenue Manager at National Rail Enquiries; and Orly Tsesis, Head of Demand for Europe at Inneractive. Despite compelling arguments covering everything from creativity, beacons and proximity and the power of mobile video, it was Jide’s compelling argument for planning mobile campaigns based on how consumers are interacting with their devices that won the day.
PubMatic recently celebrated its 10th Birthday, but we’re not the only ones hitting double digits–the iPhone is also about to celebrate the same milestone. The mobile industry has certainly come a long way in that ‘decade of mobile’ and the pace of change shows no sign of slowing down.
Exciting, but scary in equal measure.
About PubAcademy
PubAcademy is a global industry education initiative PubMatic established to help ensure our customers and partners are in the best position to achieve their individual business goals and address the unique set of challenges that they face in this ever changing world of programmatic.
