The Pros and Cons of Mobile Advertising

With billions of smartphones around the world, advertisers are finding any and every way to use consumers’ favorite devices to reach their target audiences. Mobile advertising accounts for more than $160B in annual spend across US advertisers.

If you’re debating the advantages and disadvantages of mobile advertising, here’s your chance to learn more about it. Find out more about the pros and cons of mobile ads and why mobile marketing is important for the success of your business.

The Pros of Mobile Advertising

Here are some of the advantages of mobile advertising and how to help businesses reach their advertising goals.

1. Reach people when and where they are

One of the biggest benefits of mobile advertising for businesses is that you can quickly reach the right audience with the right ad. Most people have at least one smartphone or other mobile device on them at all times, and they check it throughout the day at both work and home. In fact, users are ditching their laptops for browsing in favor of their smartphones. As of March 2024, 61.21% of all internet traffic came from mobile devices.

Mobile advertisements allow businesses to reach out to customers on their mobile phones anytime throughout the day. In most situations, users receive an advertisement just seconds after it has been published, making it easy to deliver real-time, relevant information.

2. Target specific demographics

Mobile advertising can use big data to target specific demographics. This makes it possible refine your messaging, creative design, and call-to-action to specific users who match your target demographic, which can increase interaction and conversion rates.

3. Engage with individuals

If you choose to use targeted advertising strategies like geofencing or geotargeting, you can engage with individual users. With location-based targeting, you can help build and establish a professional relationship with customers by providing mobile advertising customized specifically to who they are and their specific needs.

Mobile advertising also offers new, interactive ad space and ways for customer engagement like push notifications, interstitial ads, in-app ads, native ads, pop ups, sms marketing, and more.

4. Create an omnichannel experience

Mobile advertisements allow you to create an omnichannel experience for your customers. Whether they interact with your brand through your mobile advertisements, website, or storefront, they will get the same voice, style, and feel from your company. This unified ad experience helps improve brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

5. Positive experiences are shared

When you create a memorable ad, mobile users can easily share it with their friends and family. Your ad can quickly grow to a viral success, where you reach audience members you never intended to target. This helps you get more exposure and reach a new audience.

Cons of Mobile Advertising

Here are four of the potential cons of mobile advertising—and how to counteract them.

1. Negative experiences are shared

Though mobile advertising can encourage people to share positive experiences, this comes with a con. If you create a negative user experience or a socially awkward or unacceptable ad, it’s just as easy for customers to share this experience, especially on social media platforms. This can counteract your advertising goals and even hurt your business growth, depending on the severity of the problem.

2. Instant delivery

Mobile advertising provides almost instant delivery to your target audience. This can be a major benefit where you can create and publish campaigns and see instant results. This can be especially useful for ad optimization. But the speed of access can make it easy to release rushed or unpolished materials.

The best way to fight against sloppy rushed materials is to follow a publishing checklist. Rather than letting mistakes slip through the cracks, make sure each advertisement is edited and viewed by as many people as possible to ensure mistakes are caught before being shared with your customers.

3. Increased assumptions

Many mobile advertisements are short and sweet. They rely heavily on graphics and have very little content inside them. You might only get one sentence to say what you need to say. This limit creates a vacuum of information where customers have to make assumptions around what you provide them.

In the best-case scenario, customers can fill in the blanks with the right pieces of information, but there is always the risk of customers making the wrong assumptions about a brand or product.

One way to avoid this is to be aware of what information is missing from your advertisement and make sure that content is included on your landing page or easily accessible on your website. Additionally, using more immersive formats like video ads can be clearer.

4. Big data doesn't track intent

Mobile advertising allows companies direct access to important customer metrics and data. It’s possible to track users’ behaviors and actions with your advertisement; however, those data points are missing context.

For example, after running a mobile advertising campaign, it’s easy to track the click-through rate (CTR) for your advertisement. CTR reflects the number of times your ad is shown compared to how many times your ad is clicked on.

Most campaigns are looking for a higher click-through rate because companies assume this means an advertisement has proven to be successful. The problem with this metric is that it doesn’t explain why customers decided to click the advertisement. Was it because they were legitimately interested in what your company was advertising, or was it a misclick?

While many metrics can judge different parts of the customer’s journey and their interaction with your advertisement, you will never be able to know their actual thoughts and motivations when interacting with your brand. Of course, this issue isn’t exclusive to mobile advertising, so it’s something to deal with no matter how you choose to reach out.

Get Started With Agility

In today’s day and age, mobile advertising should be included in just about every digital marketing strategy. There’s no reason to not engage with potential customers on the platforms they use the most. But too many advertisers build their mobile marketing strategy as a silo’d channel. Precision advertising serves your target audience with the right ads and the right messaging across all channels on the open internet, including mobile advertisements. Focus on efficient marketing efforts and maximize your return on ad spend with precision advertising through Agility.