The lifespan of a mobile ad is very short. In fact, three minutes after it displays to a user, a mobile ad has already received about 100% of the click-throughs that it will ever get.
This data comes from a study published by Andrew Waber of Chitika on Marketingland, which analyzed a single week of ad performance on the Chitika ad network. No, this is not a large study, so the results are certainly not something you should plan your mobile advertising strategies around. However, these results are indicative of the mobile advertising environment.
At the very least, you should test and track your own mobile marketing ads to determine what their lifespans are. Based on the results, you might want to vary your creative, rethink your placements, or even retool your entire strategy.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the key data provided in the report. Following is a breakdown of the approximate percentage of total clicks that occurred throughout the first 330 seconds after a smartphone user loaded a page that included a mobile ad:
- 15-seconds: highest percentage of clicks
- 30-seconds: 46% of clicks
- 60-seconds: 69% of clicks
- 90-seconds: 79% of clicks
- 120-seconds: 85% of clicks
- 180-seconds: 90% of clicks
- 300-seconds: 95% of clicks
It’s important to point out that this data is based behaviors among an audience of North American smarthphone users, but the results for North American tablet users were very similar:
- 30-seconds: 52% of clicks
- 60-seconds: 72% of clicks
- 90-seconds: 81% of clicks
- 120-seconds: 86% of clicks
- 180-seconds: 91% of clicks
- 300-seconds: 95% of clicks
Timing is critical in mobile marketing and regardless of device or mobile operating system, the click-through pattern for mobile ads remains much the same. If your ad doesn’t get a click within the first two minutes, it’s already too late. Real-time reporting is essential. Brand marketers are quick to invest in A/B testing and other types of performance tracking, but few analyze real-time mobile advertising statistics in order to make changes to underperforming ad creative and placement as quickly as possible.
Finding out that your ad delivered unacceptable ROI weeks after-the-fact when your agency finally delivers performance reports to you is something that should never happen in mobile advertising. Remember, your ad will fail or succeed within 120-seconds.
Image: Svilen Milev
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
