As you’re planning your marketing strategy for 2023, you’re most likely wondering how you can make your money go further, or how you can spend less but more efficiently. Luckily, the pace of innovation keeps up with a fast-changing market, and there are always new ways to leverage technology to improve campaign performance. In 2023 we can expect to see a wider range of channels used, on-trend ad creatives that push marketers even further, and analytics and AI advancements that automate and optimize campaigns. Let’s dig into each of them:
Short-form video will take over
For everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock in 2022, they would have seen the wide adoption of short-form “snackable” video in social channels, which has in turn changed the way that people consume content. As with all trends, its influence will spread wider than a given social media platform’s core content, and in 2023 we expect to see more and more ad creatives utilizing the short-form video format to engage consumers. Faced with these shorter video run times, marketers will be challenged to create ads that grab attention in a fraction of the time they used to. To do this, we’re starting to see more ads leverage humor, real people, and audio – and we expect that innovation to continue.
On-device ads go mainstream
As UA gets more competitive, a key strategy is to look beyond where you’re currently running campaigns for new channels that can provide incremental growth. One channel which has already been popular with mobile gaming apps for some time is on-device campaigns, where technology providers connect advertisers with telco operators. As the drive for efficient, truly incremental growth only heightens, we can expect more app advertisers to leverage this channel with competitive CPIs.
The rise of value-exchange advertising
As everyone feels the economic pinch, the demand by consumers for alternative payment models is increasing. Rewarded ads, where a user takes an action in exchange for a reward, have been mainstream in mobile games for some time. Now, those users who have grown up with mobile games, and welcome that form of advertising, will seek out value-exchange advertising on other channels. Rewarded ads like rewarded videos and Offerwalls will give marketers an opportunity to connect with high value potential customers in a uniquely positive ad experience that provides actual value.
Machine optimization for ultimate price efficiency
Much of next year will be about maximizing revenue from existing users rather than acquiring new ones. They’ll better leverage their first-party data to build a richer profile of their target audience, and then utilize machine learning to improve their UA. This may be to help them improve churn (retaining more users), to improve their engagement with users to increase recurring purchases (increasing LTV), to better analyze users to tailor marketing campaigns across the marketing channels (be that UA, push notifications, email or others) and more. Bottom line, it will be about better leveraging the data they have and doing more optimization with less manual work.
With a highly competitive app market and with consumers developing shorter attention spans, it’s crucial that marketers continue to adapt their user acquisition strategy as well as come up with new ways to keep the attention of their current users. Staying up-to-date with new creative trends, expanding to channels that can provide incremental growth, and utilizing rewarded ad units like Offerwalls, may become an important part of grabbing and retaining the attention of those users.
By utilizing these four trends, marketers can help best maximize the performance of their mobile marketing strategies for 2023 and beyond.