AppLift’s inaugural conference, FirstScreen, is just a week away. As we countdown to June 15, we bring to you a series of interviews with our speakers. Read on to learn more about their perspective on all things mobile! Up this week is PubNative’s Eddie De Guia.
Thank you so much for taking part in the first edition of the FirstScreen Conference. To start off, a general question: what does the concept of mobile mean to you?
Not to sound cheesy, but mobile is you. It’s the only device that encompasses everything we do. We use it to capture moments, get lost in music, work, communicate with our family and friends, exercise, control our finances and even our homes. All of this is done in ‘real time’. We personalize it with the apps that we identify with. We put covers on it to make us stand out. It’s the device that is rightfully or wrongfully connected to you, all the time.
2014 and 2015 have both subsequently been termed as the “year of native”. Yet we’re in 2016 and it doesn’t seem to have taken off as quickly as most predicted. Why do you think this is the case?
Awareness is lacking on the buy side. Advertisers need to start looking at mobile programmatic in the same way as online programmatic, creating attractive, compelling native ad units that seamlessly fit the form, function and purpose of the apps in which they live.
As of now the challenge is educating advertisers and demonstrating that it is possible – today, right now – to deploy standardized, compelling in-app native. Maybe not as quickly as most predicted but mobile native advertising will continue to soar going forward. By 2020, more than 63% of mobile display ads will be native. That translates into more than $53 billion in advertising revenue.
What would be your advice to developers willing to go for an ad-supported business model?
Ultimately a diversified strategy is important to best monetize. Throwing up disruptive banner or video ads though in a short term provide immediate revenue value; however, from a long term perspective it will dilute the brand that you’ve created. With that being said you should evaluate the best partner to you that provides you support and learnings. Additionally you should consider testing multiple placements and ad formats (display, video, native). Picking a technology provider (ad-server, mediation, content management system) solution always helps in terms of SDK fatigue and allowing you to specialize on your expertise.
What are you most looking forward to at #firstscreen16?
Learning more about the effect that mobile is playing in various sectors. My company’s focus is only in AdTech. Although from our standpoint we get to hear the stories about the impact of user behavior, about monetization pain points or about UA strategies from great companies such as Baidu, Tango, mail.ru, it’s always nice to hear other companies’ learnings.
FirstScreen will take place on June 15th in the vibrant digital capital of Europe, Berlin. AppLift has teamed up with Online Marketing Rockstars to host this show at Kino International Berlin. For tickets and conference details, please click here.
You can read the previous interview in the series here. Stay tuned for our next speaker interview!