Welcome back to our Industry Exposed series! This time around, we sat down with Ty Sinclair and Jim Hayhurst of Pretio Interactive to know their different approach to mobile advertising and the potential of brand rewards on mobile.
Ty Sinclair is Founder and COO of Pretio Interactive where he has led virtually every aspect of the company’s growth as a leader in app monetization and engagement. He has over a decade of experience building products and companies in digital marketing, loyalty/rewards and mobile advertising.
Jim Hayhurst is CEO of Pretio Interactive where he answers to his team on how they can build the best company possible. His experience with high growth startups, venture financing and tech-enabled marketplaces has helped Pretio become a valued partner for top developers, networks and brands.
Can you briefly present Pretio and its business model?
At Pretio, we take a different approach to mobile advertising. We help brands reach consumers across a variety of apps when they are most emotionally engaged are more statistically proven to convert.
If someone runs a personal best in a running app, she shouldn’t be interrupted with an annoying 30 second video about an irrelevant product. She should be rewarded for her engagement, and that’s where we come in. We surprise people by matching non-incentivized brand rewards to in-app Achievement Moments. These feel-good interactions create memorable experiences that help brands acquire customers and promote loyalty while increasing app revenue and retention for publishers. It’s win-win for everyone involved!
Which problems in the mobile industry are you trying to solve?
Typically, mobile advertising is seen as a tradeoff. Developers need to show ads in their apps in order to make money — but users see them as annoying and intrusive. We’re creating a way for advertising to work for brands, publishers, and the people who see them by connecting users with top advertisers in an emotionally engaging way.
People reflexively turn to their smartphones in the “I want-to-know,” “I want-to-go,” I want-to-do,” and “I want-to-buy” moments. These micro-moments are crucial in the user experience that shape consumers’ decisions as they continue down the buyer’s journey. There are millions of micro-moments happening everyday, and they represent a huge opportunity for brands because consumers now expect them to be there. The moment that we focus in on at Pretio is the Achievement Moment.
What do you define as “Achievement Moments”? How does it change across app verticals?
Achievement moments are bursts of excitement that occur within the user experience and give in-app users a rush. They happen when users reach milestones within apps and games, like beating a level, running a new personal best, or crossing off a task on a to-do list.
Every app genre has their achievement moments; it’s all about finding the euphoria of a win so that brands can piggy-back on those feel good moments. What changes is the rewards being offered across the different vertices. A Millennial mom playing a Match 3 game will want to see a much different offer than male who just completed his village on a Builder. Our mindset targeting algorithm is continually testing and optimizing our traffic to make sure we are showing the right rewards, to the right users, at the right time.
Which platform and technological developments do you think are necessary to fully unlock the potential of brand rewards on mobile?
We’re very excited for the adoption of mobile wallets, because it will allow for immediate reward redemption. In theory, someone could win a coupon for a coffee while playing a game in line, have that reward delivered to their mobile wallet and redeem on the spot in store. That’s the future of mobile rewards! Of course a unified point of sale (POS) and coupon redemption method in brick-and-mortar locations will improve this by allowing better attribution and ROI tracking.
What is your take on the risks associated with ad blocking? Which solutions can you put forward?
Ad blocking is getting a lot of buzz right now, but as we see publishers increase their adoption of ads that don’t disrupt the user experience and actually add value to the consumer — like branded rewards — ads will be seen as helpful instead of disruptive. There is a huge opportunity in mobile advertising because with the right data, you can pinpoint the needs of a specific user. I think with advancements in ad formats and targeting we will see the demand for ad blocking disappear.
Which steps are you taking to combat mobile fraud?
We work on a performance model, so we want to make sure that the quality always backs out for our advertisers. Because of this, mobile ad fraud is something we take very seriously. As a first defence, we limit the number of ad requests per device to ensure viewability. We don’t want the same user to see the same offer more than 3 times per day. Not only does this prevent fraud, but it keeps the of rewards. The second thing we have done to prevent ad fraud is implemented an email verification step powered by Experian in our ad unit. The verification ensures the email address is hosted by a real domain and checks for spelling mistakes so that we know all of the leads we send to our brand partners belongs to a real person.
Which developments can we expect on your platform in the upcoming months?
Right now we are looking to expand the types of campaigns we are running, testing some CPL and CPA offers. We’re also expanding our reach geographically. You can expect that we’re always working to advance our targeting and predictability to match the right ad to the right user at the right moment.
We thank Ty and Jim for their time. Stay tuned for the next Industry Exposed series!