How to make mobile ads that connect.

The future is in our hands. Quite literally. Society is becoming more and more mobile-centric. Somewhat scary proof of this is that Australians, on average, spend 5.5 hours a day on their phones. That’s a third of the hours you’re awake. Looking at a screen.

It’s only natural that advertising would follow suit. And it’s already showing. Around 341 billion US dollars was spent on mobile advertising worldwide this year. That’s projected to increase to 494 billion by 2024.

But your marketing strategy won’t be successful just by copying and pasting your ads from desktop to mobile. Nope. That’s a no-go. Not only is the interface of mobile obviously different, so too is the user experience.

Luckily, we’ve had a decent amount of time to study how people interact with mobile advertising. So when you’re deciding on how to make mobile ads for your brand, it’s kind of important (by which we mean a lot) to follow some best practices.

Understand how people consume.

If the success of social media platforms like TikTok has taught us anything, it’s that short-form content rules the mobile landscape. So when you’re making your ads for this medium, you have to follow suit, or your audience won’t give you the time of day. For video, 6-10 seconds is generally the money spot.

Get your branding in early.

This tip stems off the back of the first. While it’s still widely debated just how short the human attention span has gotten, the point remains that it’s definitely smaller than a few decades ago.

So it’s crucial that people are seeing your brand’s name before swiping or scrolling. This’ll ensure you’re getting that brand awareness that makes mobile advertising so lucrative in the first place. The sweet spot? Around the 2-3 second mark.

If putting your brand name at this point doesn’t make sense for your execution, try using recognisable brand colours or talent. For an extra chance at stopping those thumbs, add some motion into your creative. This can boost your click-through rate (CTR) by up to 25%.

Design for sound off.

If you’ve ever typed ‘how to make mobile ads’ into a search engine, you may have heard before that it’s important to make them optimal for no sound. Why? This ties back to the user behaviour for mobile. When people are commuting or in a public place, chances are they’ll keep the sound off to avoid annoying those around them.

Unless of course they’re wearing headphones. Which is why you can’t stop at JUST designing for no sound. You also need to enhance the experience for those that choose to listen with sound. Make it worth their while that they’re choosing to pay full attention to your ads.

Growth hack: Adding subtitles to videos with dialogue can lead to a 28% better completion rate.

Stay true to the format.

If you’ve read any of our other articles, you’ll know we say this time and time again. Always, always, always optimise your creative for the channel it’s placed. Not only are you ensuring that your creative is looking the best it can be, it also shows you understand the platform.

This doesn’t just apply to video either. This goes for all forms of mobile advertising. Social ads, programmatic banners, you name it. Don’t cut any corners. Make it right for the channel.

Experiment with emerging technologies.

Mobile is an exciting device, with new features made accessible to us constantly. Use this to your advantage. Incorporate some interactive mobile marketing. Experiment with gamification of your mobile ads. What could your brand do with augmented reality?

Utilising these new features not only excites your audience, it also gets them talking about your brand. Word-of-mouth is still one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is.

So, now you know the basics of how to make mobile ads. If you’re thinking about producing your own, fantastic. We like your style. Need help in conceptualising a creative execution? Or maybe the best way to amplify your ads? Talk to a strategist today and let’s see how we can crush your marketing goals.