Mobile marketing experts feel that the challenge with in-app advertising is that it is very intrusive and not context-relevant Talk to some marketers about in-app advertising and they will point out a bunch of concerns. Even media planners at times say that clients still perceive in-app as a less premium environment or something offering limited access to the desirable audiences. How can brands look beyond the perceived complexity surrounding in-app advertising and get a sense of quality inventory? According to Vikram Chandra, Founder, Editorji Technologies, one of the reasons that brands perceive in-app advertising in certain way is because it has been practiced in a limited way and now is the time to open it up to newer possibilities.

“For the publisher, in-app adverts disrupt the user flow and lead to low engagement as well as attrition. For the advertisers, the publishing apps often populate the entire application with a handful of advertisements. It turns out to be a classic case of mindless advertising. At times, the approach even leads to negative brand recall.” Tiwari further added that the need of the hour is for innovative advertising aggregators to step in which in turn will ensure that there is a larger assortment of ads available. “Publishers should ensure that there is minimal disruption in user experience while also guaranteeing that any ad does not disrupt the UI of the application. A good way to go forward will also be to achieve strong personalization with gamification of ads to an extent. Doing so will allow the end-users to enjoy immersive experiences with ads that align well with their intent, rather than mindlessly watching an ad and waiting for it to end,” he added Of utmost importance to the advertiser is transparency, as they would always want to track the sources from which they are getting their traffic, says Neha Kulwal, Country Manager, Admitad India. “This is where DMP platforms come in by sharing the data exact with advertisers, including metrics such as Publisher ID, and traffic source, and conversion rates, so that campaigns can be optimised towards a certain goal. To handle this matter in a better way, it is important to plan campaigns in a transparent manner where the platforms and traffic sources are discussed with the brand before they are activated. These insights will prove to be a new experience to win customer’s attention,” said Kulwal. There is no doubt that this pandemic has presented a big opportunity in the mobile application space. There are a number of reports that highlight how there has been a marked rise in the time spent on digital devices, and mobile applications in particular. The development has made in-app advertising quite lucrative for brands catering to the horizontal market, but they seem to be having second thoughts.   “The participation remains suboptimal as there is a sizable gap in terms of marketing metrics as well as the user experience. We believe that only seamless integrations that deliver exceptional results can alone change the status quo. Having said that, there is no doubt that in-app advertising is going to be the next big destination for advertisers,” argues Rohit Sakunia, Co-founder & Chief Business Officer, Art-E Media, a tech-marketing consultancy.   According to Karan Gupta, Director, Vijay Sales, when it comes to in-app advertising, relevance is of prime importance and should be the focus of publishers. “If someone is on a travel booking app and he/she is shown an advertisement for a fridge, it doesn’t make sense. But on the same app, if he/she is looking for any adventure trip and is shown an action camera, there is a possibility for a conversion and the viewer not thinking that the add as irrelevant.” Mobile marketing experts feel that the bigger challenge with in-app advertisements is that they are very intrusive and not context relevant. According to them, users open an app not to view an advertisement but for a different purpose, making in-app ads a deterrent to the users experience, which reflects poorly on the advertiser too. “In-app advertisements should be highly personalized and context relevant. Additionally, in-app advertisements should be interactive, highly personalized, customised, context relevant and interactive making it seem like a conversation rather than an advertisement,” said Maaz Ansari, Co Founder, ORI. Meeta Wasan Gujral, CEO & Founder of Doon Consulting, says though marketers are using in-app purchases to boost their revenues & increase profits transparency & measuring views is still a challenge. “Excessive reselling and multiple middlemen contribute to the issues with in-app purchases. I think the right choice of Open Measurement Software Development Kit can resolve the issue to a large extent. People can also explore multi-publisher Targeted PMPs as it helps in inventory discovery, ingest data, target preferred publishers and create PMP deals, all while avoiding time-consuming negotiations with publishers."