A comprehensive review of China's mobile internet advertising in 2019

The most important turning point is that with the widespread popularization of 4G and the gradual shift of user attention to mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets, mobile Internet has gradually become the mainstream of the industry, and the same is true for Internet advertising.

According to iResearch Consulting data, from 2013 to 2019, the proportion of mobile advertising in online advertising soared from 12.1% to 82.8%, and has become the core of online advertising.

The rise of mobile advertising has attracted attention. As 2019 is coming to an end, this article will comprehensively sort out and summarize the current definitions, types and strategies of mobile Internet advertising, and explore future trends.

Framework diagram of this article

1. Definition - From mobile web to mobile APP

Mobile Internet advertising is advertising that is displayed when a mobile app or mobile web page is accessed via a mobile device (mobile phone, PSP, tablet, etc.).

Specifically, there are two types of advertising: Wap advertising and APP advertising. These two types of advertising have very different forms and display modes. The former is based on the HTML framework and is displayed on the browser web page. The website developer obtains revenue.
The share is relatively small. The latter relies on the OS operating system architecture and is the advertisement displayed in the APP application, which is the mainstream form.

2. Types: From splash ads to incentive ads

Without mentioning Wap ads, according to my observation, there are currently two ways to divide APP ads in the industry:

According to the industry to which the APP belongs, it can be divided into search advertising, e-commerce advertising, portal and news advertising, vertical advertising (i.e. vertical screen video), video advertising (i.e. horizontal screen video), etc. This form of classification is suitable for research and analysis institutions to gain insights into development trends in various industries. For example, the rise of Douyin and Kuaishou apps in 2018 has greatly boosted the growth of vertical advertising share.

According to the attributes of the ad space, it can be divided into splash screen ads, banner ads, interstitial ads, patch ads, information flow ads, incentive ads, etc. In my opinion, this form of classification is the most accurate. Ad space is what advertisers directly purchase when placing advertisements. There are often multiple ad spaces in the same APP, and the same ad space also has multiple forms.

1. Splash

Splash Ad. is also called startup page ad. It appears when the APP starts loading. It displays the ad image or video for a fixed time (5 seconds). After the display is completed, it automatically closes and enters the APP main page.

As the primary entrance to the carrier app, splash screen ads are designed to be large in size (the largest ad slot in the app) and skippable (generally placed in a location that users rarely touch). Based on this, splash screen ads have high visibility and good advertising effects, making them the first choice for brand advertisers.

2. Banner

Banner Ads are the earliest form of online advertising and have been used on mobile devices. They are presented in the form of rich media such as text and pictures at the top (including pull-down refresh), bottom or middle of pages such as the APP homepage, discovery page, and special details page.

Compared with splash screen ads, banner ads on mobile terminals are small in size, positioned in a biased position (to take into account user experience and avoid accidental touches), and support carousel (dynamically displaying text links/pictures from different advertisers). Based on this, banner ads are difficult to attract user attention, and both ad visibility and advertising effectiveness are poor.

3. Interstitial

Interstitial Ad. is a triggered ad. After the user makes a corresponding operation (such as start, pause, pass, jump, exit), a half-screen or full-screen ad in the form of a picture, animated image, video, etc. will pop up.

Compared with banner ads, interstitial ads have high exposure and attract users' attention, but they are easy to cause users to be disgusted (interrupting their normal use of the APP) and close the ads immediately. Overall, interstitial ads affect user experience, and ad visibility and effectiveness are average.

4. Roll Ads

Roll Ad. is to insert the advertising content into the video. It can be divided into two forms: video patches and Band-Aids. The former is to add horizontal video ads of 5s-60s to three positions before, during or after the video is played. The latter puts elements such as pictures/animated images in the video being played.

Video patch ads follow the design of ad slots from the PC era. The overall advertising effect is closely related to the type and quality of the video, and is generally based on traditional purchasing and bidding transactions. Band-Aid ads can be combined with plot design and their small size provide a better user experience, higher ad visibility, and better advertising effects.

5. Feeds

Feeds Ad. is the most popular form of APP at present. It appears in APPs that produce content and is an advertising form that is integrated with the daily content of APP (such as a piece of news, dynamics, pictures, videos).

Compared with other ad positions, information flow ads are the most extensible and playable ad positions. Currently, there are dozens of recordable formats, including text links, small pictures, picture groups, large pictures, vertical videos, etc.

Due to its strong originality and content, information flow advertising can maximize the protection of user experience and also form secondary dissemination, and its advertising effect is better than most advertising positions.

6. Search Ads

Search Ad. is also a triggered ad. After a user searches for a keyword, an ad appears in the search association or search results. It is usually the advertiser’s APP/product, or content with a promotional nature, presented in the form of an information flow. Generally, they are mainstream advertising spaces in app stores, e-commerce, and search tools. In recent years, large social and information categories have also been accelerating their layout.

It is undeniable that search ads are the ad placement with the strongest conversion effect, and can form a loop of user search - ad guidance - complete conversion (download/order). However, apps that want to provide search ads need a certain search base and reputation (user trust), so currently in mobile advertising, it is the ad position with the highest application threshold.

7. Incentive

Incentive Ads use incentives to get users to accept ads or take specific actions, such as downloading apps or watching videos. It can be divided into two forms: point wall and incentive video. In the former, users can complete designated operations to obtain points and redeem rewards. In the latter, users can complete designated operations to obtain rights and interests, such as game resurrection, new privileges, etc.

Mutual benefit is the core feature of incentive advertising. For APP, providing incentive advertising can monetize the traffic of users who are not willing to pay. For users, they can obtain corresponding rights and interests through operations and improve the APP usage experience. Overall, the click cost of incentive ads is low and the advertising effect is good.

3. Strategy: From native advertising to interactive advertising

Strategy is the course of action and method of struggle formulated according to the development of the situation. In the past, some articles often confused strategies to improve advertising effectiveness, such as native advertising, with sellable advertising space. In this section, the author re-sorts and defines these new strategies:

1. Native advertising: new era, new advertising design concept

Native advertising was born in 2011 and became popular in 2013. It originated abroad and became popular all over the world.

The definition given by Solve Media is: "Native advertising refers to a specific business model that generates value and improves user experience by publishing relevant content in the information flow. The specific implementation form is to embed advertising as part of the content into the actual APP (PC) page design.

The founder of IDEAinside believes that native advertising has three characteristics: valuable, native, and proactive. In short, the content of native advertising is valuable and meaningful, and is integrated with the page, making users happy to read and share.
After nearly five years of development and practice, the principles of native advertising have already had detailed application methods and cases:

Video: Ad content is integrated into the video background theme Expression: Ad information is made into themes and skins Controls: Ad information is made into an operating component of the APP Information flow: Ad space style is made into news/dynamics, etc.
…..

2. Interactive advertising: advertising can also be fun

Judging from the pace of domestic development, interactive advertising began to be explored at the end of 2016, flourished in 2017, and experienced a blowout in 2018, with new forms and gameplay constantly emerging.

Interactive advertising is an advertising carrier or form of advertising. Its greatest value is to discover a new traffic scenario and build a communication bridge between advertisers and users through interactive communication with users.

Different from native advertising that incorporates contemporary advertising design concepts, interactive advertising has formed a complete industry chain. Currently, there are dozens of interactive advertising companies in China, such as Doumeng (listed in 2019), Tuia, and Hudongtui. App developers access an interactive advertising SDK and hand over the interactive advertising platform to distribute and sell advertisements. According to the author's observation, they can be divided into the following two categories:

Traditional event advertising: Advertising is the "event". Users can click on the event icon on the APP (actually the ad space) to enter the event H5 and participate in small games, such as "wheel lottery, golden egg lottery, scratch card lottery", etc., to obtain the rights or benefits of advertisers and guide conversion.

Interactive video ads: They are also activity ads in nature, but they are better than the original ones. They have a stronger interactive experience and are not only popular, but also highly playable and customizable.

• There are trial games for game advertisers, which allow users to try the game online through h5 without downloading it. The real scene restoration brings high conversion rate.
• For brand advertisers' plot-based ads, there are interactive options at the beginning of the ad. Users can choose different ad plots based on their personal preferences to enhance interaction and connection with the brand.

3. Linked advertising: cross-border application of video shooting techniques

"One shot" means there are no cuts during the shooting, and the work is completed in one go using certain techniques. It is commonly seen in some short videos. When it crosses over to advertising, what kind of sparks will it create? The 2019 joint advertising gave us the answer.

Linked advertising is a form of linking multiple ad slots to display the same advertiser's creative ideas to continuously attract users' attention. Currently, the most common is a combination of splash screen advertising and information flow advertising, which has the following characteristics:

• High reach and high visibility. The path-based coverage from the opening screen to the information flow and the double exposure enhance the user’s memory of the advertisement while stimulating the user’s deeper interest in the content.
• Efficient communication. It supports various creative display forms such as static and dynamic, and reaches people in different communication forms, thus reducing exposure loss and improving communication efficiency.
• Highly cost-effective. Purchase multiple ad spaces at one time to achieve the linkage effect of two high-quality resources at a lower price.

It is foreseeable that in the future, linked advertising will be combined with influence needs to launch more new forms, such as the linkage of multiple information flow advertising positions and multi-page advertising positions, which will give full play to the marketing value of repeated exposure, multiple creative forms and communication models.

IV. Trends - Outlook for 2020

1. Mobile share continues to expand and programmatic models become more popular

According to the "2019 China Internet Advertising Market Analysis Report" released by iResearch Consulting, the scale of the mobile advertising market reached 366.3 billion yuan in 2018. The overall market growth rate of mobile advertising is much higher than that of the Internet advertising market. In the future, it is expected that the proportion of mobile advertising in Internet advertising will exceed 85% in 2021.

While mobile advertising continues to expand its share, programmatic is becoming more popular than ever before. According to data from InMobi Exchange, global programmatic mobile advertising spending will grow by more than 250% in 2019, while China's programmatic mobile advertising spending will grow by 111%, exceeding RMB 190 billion. More and more advertising transactions are generated through programmatic buying.

2. Performance advertising is the mainstream, and marketing methods are diverse

According to the data of "China Advertising Market in Q3 2019" released by CTR Media Intelligence, under the influence of the economic environment, advertisers' confidence in the overall economic market in 2019 fluctuated, causing the Chinese advertising market to re-enter a period of adjustment. As of the first three quarters of 2019, China's overall advertising market declined by 8.0%, the first decline in nearly four years.

As budgets decrease, advertisers choose to spend their money on more effective media. In the past, brand advertising was the choice of most advertisers, casting a wide net and seeking long-term influence, which was very expensive. During the economic downturn, performance advertising has become a focus for companies because it can directly lead to advertisers' sales KPIs. Marketing methods such as interactive advertising and linkage advertising mentioned above have also been widely developed and applied.

3. Mini Program Ecosystem Brings More Possibilities

After four years of development, large-traffic platforms have begun to deploy in the mini-program field, and more types of mini-programs will be connected to various platforms. According to data from iiMedia Research, the number of mini programs in China is expected to exceed 6.5 million in 2019 and exceed 14 million by 2020.

Mini programs are platform applications developed based on web pages that can be used without downloading and installing. Both advertisers and mobile APP developers are planning to launch their own mini programs on WeChat, Alipay, and Baidu. We can also get a glimpse of this through the promotion and monetization of mini programs:

Mini programs may begin to replace some traditional landing pages. Mini program owners also have promotion demands. Taking WeChat mini program as an example, although some other apps (such as Weibo) support the placement of mini program QR codes, they cannot jump directly. This may be possible in the future.

Improvement of mini program advertising monetization system. Although WeChat Advertising has released three types of advertising components: banner ads, interstitial ads, and incentive ads, for mini-program developers, mini-program advertising is just getting started, the ecosystem is not mature enough, various rules are complex and cumbersome, bargaining power is weak, and a mature monetization system needs to be continuously improved and built.

4. The regulatory system is becoming more and more perfect

Governance of false advertising: Governance of false advertising has always been the key task of relevant national departments. Recently, "L'Oreal" was fined for false advertising. The mobile Internet is not a lawless place. Once false advertising is spread, the media and other advertising service providers will also be held responsible. The Internet advertising access mechanism has taken shape.

User privacy protection: In April and May, relevant departments successively issued the "Guidelines for the Security Protection of Personal Information on the Internet" and the "Data Security Management Measures (Draft for Comments)", which clearly stated that users have the right to refuse targeted advertising and promoted the legal protection of Internet data security.

Fake traffic monitoring: In the two years since the National Internet Advertising Monitoring Center was officially launched, it has now monitored the advertising data of 1,004 key websites and 4 advertising alliances and e-commerce platforms in 46 sub-provincial administrative regions and above. The illegal rate of Internet advertising has dropped from 7.1% before the monitoring to 1.98%.

“Pay attention to what is changing, and keep what is constant.”

In the advertising circle, articles selling anxiety at the end of the year are all the rage, and "It's so difficult for me" seems to have become a true portrayal of advertisers, the advertising industry, and advertising agencies. Instead of being difficult, anxious and impetuous, it is better to return to your original heart, sort out your thoughts and start again.

Author: AdBright

WeChat public account: AdBright