The Benefits Of In-App Advertising

In-app advertising stymies retailers, as they may not have a strong mobile strategy in place. Jason Rothman, general manager, mobile and social, at Steelhouse Media, answers Innovative Retail Technologies’ questions about the benefits of — as well as retailers’ options around — in-app advertising.

IRT: For retailers lacking their own mobile app, what in-app advertising options do they have? Please explain.

Rothman: There is a common misconception among retailers who don’t have their own app — they think the world of in-app advertising is off limits. But this isn’t the case at all, as in-app ads are vital to any mobile campaign whether or not you have your own app presence. That’s because they are extremely effective; click through rates (CTRs) for in-app ads are much higher than their web counterparts. Research has shown that the CTR for apps is more than double that of web display ads.

So even without your own mobile app, you can use in-app ads to drive consumers to your mobile site, Facebook, or other social pages. You can retarget users who have visited your site, run prospecting campaigns to target consumers higher up the sales funnel, or run flash sales to capture consumers’ intent to buy at the right moment. There are a variety of options to take advantage of the high levels of engagement found in apps, so it’s a no-brainer to have an ad presence there.