Facebook Canvas: What does this mean for other mobile rich media ads?

Last week, Facebook announced the launch of its new ad unit called Canvas, a full screened rich media ad unit capable of delivering high impact experience on mobile. While many say that it’s cool and what not, I say “It’s about time, Facebook!” This is not exactly something new if you’ve dabbled into creating mobile rich media ads before. Mobile rich media ads have been around for at least the past 5 years or so, or when HTML5 was first introduced. It enables ads to be interactive and engaging with the use of video and multiple functions.

(image via siecledigital.fr)

To explain this to the layman, I normally say it’s an ad unit that expands full screen to show a micro-site of your brand. It is used to tell a story of your brand / product / service by creating different pages and different functions to drive home the points.

Facebook Canvas vs Mobile Rich Media Ads

To be honest, I think both have its own strengths and weaknesses. The standard mobile rich media ads are design to run across mobile ad networks (which are outside of Facebook), meaning it can reach users on other long-tail sites other than Facebook. This works well if you want to reach an audience who are not necessarily on Facebook (think China). The key challenge for ad networks are of course the visibility of your ads to the audience, since most are running on bidding inventory and limited screen real estate.

On the other hand, Facebook Canvas is native to the app to provide the user a seamless experience when browsing through the timeline. Facebook of course have one major advantage….data. When they launched Facebook Reactions, its primary goal was to gather richer data from users (You can read more about it here). This means the Facebook Canvas ads are able to be micro targeted based on Facebook’s already rich data filters. Not to mentioned, how targeted the ad can be if you include your own set of data through Custom Audiences.

So which is better?

I would say, rich media mobile ads still plays an important role beyond Facebook. I’ve seen mobile rich media ads that can take advantage of mobile phone functions such as camera, gyroscope, voice functions and GPS to create a more personalized and engaging experience. I don’t think for now that Facebook Canvas is able to do that (or not yet at least). The main advantage that Facebook Canvas has is probably the richness of its targeting capabilities.

So before you decide to jump on the band wagon of creating ads using Facebook Canvas, it’s important to ask what is its main objective. For me at least, Facebook Canvas works well with brands that has e-commerce presence (works well as it offloads mobile traffic on e-commerce sites), telling a brand story and brand building. These ads does not necessarily require a lot of interaction with the user, but yet informative enough with a strong call to action.

If you want your ads to be more interactive and fun, then go for mobile rich media ads as it is able to leverage of mobile phone functionalities. End of the day, it also depends on where and who you want to reach out to.

5 Ways To Have Effective Mobile Ads

Being in the industry for some time, I've came across different businesses that wants to start a mobile ad campaign, because they say it's the most effective way to reach their consumers, since almost everyone nowadays has a mobile device. When further asked, what is it that they want to achieve in doing a mobile campaign, most say, "I just have a new product launch and I want people to know about it", or "I want to drive them to my company website for sign-ups and get leads". While you can do both using mobile ads, there are also some effective ways on how we can deliver the message and drive quality traffic to be able to achieve those objectives.

Image credit: CNN,com | bojanstory/E+/Getty Images

If you want to run an effective mobile ad campaign, here are some important tips:

1. Ensure Landing Pages Are Geared for Mobile Devices

This the single most important rule. If your site isn't optimized for mobile, DON'T use mobile ads to drive them there. Nobody likes to zoom in and scroll left to right to read information, therefore your landing page needs to be either adaptive or responsive to cater to various screen sizes. Also, when the mobile user clicks on a mobile ad, they expect bite-sized information, and if there is a form it should not be more than 4 fields. If you don't have one, be prepared for high drop-offs and bounce rates.

2. Size Matters! Use Large Banner Ad Units (where possible)

Mobile devices have relatively smaller screens compared to desktops. Hence, you wouldn't want the mobile user to squint their eyes trying to read your message or identify your brand. Using larger ad units also has an impact of click-through rates as the table below clearly shows.

3. But It's NOT all about Click-through Rates (CTR%)

When was the last time you clicked on an ad on your mobile device? Ok, let me rephrase, when was the last time you ACCIDENTALLY clicked on an ad on your mobile device? Chances are, that you most likely clicked on one by accident rather than you actually wanting to view details on the ad because mobile ads are small in nature, and your fingers are usually larger than even the 'close' button on the top corner (hence point #2 above).That is also one of the reasons why CTR% are also higher compared to desktop ads. Therefore,
you should look beyond just CTR% when you want to measure a campaign's success due to these accidental clicks.

4. K-I-S-S (Keep It Short & Simple)

Studies will show that most users on mobile have short attention span and want quick information and not long a winded type article explaining on how a certain product works. Therefore, information and messages should be short and straight to the point with a clear call to action. Bear in mind that real estate on mobile ads are also limited.

5. Explore Rich Media

Rich media banners (or banners running on HTML5), can deliver high engagements at the same time fulfilling points #2 and #4 above. Most rich media banners starts off as a simple banner, but with clicked, it expands to a full screened mini-site that allows more information to be displayed, as well as enable videos and different interactions using the mobile device's functionalities (camera, gyroscope, GPS, etc).

Learn more about rich media mobile ads and what they can do:
http://www.mobileads.com/blog/mobile-rich-media-ads-examples-impress-audience-part-1/
http://www.millennialmedia.com/solutions/advertiser/creative-gallery

The Death of SMS?

SMS or Short Messaging Service, has been one of the longest and often used (and sometimes overused) form of mobile communication by both consumers and marketers.

Image credit: ispyoo.com

But, with the rise of mobile chat applications such as Whatsapp, Viber, WeChat, Skype, Line, and even Facebook Messenger, it's not really surprising that we see a decline in overall SMS usage here in Malaysia.

We are already seeing a decline of total SMS sent in Q2 2014 vs Q2 2015 in Malaysia (13,193 mil vs 6,855 mil) by about 48%. And the usage still seems to be in a downward trend in 2015 in Q1 (7,768 mil) vs Q2 (6,855 mil). That's a reduction of 10% usage in just one quarter alone!

Source: Communication and Multimedia Pocket Book of Statistics, Q2 2015, MCMC Malaysia.

In the near future, mobile chat applications would probably replace SMS as a preferred form of future text communication as it gives the user more flexibility as well as options. Mobile chat applications allows:

• Real-time response
• Multi user participation (groups) 
• Sharing of files 
• Most importantly - No extra charges to send a message if you're on a data plan or using WiFi

The SMS usage numbers will only decline even further within these 2-3 years as more mobile chat applications become available, mobile data prices becomes more affordable and smartphone usage increases.

However, one thing to note that while SMS usage is on the decline, it's still regarded as a more reliable form of messaging compared to chat applications. SMS is also available as a default to all mobile phones, while chat applications are still very fragmented in nature, meaning, not everyone are on the same chat platform or application as you.

So whether SMS will still be around in the next few years remain to be seen, but the days of SMS are certainly numbered!