Audience knowhow is priceless with Telco Data!
By : Shashank Bhagavathula
AGM - Product Marketing, mADmart
The mobile device has become the most powerful channel for persuasion. Out of all the recent technological advancements, this is one device that has changed the way we live, communicate, buy, read, search, transact and work. Until the start of this decade, mobile was an instrument designed to talk to other people and any other activity that one could do on mobile was incidental. However, with the kind of advancements we have seen in mobile computing, we have perhaps reached a stage today wherein, the amount of time one uses the mobile to talk versus the amount of time that is spent on other activities is extremely skewed.
Mobile phones and other portable devices have become more important platforms for persuasion than the Television. If one is to go by statistics, Television has ceased to be the Mass medium that it once used to be. In terms of reach, mobile phone has left all the other devices and platforms behind. Reach is just one attribute of this medium, it also presents an opportunity to go deeper in understanding consumer behavior especially with consumers increasingly shifting to handheld devices for lifestyle services.
Guaranteed audience reach
Let’s face it. We spend more time on our mobile phones today than with our loved ones. We start our day with it, we spend our entire day on it and ends with it too! If you are health conscious, you have an app for that. If you have interests like reading, gaming or astrology, you again are tied to an app. You love spending time on social networking, there again, you are on a mobile app. So regardless of the kind of activities one indulge in, the common underlying factor which connects all of them is a mobile phone.
According to a Research and Markets report, out of the 234 million households in India, 167 million are equipped with television sets, amounting to about 70% penetration. As opposed to this, desktop penetration is around 21%. However, when it comes to mobile devices, the penetration is as high as 83% and growing every single day. We have crossed the 1billion mark and it is estimated that by 2020, the mobile penetration would be around 105%.
Globally, the mobile penetration has already breached the 90% mark and there are about 6.8 billion mobile devices. All these statistics clearly point out that mobile has become the most influential channel that gives reach like no other platform. In fact, more and more brands are using mobiles to reach out to rural, tier 2/3 towns and media dark areas as they have realised that there is no other platform which can give them access to this audience segment.
Telco data powered audience segmentation
As customer start engaging with enterprises on digital channel, there is no denial to the fact that no other entity has the knowhow of customers than Telcos who make these digital conversations happen. Insights gathered through various data sources enables them to derive multiple personas and map them to each user. There are two aspects to a Telco data backed audience segmentation that makes this entire value proposition priceless for the advertiser. One, the accuracy with which the audience is segmented. Second, the kind of targeting options that the platform provides.
Conventional data management platforms use 3rd party audiences and heavily rely on the digital behavior to build their audience segments. The accuracy of the audience on these platforms can vary from being good to being extremely poor based on the segment selected. This often leads to reaching out to wrong target groups and wastage of ad impressions.
Telco data, however, is lot more refined and the fact that a user spends more time on mobile than any other device and most of the activities from booking a cab, to making a movie reservation, to paying utility bills, receiving updates on salary credits to getting alerts on insurance premium payments makes this data extremely valuable and a DMP that can crunch, sort and analyse this data is bound to offer targeting which is lot more niche and accurate.
Monetise audience reach and knowhow
Interfacing with multiple legacy systems and building insights and targeting options out of the raw Telco data will offer advertisers a platform through which they can reach out to their target audience without any wastage of ad impressions or ad spends. In addition to this, a channel-agnostic platform can run campaigns on push channels like SMS, OBD, RCM (Rich content Media) as well as pull channels like Mobile web banner ads and In-App ads.
Let us take an example of online food ordering. For a new food ordering app business, reaching out to people who don’t have a habit of ordering food online, or those who don’t have a smart phone or those who don’t use mobile wallets and credit cards is of no value. Imagine a platform that provides such niche targeting options wherein one could reach out to Mobile wallet users, credit card users, food-lovers, users who fall into Medium/High ARPU category and those who live in a certain radius where they provide their service. Zero wastage campaign with higher conversions, everything is for grabs here.
The platform can also be used for a number of utilities like website personalisation, dynamic content display based on the user type, Ad Measurement and Post campaign Analysis which elevate the mobile advertising game. However, the business need to have faith and increase the outlay for mobile advertising based on Telco data.
Even for the Telcos who have also reached a plateau in terms of new customer acquisitions, mobile advertising is bound to provide greater revenue streams while shaking up advertising technology.
A recent global research by Allied Market Research projects mobile advertising to increase to $243.7b by 2022. Although the market size and forecast by research agencies may differ around the world, all of them see immense potential going forward.
In a nutshell, mobile advertising easily has an edge over other forms of advertising in terms of growth and reach. The mobile phone can be used for doing many more things than just the voice calls with endless possibilities which will give marketers the opportunity to connect with consumers beyond traditional and digital media. Coupled this with the extremely valuable sets of deterministic Telco data will create a win-win situation for all – the marketers, the Telcos and of course, the consumers.