In this opinion piece, Marin Software’s Paul Korber (pictured below) highlights what Aussie marketers can learn from their Asian counterparts in the mobile space.

Australia may be accredited with creating the term ‘selfie’ and have some of the highest social media usage in the world, but it pales in comparison to Asia’s mobile uptake. Asia has 2.5 billion smartphone users, with China being the world’s largest smartphone market, and South Korea has one of the highest smartphone adoption rates in the world. The latter is unsurprising to some, seeing as South Korea is home to Samsung, who currently holds 20 per cent of market share in smartphone sales worldwide.

Due to digital development in Asia leapfrogging several stages, consumers in the region have gone directly to a mobile internet. Because developments in technology have outpaced the growth of a middle class in several Asian regions, users did not take the traditional pathway of transitioning from computer to laptop, and finally to mobile. This has resulted in a less responsive market to desktop advertising and, instead, has presented mobile as the best platform for brands working within Asia.

In our recent whitepaper, The State of Digital Advertising 2017, we discovered that mobile- only advertising methods, such as in-app advertising and direct messaging (SMS/MMS), were most popular amongst advertisers in Asia. The whitepaper was based on a study which surveyed over 500 marketing professionals globally from both agencies and brands.

The study showed that nearly two-fifths of Asian advertisers (39 per cent) reported they invest in in-app advertising on mobile, and the same percentage investing in SMS/MMS/direct message marketing. This is compared to an average of 27 per cent of advertisers globally who reported investing in in-app advertising, and 17 per cent who reported investing in SMS/MMS advertising. Of the latter, only 12 per cent of US marketers reported investing in direct message advertising.

What does this mean?

The mobile ecosystem in Asia surpasses that of any other region, and this is in part due to its competitive ecommerce industry pushing innovation in mobile advertising and payments. When we look at how the Asian market sits globally in our industry, it is clear that Asia leads the charge in engaging mobile-only consumers. This gives the rest of the world a chance to look at what’s around the corner and forecast how mobile-only advertising methods will perform in their own markets.

As smartphones and mobile shopping become increasingly ubiquitous, other markets should be looking to the work of Asian marketers to gain insight into what lies ahead, and adapt their marketing strategies accordingly.