In this guest column, Rocket Fuel ANZ sales director (NSW & QLD), Mailee Creacy (pictured below), argues it’s time to re-think how we think about mobile marketing…

The year of the mobile has been going on for at least the last five years, however, I think that 2017 could finally be the year of the death of mobile. I don’t mean that mobile isn’t going to be hugely important to ad campaigns but we’re going to start thinking about mobile marketing in an entirely different way.

In many ways, the most important part of mobile isn’t about reaching one channel, it is about the opportunity to create meaningful experiences between brands and consumers across all devices. Because people have their phones with them all the time, seeking out nearby Wi-Fi signals or checking in to locations, mobile devices can tie together the consumer journey as it moves between online and offline decisions.

And because “always on” mobile devices provide a wealth of data, they help us understand when and how to engage particular consumers throughout their day: not just on mobile devices, but across any digital touchpoint.

In many ways, I believe what we refer to as mobile is really just one step towards a comprehensive, full-funnel, cross-device solution. To get there, we need to be marketing to people, not their devices.

Our own cross-device research shows a 31 per cent increases in conversions relative to “single” channel ads.  But we’ve found that this lift doesn’t happen because consumers see more ads on more devices.  Instead, our moment scoring technology collates user data from many touchpoints continuously, updates our anonymous profiles and then helps marketers choose which moments are the most important to engage with a consumer in real time. The trick is knowing when and where to act for each individual versus spraying and praying.

For example, Rocket Fuel client, Under Armour, had been running a Direct Response (DR) ad campaign with our technology in the UK but wanted to push its results even further and place a greater focus on mobile, increase brand awareness and reach new customers. To do so it chose Rocket Fuel’s cross device solution, which has more than doubled its ROI.

Rocket Fuel’s cross device approach delivered a 200 per cent surge in consumer reach by targeting people and not devices. The average Australian household has 6.4 devices and mixes their browsing habits across them. Therefore it is essential to serve ads at the right times, to the right person and on the platform that is most likely to lead to a conversion. This campaign optimisation led to an increase in revenue for Under Armour by 60% and site transaction by 80% respectively.

Cross device utilises a unified profile, which combines multi-device browsing habits into a centralised hub of data that makes targeting even more accurate. This takes into consideration a number of variables such as a consumer’s location, the time of day, ads clicked and websites visited, when they switch between smartphones, tablets, and desktop throughout the day. As well as long-term factors like browsing habits, purchasing behaviour and interests. During the Under Armour campaign 19% of purchasing transactions were influenced by a diffrent device, for example 27 per cent began their journey on an Android device and then converted on a desktop.

Mobile makes piecing together the customer journey possible, and it’s a key channel for engagement, but that doesn’t necessarily suggest that we should think of mobile ads as a mobile success story.  As marketers shift to a view that is cross-device and full-funnel, we’ll start to have less focus on devices and be more concerned with results across the entire ecosystem. The way it should be.