“Kind of an interesting situation 2021. I think we are in uncharted territories, we don’t have a firm idea of how the pandemic is going to play out in the new year. But I do think we will continue to see a lot of people continuing to spend their time on their devices and I think companies are going to look at newer and unique ways to present content to users on an ad format”, SVP Business Development Jordan Cunningham
Hi everyone! Welcome back to CCtalks.
In our fifth episode, we have a chat with the SVP of Business Development of Creative Clicks Toronto, Jordan Cunningham, who was also one of the guests of our very first cctalks episode. Together we discuss what the end of 2020 is going to look like for mobile marketing – especially considering the upcoming holiday campaigns season- and what to expect from 2021.
During 2020, mobile marketing has experienced a significant growth also thanks to the pandemic. To give some numbers, grocery shopping apps have seen a dramatic growth – up to an incredible 200% since the pandemic outbreak. And overall, a study conducted by Salesforce stated that over a third of shoppers prefer to make their purchases online until a COVID-19 vaccine is available.
With this regard, Jordan states that they (he and his team) have indeed seen some interesting results especially on the shopping side of things:
“There is food delivery where we have seen a huge growth”, says Jordan, “but on the shopping side of things, it is something that has been building over the past 4 years. We have run a lot of successful campaigns on this vertical, there’s always been scale, also before this year, since this is popular especially in the metropolitan cities. With the pandemic, we have seen a growth to a completely new level of popularity and not just in the large metropolitan areas”.
Jordan says that this particular trend, although accelerated by the pandemic, is likely to be something we are going to continue to see into 2021 and probably into the future after the pandemic.
In this fifth episode, we also discuss mobile ads and whether ads spending will change in the upcoming Q1, considering the preceding holiday season. According to Jordan, interactive ads are something that has been rising over the past couple of years, and that are leading to an interesting situation in 2021. Jordan says that the incoming new year is uncharted territory, as we don’t know exactly how the pandemic is going to play, but he affirms that we are going to continue to see more people spending more time on their mobile devices and companies are going to look into newer and unique ways to present content to users in an ad format. Brands will play with creativity and innovation to try to keep their audiences engaged and to attract newer ones.
Regarding ad spending, Jordan explains that this will mostly depend on the vertical we are talking about. In fact, if in the lead up to Q4 and throughout Q4 we see a lot of products and ads that are tied to e-commerce when we shift into Q1 traditionally, we see gaming products and related ads doing extremely well. This means that brands will be willing to spend more money on this vertical as well as in other verticals where they see higher levels of engagement from mobile ads, regardless of the just-concluded holiday season. Higher engagement usually leads to more down funnel activities for brands, says Jordan, and when they see this kind of activity there is more willingness to spend because it means the acquisition cost is coming back to them and there is a better return on ad spend.
If you want to know more about which apps and verticals we expect will be particularly successful in this upcoming Q1, how AR and VR will impact mobile marketing, how CPMs will evolve especially in relation to IOS14, make sure to listen to the full episode. Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.