Greystripe offering gives mobile more options

Greystripe has been making headlines in 2010 with their iAd like Immersion Ads. Now they are setting up a new mobile offering which might give brands more engagement over that advertising category as well. Greystripe's new mobile platform gives brands the ability to create a single ad which can be used across mobile platforms.

by Kristina Knight

The problem with many mobile ads is that different ads have to be created to be used with Android, Blackberry, iPhone or other smartphone devices. Greystripe's platform makes ad creation and distribution simpler by allowing brands to create ads in HTML5 or Flash for delivery across the network.

Still, the mobile ad needs to give consumers a specific message. For more on mobile messages, I chatted with Greystripe's Dane Holewinski, Director of Marketing.

Kristina: "What information is most important in a mobile ad?"

Dane: "We have seen increased effectiveness with ads that are rich and engaging. Rich ads result in significantly better results including increased CTRs, brand awareness and purchase intent. Until today, ads on the mobile web have been boring, static banners and text ads. With Greystripe's new mobile web support, advertisers can truly engage mobile web users with rich, immersive ads for the first time."

Kristina: "How can brands do a better job of engaging through mobile?"

Dane: "Some of the best practices include developing and delivering relevant ads that catch the user attention with rich media and larger ad formats. Buick is an excellent example; they created an Immersion ad that included an adver-game modeled after the classic 80s game Simon, and saw exciting results. Greystripe ran a report of their static ads over the past twelve months vs. these immersive 'iAd-like' ads. The iAd-like ads are performing 4X better, based on CTRs. On average, the Static Ads had a 1.02 percent click thru rate, compared to the Buick Immersion ad which had a 3.9 percent CTR."

Kristina: "What trends are you seeing in the mobile space right now?"

Dane: "We are seeing the mobile web increasing in importance as device performance, network speed and mobile browsers continue to improve, creating a mobile web experience that is comparable to the experience in an app for most types of content. Given virtual parity in user experience, we expect more and more publishers to utilize the mobile web due to its wide, cross platform reach."

Tags: Greystripe, mobile ads, mobile engagement, mobile marketing, mobile marketing trends