Predictions for mobile in 2019: Top 8 trends to watch this year

Every year, people seem to create and iterate countless new technologies. Many of these impact marketing, and increasingly, mobile marketing represents a significant chunk of that.

For instance, the popularity of smartphone shopping affects the purchasing funnel from ad to cart. The rise of digital assistants have made voice search SEO a new part of digital strategies. Smartphones in general give rise to voice search.

Digital marketing trends come and go. But this year, here’s what we should expect to see for mobile.

Top eight predictions for mobile in 2019

1. Actual intelligence with AI

Salesforce reported that artificial intelligence use among marketers will grow more than 50% in the next two years for the purpose of better ad targeting.

In 2019, we’ll also start to see AI used to optimize ad creative images.

AI will eventually be used to not only understand contextual data, but also images.

Further, AI for “intent advertising” will emerge. Platforms will be able to recognize what the shopper is trying to achieve. Using that information, they’ll be able to cater creative messaging and imagery to the user’s experience.

2. Influencer marketing goes mainstream

In 2019, brands will allocate more budget than ever to influencer marketing. Campaign results have been exceedingly effective for advertisers this past year.

Influencer marketing is fast-becoming a more time- and cost-effective way to reach new potential customers.

Additionally, influencer marketing has reached a new niche with gamers.

E-sports got a major uplift in 2018. The live-streaming video platform Twitch became a greater focus of attention in the influencer marketing sphere. Marketers will finally tap into the full potential of Twitch’s reach in 2019.

3. Video ads will grow further

According to eMarketer, as consumers spend more time on their smartphones watching videos, advertisers are expected to spend $16 billion on mobile video in 2019.

This is up from just $2 billion in 2015.

Video is expected to account for 85% of total internet traffic by 2019 (both live video and video ads).

This past year, 66% of ad impressions on Instagram were the result of video content. We expect this to grow even further.

With this type of growth and consumption of video ads by consumers, video ads should be part of every marketer’s strategy in 2019.

Marketers can accelerate their video ad content by running video ads on YouTube and Instagram as well as by creating video content in-house or working with third-party creative agencies.

4. Voice activated search matures

According to comScore, by 2020, an expected 50% of all searches will be voice searches.

According to data from OC&C Strategy Consultants, by 2022, voice commerce sales will reach $40 billion.

Next year, consumers will be able to do more in search with their voice, and mobile marketers should be prepared for voice activated search advertising. UI platforms will become the new battleground for marketers (Alexa v Google Home, Siri, Bigsby).

As search engines grow more and more sensitive to user intent, it becomes increasingly vital that advertisers tag every image, video, and piece of content is appropriately with meta descriptions and alt-text.

Search engines use these bits of information to promptly categorize and serve up content to users. Without them, marketers will lose traffic – more so in 2019.

5. Messenger ads and in-app ads are on the rise

According to Statista, 2.01 billion mobile phone users accessed over-the-top messaging apps to communicate in 2018, a number that is projected to grow to 2.48 billion users by 2021.

The top APAC chat apps are already ahead of western developers in using messenger ads to reach audiences.

In South Korea, a country of 50 million, KakaoTalk counts 32 million local users who spend an average of 850 minutes on KakaoTalk per month.

In August 2018, Whatsapp Messenger was the most downloaded app for Android users globally and is being used by 450 million people daily on both iOS and Android.

Whatsapp is followed by Facebook Messenger; which now engages 1.3 billion people globally and it’s the leading app in the US with 126.3 million users.

Additionally, a new report by AppAnnie predicts that in 2019 the number of apps using in-app advertising will grow by 60% as advertisers increase conversion rates with these captive users.

2019 will be the year for advertisers to start experimenting in using messenger apps to target and engage with this massive audience as well as increase in-app advertising spending.

6. Finding new ways to fight ad fraud and ensure brand safety

RetailDive reports that fraud rates have almost doubled since 2017. Juniper Research estimates that ad fraud will cost advertisers $19 billion in 2018.

This year will further challenge brands and platforms to stay on top of emerging fraud trends, from click flooding and click injection to SDK spoofing.

Technologies that were exploratory in 2018 will take center stage in 2019.

For instance, blockchain is helping to create a new model that uses a cryptography-encrypted pipeline to ensure that target audiences actually get the ads that are delivered. It’s expected to address transparency, reduce fraudulent attacks and address flaws in the OpenRTB system.

Development of more advanced AI- and machine learning-based ad fraud detection systems is expected in 2019 as well.

Brand safety is becoming a key concern, and there is a rising need for advertisers to get better information regarding the quality of the inventory.

At the same time, there is an increase in recognizing this safety issue as the publisher’s responsibility. More focus on technology solutions to identify fraudulent patterns will be key in 2019.

7. Macro trends: APAC app ecosystem expands into Europe and US

In the global mobile ecosystem, Chinese and other APAC-based apps from chat to mCommerce began to soar through the ranks of the US and EU app stores in 2018.

Discounts, seamless payments, and customer service were driving factors in APAC apps gaining traction in global markets.

Traction will continue to grow, and with it, new concepts being introduced by APAC to western markets like social commerce are expected to rise with social media and campaigns in 2019.

8. Parallel bidding is the next big thing for in-app advertising

The days of monetizing apps through advertising in a waterfall system is over.

In 2019, apps will instead sell their ad inventory through header bidding, or parallel bidding.

Unlike the waterfall where requests are sent consecutively to ad demand sources, one by one, parallel bidding sends the ad requests to the ad demand sources simultaneously, and an OpenRTB auction then takes place on the ad mediator’s server side.

This enables ad networks to not only choose to fill or not fill a certain price floor, but also to report the estimated value of the impression.

This new model creates a fair and competitive environment where ad networks can be more aggressive in winning an impression, but without overbidding, hence it will be the method of choice for in-app advertisers in 2019.

What other predictions for mobile in 2019 do you have? Leave a comment below!

Sven Lubek is Managing Director of WeQ.