2021 India Mobile Marketing Handbook: Marketing in the Era of Mobile

Undeniably 2020 has been a cataclysmic year for individuals, organizations, and humanity as a whole across the globe. As marketers pivoted through the challenges of the pandemic, one truth has emerged, the critical role mobile plays in seamlessly connecting consumers and marketers during unprecedented times.

InMobi launches the 2021 Mobile Handbook to examine the year that was and discussing the year ahead. The handbook – Marketing in the Era of Mobile brings forth how brands are focused on attaining Mobile Marketing Maturity (3M), how gaming has evolved, the undeniable rise in M-commerce, the future of programmatic advertising, and much more. The idea of the handbook is to help marketers build resilient brands, that are agile and nimble in the everchanging world.

Key Insights from the Report 

The Booming Consumer Trends in India

• With the increased usage of mobile being evident, it is interesting to know that 1.6 Tn hours have been spent on mobile by the average user in 2020. India leads the mobile-first economy with an estimated 734 million users by the end of 2020, with an annual increase in userbase by 29%.
  
• Gaming FTW: India is home to 1 out 10 of the world’s gamers and is poised to become one of the top mobile gaming markets in APAC. Indians generated 1.8 billion game app downloads in Q1 of 2020, which rose by 50% in Q2 of 2020 to 2.7 billion.
  
• Short Video, loved by all: In an unfamiliar reality, audiences moved to consume short videos, for learning new skills and entertainment. Millions of Indians took to the news on Roposo where creators shared responsible content on the current state of the pandemic in a positive and fun manner.
  
• M-Commerce: Indians follow a non-linear shopping journey on their mobiles. They learn about the products, explore, and finally buy across various channels. According to a survey conducted using InMobi Pulse, 63% of respondents claim to use their mobile to learn about and discover new products, 77% to research and explore, and 62% to make purchases.

The Fast-growing Marketing Trends in India

• Achieving Digital Marketing Maturity: BCG states that DMM is an organization’s capacity in delivering seamless brand experiences and is characterized by four maturity levels: Nascent, Emerging, Connected, and Multi-moment. As the DMM of brands evolves, their strategies on digital channels shift from the aspirational end to the actionable end. Marketers are moving towards the ‘actionable’ end as they become better equipped to scale ROI and measurable outcomes.

• A Non-IDFA World: With Apple announcing changes to iOS 14, the handbook throws light on how advertisers can deploy alternate identifiers such as IDFV and work with cross-device and universal ID players such as LiveRamp, Branch, Tapad, and Kochava to reach their audiences.
   
• Mobile Video Soars High: With the increased consumption of content, the handbook focuses on buffer-free video experiences, adherence to VAST technologies, and how the mobile-first approach can meet the campaign ROI goals and maximizes the ROAS.
   
• Steering Intent with Search: The handbook showcases the importance of search advertising in various stages of the consumer journey – awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and sale. While focusing on each stage, what strategies should marketers adapt to drive loyalty, and which type of search ads work best for each stage of the journey are discussed. The ‘Search Advertising Checklist’ is the icing on the cake for marketers to get the search game right.
   
• Mobile-first Consumer Intelligence: One of the biggest challenges that retail brands face is their inability to blend the physical and digital worlds despite the current consumer journey no longer being linear. The handbook discusses the nuances in accessing quality data and provides solutions to leverage mobile-first consumer intelligence. Presenting the case of a conglomerate having done it right, Unilever, the handbook dives deep into leveraging data to drive personalization at scale.

To know more on how brands can become resilient and adapt to the mobile-first approach to beat the modern-day challenges, glance at our 2021 India Handbook: Marketing in the Era of Mobile now.