Following its IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange (HKEX) in December last year, Mobvista has published its first annual earnings report. The mobile advertising and analytics services platform documented 38.9% spike in revenue over 2017, amounting to $435 million for 2018.
Per the report, the rise in global expenditure towards mobile advertising was attributed to the expansion of Mobvista in China and the wider APAC region, with 63.8% of 2018 revenue coming from Chinese companies targeting overseas markets, whereas only 44.9% of 2017 revenue came from companies based in China.
Today, both ad buyers and sellers are moving away from performance solutions and placing greater emphasis on improving precision and having greater efficiency.
The increasing focus of Chinese companies to target overseas markets was attributed to increasing regulation of cyberspace and increased domestic competition, with companies such as TikTok raising overseas advertising budgets as they look to acquire users and increase market share.
This may also have been aided by the incentive program announced in Q2 2018 by Mintegral, the programmatic platform of Mobvista, which encouraged app developers to integrate the Mintegral SDK as a way to expand their app marketing channels and gain access to high-quality traffic – thereby securing the SSP side of the programmatic equation.
While gaming apps are a dominating revenue source for programmatic companies, for Mobvista the largest contribution towards 2018 revenue came from social media apps at 38.6% – double the figure from 2017.
“For many advertisers, programmatic in-app advertising has become a widely popular choice,” said Vivi Wang, business development director at Mobvista, in an interview with Branding In Asia.
“Today, both ad buyers and sellers are moving away from performance solutions and placing greater emphasis on improving precision and having greater efficiency.”
She believes that in 2019, companies in China will spend $7.9 billion of advertising budgets through programmatic technology, adding that a 2019 projection from Bytedance expects $14.8 billion in revenue in projections.
“Across the board, we have also observed an increase in adoption of the bidding model, which has helped create a healthier eco-system for matching supply and demand, and in combating fraud,” said Wang. “Search data, point-of-purchase data, data from social media and website visits, and third-party data from retailers are all very useful in informing brands about their customers.”
She believes this is why consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are placing greater emphasis on direct-to-consumer solutions, to improve the performance of digital media buys and allow CPG marketers to measure each incremental visit in real time.
“Many CPGs now have separate teams dedicated to building direct relationships with consumers, and e-commerce teams who do their own buying,” said Wang.
“Having such designated teams helps marketers achieve maximum effectiveness from their programmatic solutions, and build on the relationship with their clients.”
She observed that CPG marketers are breaking away from distributors’ media strategies and taking the lead in piloting, launching, and measuring media campaigns to boost sales, adding that with programmatic advertising, these marketers will benefit from better audience targeting, cross-channel marketing, and user engagement.
“Having teams that deal with direct-to-consumer relationships gives marketers greater influence over media budgets,” said Wang. “We expect this trend to continue over the next few years as marketers continue to be acquisition-focused and performance-oriented.”
