SAN FRANCISCO ? A Hipcricket executive at the 2013 Mobile Marketing Association Forum San Francisco said that mobile advertising can be used to spark consumer interest and ultimately lead to engagement after the click.

During the ?Consumer Mobile Advertising and Engagement In-the-Moment? session, executives from White Pages, Amobee and Hipcricket discussed how mobile can be the core of an advertising strategy. Dan Polk, director of Pinsight Media+ at Sprint, Overland Park, KS moderated the session.

?When it comes to mobile advertising, we look at what we call the post-click engagement model, so what we are trying to do is to get somebody to engage with a brand after the click,? said Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer at Hipcricket, New York.

?Ultimately what we want to do is tap into what consumers want,? he said.

?We think that there is an opportunity to use mobile advertising for what I call the igniter and a way to interest them.?

The session was sponsored by Pinsight Media+.

Untapped opportunity?
According to Mr. Hasen, 37 percent of consumers are interested in joining a loyalty club, which signals big opportunities for marketers. Additionally, 80 percent of consumers said that they had not yet been marketed by a brand that they trusted.

Marketing that nail the combination of relevancy and convincing consumers of the value exchange from a mobile ad is key, per Mr. Hasen.

Since loyalty members have a high value attached to them, it is critical to reach out to them regularly to interact with them. However, marketers also need to limit the number of messages that they send to not bombard users.

For the launch of Lionsgate?s film "The Hunger Games," Hipcricket created a multifaceted mobile campaign. The campaign used different ad sizes with an iPad ad resulting in a five percent click-through rate and a 1.5 percent click-through rate on smartphones (see story).

The goal was to drive movie fans into an ongoing conversations with Lionsgate with videos and content. Additionally, consumers could buy tickets from Fandango, which helped the film studio drive ROI.

Mr. Hasen said that smart marketers are using mobile advertising on the fly to mix up campaign objectives. For example, being able to tweak creative while a campaign is live shows the flexibility of mobile advertising.

With consumer expectations higher for mobile advertising, it is a must that marketers optimize all of a campaign?s content for handsets.

?It is all about what is the expectation of that consumer and how to deliver it,? Mr. Hasen said.

Engage on mobile
Mobile advertising thrives on engagement, according to Gabi Schindler, chief marketing officer at Amobee, Redwood City, CA.

When the experience is engaging, consumers will spend more time in an ad.

For example, Amobee worked with eBay on a mobile advertising campaign in Europe that let users view products or download the eBay app to shop. The ad kept consumers engaged for 95 seconds.

When it comes to targeting, having mobile inventory with strong demographic data is the holy grail of making mobile advertising successful, per Ms. Schindler.

?A relevant ad can only be successful if you know something about me,? Ms. Schindler said.

Carriers in particular give marketers target demographic information that can then be used to hone in on specific groups of consumers.

Mobile devices are highly personal, and marketers are increasingly looking to add the channel as a major component in marketing mixes.

?From an advertiser standpoint, it?s a no-brainer that mobile is becoming the first thought in a campaign,? Ms. Schindler said.

?There is still a lot of work to be done that this user data that is so prevalent from these campaigns gets married to mobile inventory so brands and advertisers can deliver successful campaigns,? she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York