Ace Hardware's idle screen mobile marketing campaign has generated an 18 percent click-through rate and has helped the retailer drive in-store traffic.

The company used Mobile Posse's idle screen advertising platform to promote popular home maintenance products to mobile consumers. The campaign was launched around Ace's Memorial Day Sale and invited consumers to visit their local Ace Hardware to take advantage of great deals.

"The goal of the campaign was to promote awareness of Ace Hardware's Memorial Day sale and to invite customers to visit stores," said Jolene Wiggins, director of marketing and communications at Mobile Posse, McLean, VA.

"Our platform is compelling because they were able to assess consumer response to the campaign and were able to see how effective the campaign was in driving people to their retail locations," she said.

Ace Hardware has about 4,600 hardware, home center and building materials stores nationwide.

Consumers opt-in to Mobile Posse's free application to receive informative and fun content, along with valued offers from local and national retailers.

Full-screen offers are targeted and interactive, and can feature rich graphics and customer surveys.

The campaign was executed by Horizon Media and generated an average CTR of 18 percent.

In addition, consumers that viewed the campaign were nearly 30 percent more likely to visit an Ace Hardware retail store.

"Ace needed to be able to accurately gauge consumer response to their mobile campaign," said Jon Jackson, CEO of Mobile Posse. "With Mobile Posse, Ace was able to deliver a follow-up poll to consumers that received the Ace ads, and determine the number of customers that visited an Ace Hardware retail location as a result.

"This demonstrates how brands can use Mobile Posse's short form survey capability to quickly ask a question and begin to establish a one-to-one connection with mobile consumers," he said.

The Memorial Day campaign, consisting of two ads and a seven-day sponsorship of weather forecasts, delivered strong overall results.

Ace Hardware ads generated even more CTRs than weather sponsorship generated. Nearly 65 percent of Mobile Posse customers viewed at least one component of the Ace Hardware campaign during the promotion.

Ads promoted featured seasonal products including RoundUp Weed & Grass Killer and Adirondack-style chairs.

Ace Hardware also promoted Ace Royal Paint through its sponsorship of daily weather information.

The Mobile Posse service also allows advertisers to conduct short form surveys through the mobile idle screen.

In follow-up to the Ace campaign, users were asked whether they had visited an Ace Hardware store within the past seven-to-ten days.

Users that viewed the campaign were 29 percent more likely to have visited an Ace Hardware retail store than users that did not view the campaign.

Mobile Posse has powered successful campaigns for other brands as well.

A recent Dairy Queen mobile ad campaign saw a click-through-rate of more than 22 percent, proving once again the effectiveness of the mobile channel to engage consumers (see story).

Additionally, targeting young car owners with fickle loyalty, Jiffy Lube in Los Angeles ran a geo-targeted mobile ad campaign offering coupons for oil changes (see story).

"The reason mobile was the ideal medium for this particular campaign is because of the one-to-one nature of the channel and the fact that it reaches folks wherever they are," Ms. Wiggins said.