In part 2 of our Masters of Mobile Data series, take a deep dive with our omnichannel experts into where your mobile marketing strategy is falling short — and what you need to do right now to fix it, plus how to sift through terabytes of data and how to escape the Facebook and Google black hole.

Access this free VB Live event on demand right here.

There are 2.6 billion smartphone users on the planet today, and in less than five years there will be 6.1 billion. And that means mobile is one of the most powerful channels you’ve got in your marketing tool box — especially with its seamless automation integration and ability to drive sales, tests, visits, and more while capturing essential data.

And while mobile marketing automation is the essential component to your mobile strategy, to really get it right, marketers need to stay alert to the drawbacks and pitfalls the platform can present.

“Marketers optimistically believe that an out-of-the-box solution is really going to solve all problems,” says Brian Kim, VP of Media and Acquisition at Dollar Shave Club, “but the reality is it’s definitely not going to be the case — especially when you invest in walled garden channels like Facebook.”

Where the technology falls short, particularly in the mobile advertising space, is primarily around attribution. Google and Facebook are just two of the channels in the more than 350 channels marketers need to juggle now, but they’re the ones marketers turn to again and again, as the attribution gap becomes overwhelming.

“If there’s anyone that’s going to give us that real clear picture, it’s going to be Google or Facebook in the end,” Kim says, “because they’re the ones who are really sitting on top of all our data.”

“You look and you see just how attractive it is to live in Google or Facebook land, because they have the persistent log in, they can track everything across device, and it’s tempting to just live in that space,” agrees Stewart Rogers, director of marketing technology at VentureBeat. “But that’s not necessarily the right way to go.”

That’s why Brian Monahan, CEO and founder of NewCo and former Walmart.com CMO, says marketers need to take a step away from the dashboard and reassess.

“The opportunity for mobile to drive business is more of a strategic shortcoming than it is a technical one,” Monahan explains. “There’s lots of opportunity for technology to improve, but where the hard work needs to be done right now is at the strategic level in trying to figure out what exactly we mean by harnessing mobile data and how we apply it for various business drivers — whether it’s targeted advertising, whether it’s developing a functional app, or whether it’s just a data strategy.”

“The strategic thought doesn’t happen because things happen in silos, especially at larger organizations,” says Paul Mander, director of solutions consulting at mParticle. “Data drives marketing across various channels, but is your email marketing platform talking to Facebook about whether a user converted there or not? And is Facebook talking back to your push tool that you’re using to run that same exact campaign?”

It always starts with the objective, Monahan says. “I think people are dead set on doing mobile and not really actually thinking about ok, why should we be doing this? Why should we be investing in mobile video versus something else?”

“There’s a tradeoff you need to make,” he continues. “You always need to establish the objective — what you want to achieve using mobile. And from there it’s going to make things relatively easier in terms of setting up the right KPIs and setting yourself up for success.”

The most recent VB Insight study on mobile shows that the problem is endemic, Rogers says. “Companies with some absolutely mind-boggling marketing budgets, up 60 percent, said they’re putting half of their marketing budget into mobile,” he says.

Yet almost 70 percent of respondents said that mobile is just added on as another channel, siloed, and and not actually part of the marketing strategy.

“Which is kind of scary when you think about some of the amounts of money that are involved here,” Rogers continues. “We have to get the strategy right, and we have to make sure that mobile is included in everything, not separated as a channel, because that’s quite clearly the situation still, and we’ve still got a long way to go there.”

How do you get there?

Catch up with this free VB Live event on demand right here.

You’ll learn:

  • How to think about mobile apps versus the web, and the role of mobile in the wider customer journey
  • How omnichannel marketers integrate user preferences and profile information across multiple sources
  • Mobile strategies that work in an omnichannel environment (hint: it’s more than in-app messaging and email)
  • Techniques for leveraging user-knowledge to personalize messages across channels 

Speakers:

  • Brian Kim, VP of Media & Acquisition, Dollar Shave Club
  • Brian Monahan, Former CMO Walmart.com, CEO/Founder NewCo
  • Paul Mander, Director Solutions Consulting, mParticle
  • Stewart Rogers, Director of Marketing Technology, VentureBeat

Moderator:

  • Rachael Brownell, VentureBeat

This VB Live event is sponsored by mParticle.