Stephen Upstone, CEO & Founder at LoopMe chats more about how AI is redefining mobile and online advertising in the MarTech Series catch-up:

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Hi Stephen, we’d love to hear more about your recent acquisition of Chartboost and how it enables end users.

LoopMe’s focus is on using artificial intelligence to improve brand advertising performance, so we’re always looking for ways to extend this into new digital environments. One critical growth area we recognized was mobile in-app, which is traditionally a performance marketing play.

While we had a presence in this area, expanding it relies on SDK integrations. This is technically difficult and time-consuming, meaning it could take us years to build these relations. To overcome this, we identified a great M&A opportunity to accelerate our involvement in this emerging area through the Chartboost acquisition.

Chartboost’s in-app monetization and programmatic advertising platform allows app developers to monetize their audiences by connecting them directly with marketers. We were already delivering for brands in other environments, so this common purpose made them the perfect company for us to buy.

The deal has provided us not only with mobile app expertise and innovative technology but also strengthened and scaled our existing marketplace offering. It’s allowing us to widen where brand advertising can be applied by bringing in a wealth of app publisher integrations. Marketers now have direct access to additional opportunities to reach their audiences, and publishers can benefit from driving more measurable ad performance and app monetization For end users, this integration significantly enhances the in-app experience by replacing lower-quality performance ads with premium, high-quality brand advertising that is more relevant, engaging, and less disruptive to their app usage. Bringing both parties together means better experiences, reporting, measurement, and transparency, and supports our ambition of attracting more brand dollars into the app environment.

How is AI changing the scope of mobile and online advertising and marketing today?

It’s proving to be the driver of innovation in digital advertising. Last year, we saw AI and Machine Learning hugely impact the global ad industry, and this will continue in 2025.

Whether it is personalization, ad creatives, customer experience, data analytics, campaign delivery, or servicing, we’ll see it revolutionize all aspects of the ecosystem.

With real-time data and advanced AI algorithms, campaign optimization will improve, allowing advertisers to benefit from better targeting, automation, and more efficient advertising strategies. Deeper customer engagement will feed into ROI improvements as ads and ad placements become smarter, more personalized, and more relevant. Crucially, this will be applied cross-channel, so campaign messaging becomes seamless whatever environment the user is in.

Our industry data shows that AI-powered campaigns consistently deliver up to 5X better results compared to traditional approaches. Performance advertising has already been transformed by AI technologies, and brand advertising is now positioned to undergo the same revolutionary change.

As more AI tools come onto the market, we will see advertisers become more selective. Success will rely on choosing and harnessing the tools that can deliver the game-changing potential they crave for their business.

What this shows is that the industry has moved away from its initial hesitancy, or fear, of AI. Past worries are now being replaced with a desire to unleash the benefits these technologies can bring, as marketers use them to improve the performance of their businesses and the effectiveness of the digital advertising industry.

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How will mobile advertising and digital advertising change down the line?

For me, mobile in-app and CTV are the future of brand advertising and advertising per se. They will only get bigger as marketing continues to embrace the broader trend toward ‘brandformance’.

Traditionally, in-app and mobile were seen as the preserve of performance marketers. As a result, there is still work to be done around educating brands on why they should move their dollars into this environment. Unknowingly, they’re already benefiting because it’s often one element of their multi-channel campaign. Amongst the wealth of channels, we’re increasingly seeing brand campaign success driven by mobile apps because the user experience is better, engagement is higher as people are emotionally invested in what they’re doing, and the audience scale is there.    

It’s why many big brand-focused CPG companies are already embracing this in-app ecosystem: they understand that’s where the audiences are and the value they offer.

Interestingly, while brand spend moves into mobile in-app, CTV is starting to attract performance marketers. Again, it’s the case of following the audience.

As consumers continue to move from traditional TV to streaming services, marketers—brand and direct response advertisers—are becoming serious about investing in ad spend here. CTV offers more creative approaches to reaching and building consumer relationships. Tools like QR codes provide a way of establishing cross-device engagement as CTV becomes the catalyst for consumers to explore brands more on their mobiles. Real-time data optimization will continue to make CTV attractive and effective as additional data sets, like commerce media, offer new ways to enhance targeting, measurement, and optimization.

With the ongoing depreciation of cookies, contextual targeting will also play a significant role in CTV. As advertisers’ ability to rely on personal data declines, contextual lets brands deliver relevant CTV ads that are less intrusive but align with a genre, theme, or even a scene in the program being watched, improving the quality and impact of the ad experience.

Can you shout out some top tech brands who have inspiring advertising and marketing cycles, the top takeaways from these examples?

Three examples stand out for me.

Apple’s “1984” broke all conventions by positioning the Macintosh against conformity. Rather than showcasing specs, Apple told a story about challenging the status quo—transforming from a tech manufacturer into a symbol of creative rebellion.

Sony’s “Balls” campaign created a mesmerizing spectacle with 250,000 colored balls cascading down San Francisco streets. They chose visual poetry over technical jargon to demonstrate color quality, proving that showing is more powerful than telling.

NVIDIA’s “The Way It’s Meant to Be Played” reframed graphics cards as gateways to superior gaming experiences. By partnering with developers, they built an ecosystem around their technology, effectively selling experiences rather than chips.

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