InMobi, a leading provider of marketing and monetization technologies that fuel industries around the world, today released the first annual InMobi Buyer Survey, interviewing more than a hundred leaders from across the UK agency and brand marketer community.

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IDFA and Identity Remain Top of Mind

Following much discussion around Apple’s changes to IDFA, one aim of the study conducted in July 2021 was to track any resulting shift in mobile spending behaviour: UK buyers highlighted the following as major impacts – 42% cited spend shifting from in-app to mobile web inventory, 40% noted a shift to more contextually relevant media, 34% saw a trend towards more branding and upper funnel KPIs, and 33% observed a move towards more Android app spending.

The top challenges facing buyers reflected some similar themes – with IDFA and iOS changes appearing at the top of the list. Meanwhile, the changes to online identity and cookies in Safari and Chrome were number two. And third, the closely related issue of measurement across all channels and screens.

In Housing vs. Managed Service: Mobile is Still Complex

In housing of programmatic trading among brands has long been touted as a trend, and the InMobi Buyer Survey shows that 70% of UK buyers worked with DSPs on a self-service basis. Included in that figure were more than half (53%) of brand marketers surveyed, and 84% of agencies.

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However, managed service agreements were also shown to still be in wide usage, for more than half of the buyer community (53%). Despite the growth of in housing, having DSPs manage buyers’ accounts is also still an important service. And in fact, buyers may have both managed and self-service setups running simultaneously.

New For Old

There are also signs of a maturing market in the results. Issues such as brand safety, fraud and creative effectiveness which were once cited as regular criticisms of the mobile channel, now sit towards the bottom of the list for buyers.

While concerns around IDFA and identity have no doubt pushed other concerns down the priority list somewhat, it is also reflective of better options, and greater knowledge among the buyer community – in parallel with trends such as in housing – that such issues can, with the right experience and strategy, now be better avoided.

Research was fielded in July 2021, with 104 UK interviews conducted. Interviewees were selected from Ad Perceptions’ Ad Pros community of decision makers, all responsible for more than $1m in annual advertising budgets, and upwards of $100k yearly mobile spend.

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