In a conversation with afaqs!, mobile marketing platform Vserv’s co-founder Dippak Khurana discusses mobile advertising, and emerging adtech in the space.It seems like yesterday when the marketing world was disrupted and changed forever by the introduction of mobile devices. Smartphones, along with the developments in Internet infrastructure, paved the way for refined advertising and marketing strategies for brands. But the space has been riddled with challenges. Digital, while unlocking a treasure trove of advertising possibilities, has also pushed the brands to recondition and upgrade their marketing blueprints. In a quest to target consumers on their smartphones, brands are often faced with the challenge of placing the right ads on the right channels. Between apps, streaming platforms, social media and regular websites, brands have sought information technologies to supervise their ad placements efficiently, for years. On the other end, the challenge for app developers and publishers, is to effectively monetise these ads.Vserv, a data-driven mobile marketing solutions platform, has been around for 12 years. Co-founder Dippak Khurana has watched the space evolve over the years, with emerging technologies accommodating the shape-shifting digital dynamics. The inception and the path aheadVserv started its journey in 2011 with its flagship product ‘App Wrapper’. The platform catered to the feature phones of the time. “When we started, the platform catered to the feature phone devices. Our tech integrated with J2ME (Java Micro Edition) infrastructure, so that the ads could be inserted at the launch and exit of these apps,” shares Khurana.In 2016, after Android’s takeover of the smartphone operating system, many of the previously popular feature phones were forced to bite the dust. Nokia, for instance, struggled to sustain its market share with its Symbian hitting a dead end.“We could clearly see that our existing business was going to completely go away by 2018. So, we shifted towards the area of building a consumer intelligence platform,” mentions Khurana.Since 2017, the company has been running a consumer intelligence-driven business model, providing unduplicated reach to brands across OTT and social media through programmatic and hyperlocal targeting. The aim is to help marketers acquire customers, who generate higher lifetime value (LTV).“Today, we have a tool called ‘Vserv Audience Pro’. It’s a customer intelligence and activation platform. Brands can conveniently leverage this platform to work with their other marketing tools. For us, the value proposition is, how can this customer intelligence platform have a simple application programming interface (API) integration with the brand’s preferred tools,” says Khurana.Looking ahead, Vserv aims to immerse itself into deeper pockets of the Indian market, before amping up its international presence. “We’re driven by the idea of growing into many micro-markets in India. Rather than us taking this platform and trying to replicate our business in a different country, our goal is to go deeper into the Indian market and cater to the large enterprises, while also providing our services to SMEs that largely operate on a self-serve model.”
https://www.afaqs.com/news/martech/why-adtech-is-critical-for-brands-to-succeed-in-mobile-marketing
Why adtech is critical for brands to succeed in mobile marketing
