Forster is the founder of leading programmatic media-buying platform Adello, and he emphasised that it’s still very early days for mobile. “If you look at the big guys; Google, Facebook, and the others, for mobile they are actually all just replicating what they are doing on desktop right now.”

The number of mobile devices will increase massively over the coming years, and it will not just be about smartphones, there will be wearables, heart monitors, armbands etc. And all of them will be continuously sending out and requesting data.

“What nobody is doing yet, is making the meaningful connections for consumers, based on all this data. What I mean is that, instead of trying to extract more value from your mobile users by creating targeted ads, you should be creating value for the user, by serving him or her more meaningful experiences connecting the data you have on him, with data from other parties.”

To achieve this, Forster said it’s key that publishers start to collaborate with outside partners to access data that will be valuable to connect with the in-house data. And he emphasised that you should also pay attention to what users are not doing: “Focussing on clicks means you are not seeing what the 95 percent who don’t click are doing. The fact that they are not relevant for this offer is also of value.”

So where to start? Forster said incorporating contextual data in mobile campaigns increases the value for the brand. He used a US campaign as an example, where the consumer’s location in relation to the brand’s stores was used to determine what message to send out. Weather is another parameter which can be included: “It turns out that once you get to 15–16° and it’s sunny, people start booking test-drives with Harley-Davidson.”

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