Here’s one way advertisers can convince desktop viewers to try out their mobile apps — send them a text.
That’s the proposition behind TxtMeApp,a new product from Israel-based digital media agency Say Media Group (not to be confused with Say Media, the San Francisco-based advertising and publishing company that owns sites like XOJane and ReadWrite). The company delivers ads in the form of an offer wall, which is supposed to point users at apps that are tailored to their interests. If something attracts them, they just enter their phone number, then they’ll receive a text with a link to the app.
In the press release announcing the technology, CEO Ariel Soudak described it as way to address a “missing link between desktop and mobile use,” adding, “TxtMeApp provides mobile app developers with a new distribution channel, online publishers with a new way to monetize their traffic, and solves the attribution gap in the web-to-mobile conversion funnel.”
There are plenty of ways to translate desktop interest into mobile downloads already — with app stores, users can sync up their apps between desktop and mobile, and they can also send themselves links to download the app. However, on the Apple side at least (which is where I have personal experience), these solutions are all kind of clunky, which is why I often end up typing in app search terms into my iPhone. With TxtMeApp, on the other hand, I was downloading a new app within seconds of seeing an ad, and it required no work other than typing in my phone number.
Behind the scenes, the company says its custom links can detect which device you’re using and automatically redirect you to the correct app store. And as Soudak’s comment above suggests, this is also a good way to track conversions, so you’ll know if a desktop ad campaign is actually succeeding. (Another company trying to connect desktop and mobile ad campaigns is Drawbridge, which has developed its own technology for PC-to-mobile ad retargeting.)
Say Media says a lot of its technology is focused on tracking users throughout the whole process, allowing advertisers to “further analyze user preferences, trends and more” and also to improve ad targeting.