All the major mobile phone platforms today with apps also have advertising capability within the app itself. This doesn’t necessarily mean that recruiters need to become programmers, but it does mean that they have the ability to use mobile advertising within an application just as any other business does.
It may seem like a far-fetched idea to advertise within games and social media posting tools, but many businesses today are doing just this.
Think about all of the free applications that can be downloaded onto an iPhone or an Android device. AdMob, being an originator of mobile app advertising, is actually a major contributor to this leading edge method of marketing, and is a reason why Google pulled far ahead in the mobile market so quickly.
AdMob is the next generation of pay-per-click advertising for mobile devices. Today, Google offers three ways to advertise within a mobile device. Mobile browser advertising still exists in the form of AdWords by Google; however, with the addition of AdMob, advertisers are now able to actually advertise within other developer’s applications. This is true not only for applications found within the iPhone or Android markets, but additionally within web-based mobile applications also referred to as HTML 5 apps. These banner ads appear in free games, utility-based applications, or any application where a developer adds an AdMob banner available for advertisers to use. Sure, developers can use their own banner ads; however, other advertisers are given the ability to advertise within target apps that they do not own.
Take the free MyFitnessPal app (shown above in this post) that tracks fitness routines and counts calories. The app is free for the user, but the developer is still able to make money with the banner ads found at the bottom of this app.
This app advertises for an abundance of different companies such as Intuit, Cadillac, Sprint, and more. Think about how to use this type of advertising for not only a company brand, but a company career brand. Which applications are used most by users daily, and what is the target audience? AdMob advertising allows users to actually target specific destinations, device types, and even demographics. Advertising within mobile apps has the ability to pick up passive candidates in a way that no other advertising venue could ever touch — job advertisements where they least expect it. Imagine playing a free solitaire game on a phone and seeing a company advertising “We are hiring for Manufacturing in Dallas.”
With the geo-targeting capability and understanding which apps are going to appeal for target talent could put any recruiter’s advertising strategy far ahead of the competition. This type of advertising could reach people who aren’t even on Facebook!
Microsoft also offers its own mobile advertising platform which includes mobile search ads, video ad, and app display ads similar to AdMob. Mobile developers have the ability to add Microsoft advertising solutions to their applications in the same manner, and a Microsoft mobile sales agent will walk a user through the advertising creation process and create a budget that fits the advertiser’s needs, whereas AdMob is more self-service oriented. Obviously, both have their unique benefits from an advertising perspective.
Going mobile today is beyond thinking about mobile apps and mobile career websites. Those aspects of mobile are likely to put many pioneers of mobile career branding ahead in the market; however, mobile advertising will only continue to grow, especially with the emergence of tablets. Think about how to use mobile advertising for pipelining core talent or even geographical sourcing today. You may find an entirely new path to passive talent that your competitor never even considered.