VANCOUVER, B.C. — For much of the world, images of flip phones and so-called dumb phones represent an archaic technology.
Why would businesses want to target such an outdated device?
Juicy Jay, CEO and founder of JuicyAds, said that readers might be surprised at how much of the world still uses them.
In fact, statistically, feature-phone usage is actually growing in some markets, according to Jay.
A recent study from Counterpoint Research, smartphone shipments slowed to 2 percent globally in 2017 and feature phone market grew 5 percent. The study also forecasts close to 200 million 4G feature phones will potentially be sold in India over the next five years, giving the dumb phone a bit of smart.
In fact, new capabilities will allow feature phone users the potential ability to interact more with Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and more with the emerging KaIOS browser.
Jay said that JuicyAds has always been focused on monetizing every click.
After thoroughly researching monetization of geos like China, India and other hard-to-convert locations, JuicyAds has launched feature-phone targeting for those savvy in the market wishing to cash in on this market, Jay said. Conversely, the service provides an opportunity for all other advertisers to increase their ROI by un-targeting these devices as well.
Here are some percentages of feature phone traffic JuicyAds found in its own network. As part of overall traffic, the estimated percentages of feature phone impressions are significant: China 36.9 percent, India 29.8 percent, Algeria 23.2 percent, Taiwan 16.1 percent, Brazil 14.1 percent, U.S. 13.4 percent and Korea 12.6 percent.
"This is mostly a backwards-facing targeting option,” Jay said. “By allowing our clients to target feature phones because they have a specific offer for them it allows them to get exactly what they need.
“More importantly, by allowing our advertisers to opt out of this same traffic when they know these archaic phones don't support them … that provides an immediate boost in ROI by getting rid of traffic you can't profit from."
To get started with feature phone traffic at JuicyAds, contact an account manager or email sales@juicyads.com.
Check out JuicyAds' website here.