Sweepstakes giant and direct marketer Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is known for its offline magazine subscriptions and contests but, like many companies, it is making a play for mobile audiences.
The Port Washington, NY-based company today launched its new mobile ad optimization engine, called Chrysalis.
More than 25% of existing customers and at least half of new customers access the company’s websites — including PCH.com, PCHslots.com, PCHbingo.com and PCHlotto.com — through mobile devices, according to the company.
“Many publishers are finding a big gap between mobile Web usage and mobile monetization and we have been working to roll out mobile Web and app versions of our properties,” said Josh Glantz, VP and general manager of PCH Online.
Chrysalis was developed by the media-buying and analytics firm Liquid Wireless, which PCH acquired last year, to boost PCH’s mobile advertising capabilities. Using first-party data, Chrysalis serves up targeted app install ads, lead-generation offers and video ads.
“Every consumer that comes to our properties is looking for a chance to win, and what we offer is a value exchange,” Glantz said. “We start with a registration form which asks for your name, postal address, email and birthday. We also have surveys to help us build up user profiles, which is all valuable information.”
Chrysalis collects the company’s CRM data as well as mobile-device and carrier-recognition data to determine which ad to deliver to users. Chrysalis can also prepopulate the company’s mobile apps with user data and gather additional information via surveys.
The ads are mainly interstitial ads that show up between content, such as lottery cards. Chrysalis was implemented first on PCHLotto.com, and it will be added to the PCH VIP app, before it is gradually rolled out across the company’s other Web and mobile app properties. The majority of the inventory will be available on PCH’s mobile sites but, “as we launch additional apps and start marketing that inventory, we expect that inventory to spike,” Glantz said.
Unsurprisingly, Chrysalis’ targeted ads are popular with game developers. “One of the things we’ve found successful with Chrysalis is driving app downloads—both incentivized and nonincentivized app downloads,” noted Amy Mullen, mobile marketing manager at Liquid Wireless. “Advertisers tell us that we’re driving a lot of volume for them at good quality since the users are typically game users.”
