What the snowy winter taught Millennial Media about how people use apps

During major events, people reach for their devices to see what’s happening. And advertising companies are watching.
Since the world of digital advertising derives a big part of its value from its ability to track users and provide data about how well they responded to an ad, companies collect lots of information about users’ movements during the times when they’re most likely to be checking their devices.
Baltimore-based mobile advertising company Millennial Media found a lot of insights about user behavior by looking at data on weather apps this winter.
With the brutal winter along the East Coast, the company’s internal data showed upticks in traffic on mobile weather apps between late January and March — especially when the weather was bad.
The company saw traffic spikes on mobile apps of about 22 percent on apps using Millennial Media’s advertising platforms when big winter storms were hitting, according to data provided to Technical.ly Baltimore. Overall, the colder and snowier February showed 46 percent more traffic than January. In 2014, there was only a two percent difference between the two months.
The company also analyzed exactly when the spikes occurred. Data showed that Sundays and Mondays were the most trafficked days, seeing 10 and 17 percent over daily averages, respectively. That’s because all of the big snow events were clustered around the beginning of the week. The analysis provides a reminder that snowstorms were on the horizon for four Mondays in a row from Jan. 26 to Feb. 16. The worst of the storms was Winter Storm Octavia on Feb. 16. It wreaked havoc on streets and schedules. The storm also showed a huge traffic spike of 91 percent above the daily average.
With the data analysis, Millennial Media isn’t merely trying to provide a weather report. To the company, more people reaching for devices means more opportunities to target ads.
“Marketers, take note!” a March 6 blog post from the company says. “Your audience may very well be reaching for their mobile devices at the first sight of snow or rain, and this is your opportunity to meet them and offer utility and branding.” Equally, Millennial notes, video ads are 10 times more likely to engage users.
So if you see a video ad on a weather app before a storm next winter, remember that the data showed that was the best place for advertisers to meet you where you are.