Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

We have all seen the hockey stick charts and innumerable slides about growth in mobile advertising. We have also seen the stats on mobile Web adoption and wireless data usage, and heard the pundits speak on and on about how “this is the year.”

Sound familiar? That was 1998.

Here we are, 10 years later, and a whole industry has been born on the speculation of mobile advertising. The players making a big gamble on the future of mobile advertising are the ever-increasing number of ad networks.

In the beginning, mobile ad networks were focused on the first basic need in mobile advertising – lack of inventory.

From there, the land grab was on and most ad networks focused on the long tail of mobile advertising to secure this precious inventory. They offered to take anyone and everyone who had mobile content and deliver and optimize their advertising efforts.

Essentially this has been a good deal for publishers, even premium publishers, because as long as their mobile platform was small, having an outsourced group monetizing their content works well.

But now the problem isn’t inventory, but a lack of quality inventory.  The big brands that advertise on mobile need to know that their brand is associated with content that is of a caliber that they feel comfortable with, and that it is contextually relevant to the consumer. Advertising a food product makes a lot more sense on Good Housekeeping than it does Joe Schmoe’s blog or a local car dealership.

Another challenge currently facing mobile ad networks is the current usage of search in mobile.

Unlike the big online ad networks that rely on search to target and serve ads, in first-quarter 2008, less than 7 percent of mobile site and content discovery is derived from search, according to the latest Crisp Wireless Index.

The majority of mobile discovery (53 percent) is through on-deck carrier portals, with 39.5 percent of discovery being performed off-deck through users directly typing in site names or bookmarks on users phones.

The problem ad networks will have, as the market grows, is that top-tier publishers will bring the inventory in-house.

In the online world, where ad networks can do behavioral targeting without content management systems, only 11 percent of ad sales are done through ad networks.

In mobile, there is the additional complication of the need for content management. Therefore the number will almost certainly end up even lower.

The future
Big brand publishers today dominate mobile advertising. They have more traffic, stickier sites and, most importantly, complex content management systems that allow them to understand how people are using mobile very differently than they are using the Internet.

As these publishers begin to realize real revenue from mobile advertising, they will bring their ad sales in house. When this begins to happen, ad servers will start to drop prices and become as commoditized as they are online.

Online ad serving has survived due to its ability to offer behavioral targeting and cost-per-click pricing. Almost all online ad networks now differentiate themselves in these two ways.

In mobile, you can take away the behavioral targeting and get some remnant CPC companies. This still represents a large market opportunity for ad networks, but very different from the premium positioning they have now.  

The winners will be infrastructure companies that can offer the ability to provide publishers with real data about how consumers are using their sites, where those consumers are coming from, where they are going, and what they are consuming.

Even more important than that, the infrastructure companies will be able to deliver comparative data; how one site is doing with respect to the mobile Web universe in general, in the vertical, and any other properties specific to that site’s focus. This is the future of mobile advertising.

Michael Weaver is vice president of strategy/business development at Crisp Wireless, New York. Reach him at mweaver@crispwireless.com.

Mobile Marketer is inviting marketers to send in case studies on how mobile marketing campaigns, mobile content efforts and mobile commerce initiatives have worked or not. These case studies will be an indepth drill-down into the campaign’s strategy, tactical execution and results. Do submit high res supporting jpeg images as well, please.

Please contact Mickey Alam Khan at mickey@mobilemarketer.com. Thank you.

Britain’s “Media Agency of the Year,” Steak Media, has announced its U.S. launch, naming as its first clients the fashion brand French Connection, the luxury lingerie brand Myla and the global mobile-based community FunkySexyCool.

Steak’s impressive growth has been guided by its board which includes advertising and media experts such as Mother’s Matt Clark, financial director and partner; Robert Campbell who founded Rainey Kelly Campbell Rolfe, was creative director and vice chairman of Y&R Europe, and executive creative director and vice chairman of McCann Erickson; and Steak’s Chairman, Seb Bishop, founder of Espotting and ex-creative at Publics and Rainey Kelly.

Steak is the search-led digital agency, offering search engine marketing, online reputation management, mobile search, digital media planning and buying, affiliate marketing and digital creative.

Established in 2005, Steak’s origins lie in search marketing. Steak’s management team were founding members of Espotting, the company that pioneered search marketing in Europe in 2000, providing paid listings to Yahoo Europe, Lycos Europe and Ask, before being sold in a deal that valued the company at $186 million.

Chrysi Philalithes, ex-Espotting founding member and vice president of global marketing and communications at MIVA, was appointed as launch managing director.

~Giselle Abramovich

With the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Exhibition right around the corner, I figured I’d interview one of the show’s long-time attendees Kevin Lee, co-founder of Did-it to see his outlook on the show and mobile search. Here’s what he had to say:

 Giselle Abramovich: With mobile search picking up the pace, the SES show has three panels that are dedicated solely to the channel. What are some of the most recent developments in the mobile search arena, that you feel will truly pave the way for mobile search?
Kevin Lee: IPhone clones will be key in the evolution of mobile search. The user experience must improve to stimulate usage.
GA: Did-it is a master at Internet search on the PC. Will your company be moving into the mobile search space in the next few years? Why or why not?
KL: We keep testing things and as we get success stories, we will move more heavily into mobile advertising.
GA: What are some of the challenges and opportunities in mobile search? What’s your assessment of mobile search and where do you think things are headed?
KL: The biggest challenges are scale (not large enough) and finding the appropriate way to charge for advertising.  CPC and CPM may not be right, so CP-Call or some other metric may work
GA: In regards to the show, why does Did-it like to exhibit at SES.
KL: Our audience is there.
GA: What are some of your impressions of past shows?
KL: Open discussion and a thirst for learning best practices are conducive to a great conference.
GA: What are some of the important topics you are looking forward to attending?
KL: I like to keep up what brand marketers are looking into, so I’ll pop into the sessions with major spenders represented.

Yahoo Inc. says that it will debut its long awaited advertiser publisher exchange dubbed APEX in the second quarter this year.
At least that’s what the Internet giant’s CEO Jerry Yang told executives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau conference in Phoenix, AZ. APEX has been in testing since last summer and is designed to coordinate advertising with content, creating a more relevant experience. Yahoo says Apex will help it create cross-channel  ad campaigns in search, display and mobile. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

~Giselle Abramovich