The Moving Target:Mobile Ads
By Azam on April 1, 2008Mobile advertising industry is set to grow fast worldwide is projected to surpass $2.7 billion in 2008, up from $1.7 billion in 2007 according to Gartner. Market research expects the mobile ad industry to grow to $12.8 billion by 2011 , Gartner projection ; another study has a target of reaching $19B spent by 2012, by eMarketer. The eMarketer study showed messaging (SMS % MMS) campaigns accounted for $2.5 billion in mobile ad revenues in 2007. In the future, messaging is expected to account for more than $14 billion of the total $19 billion spent on mobile campaigns by 2012. Text based ads will likely be more effective as well in the emerging markets in Asia (China & India) due to low cost handsets, and studies have shown that text based ads are also having been effective based on response rates of more than 10%. The mobile market is creating a number of opportunities for firms to serve ads for advertisers to reach a growing mobile population.
AdMob
AdMob is a mobile advertising and tracking company that has an impressive team and client list. The company was founded by Omar Hamoui is working serving ads on mobile devices on behalf of clients. The company serves a need to deliver ads that need to fit on the screen of a number of shapes and sizes of mobile devices that make the effort a little difficult. The company also has ability to track ads on the ad served to determine their effectiveness. There is a number of problems and issues that need to be dealt with in the mobile advertising filed and AdMob seems to be moving in the right direction given the limitations involved. The company recently announced crossing the 20 B ad being served in India from cricketinfo to HDFC bank. The company has been serving 2.5B ads a month from 500M a year earlier. The company counts on Yahoo and Google as major web clients and a client list that includes: ESPN, CBS, Geico, Porsche, Ford, Toyota, Adidas, CoverGirl, EA Sims, and Let’s Talk. The company is also backed by premier VCs such as ACCEL and Sequoia and raised 15M in funding .
Ad Infuse
Ad Infuse is differentiates itself by focusing on targeted user data demographics: age, income, gender and geographical location are used to serve ads. The company partners with carriers to provide accurate data for ad targeting and shares percentage of Ad revenues. The company believes the model will prove more effective method for higher CPM. The company is using the method for serving AXE body spray targeting a young male demographic. The investors in AdInfuse included Softbank Velocity Interactive and Storm Ventures and has raised 17.5M in funding.
Millennial Media
Millennial Media is working to build mobile media network that will work cross platform to deliver ads through their ecosystem. The company seems to be targeting the lucrative “millennial” audience to define the mobile advertising industry. The company strategy is to leverage the use of their Millennial Motion rich media for engaging user experiences, the MBrand network for targeted audiences across premium content, and Decktrade the marketplace. The Decktrade is a global mobile advertising marketplace that delivers mobile campaigns to advertisers and a business model to mobile publishers and is aimed at advertisers who believe in the power of mobile media discovery, lead generation and conversion. Dec trade is an attractive performance based, self-service network for mobile advertising. The company investors include Charles river, Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital and Acta Wireless and has raised 16 M.
A number of Mobile Ad companies have been acquired as well from Enpocket (Nokia), ThirdScreen(AOL), and ScreenTonic (Microsoft).
There are plenty of small companies and larger firms working on the field of mobile advertising which will increasingly become more valuable as the 3B phones are connected worldwide. The mobile phone and the advertising will likely evolve over time with different strategies and as multimedia become more available and ability to search from a mobile phone. The iPhone has show the interest and potential for users to search the web from a mobile device and search advertising will likely play a larger role with companies like medio systems and JumpTap. Also location based search technology will likely improve the quality and value of ads being served and companies like Ulocate, LightPole and LOOPT are working hard to find where things are headed.
Categories : Media & Ads, WirelessTags : AdMob, InFuse, Mobile Advertising