Tag: mobile marketing

Google & DudaMobile: Powerful Mobile Ads

Google is investing heavily based on the fact that half of all Americans are now using smartphones. They claim that if you’re not advertising on a mobile platform, than you are losing up to 40% of your business to competitors who are. They want to help you with this.

They recently partnered with DudaMobile, an inventor of mobile advertising solutions, to offer Google fans some great tools to design their mobile marketing campaigns. They’ve made it easy for you to transform your current online advertising efforts into mobile-friendly versions.

They are going to demonstrate the new mobile tools on Thursday May, 10th at 1pm EST on the “Think with Google” Google+ page. Just click to enter the live stream. Should be an interesting hangout and you’ll probably learn something.

The other good news is that they are looking for volunteers for the demonstration. So your ads could be featured in the hangout. So if that sounds good to you, click here to sign up for a chance to work with DudMobile’s chief marketing officer, Dennis Mink.

If you’re still not convinced take a look at this graph of DudaMobile’s Internal Data from Q4 2011:

(Article Picture courtesy of DudaMobile)

April 26, 2012
Bee Media Acquires Adcentricity; Goes Hyper-Local

Bee Media Inc., a mobile shopping platform, has acquired Adcentricity Inc., a location-based digital media company. Together the two are offering a couple new products which should make it easier for advertisers to reach consumers locally and offer deals in their neighborhood.

Take a look at what the duo is offering:

* ADMobile: A platform for location-based mobile shopping, including mobile interfaces, shopping tools, location services, mobile payment, content management, analytics and reporting

* ADFormat: An automated content generation tool that allows advertisers to execute completely customizable campaigns of video, copy, images and graphics to fit any digital screen, DOOH, OOH or mobile that can be uniquely messaged to any specific market or location

With the acquisition, Bee Media will also continue to offer several of Adcentricity’s foundation products and services. Take a look:

* ADCentral: Core to the Adcentricity service, ADCentral acts as a hub for venue-specific planning, targeting and content creation with 16 categories and 55 subcategories reaching over 1 billion impressions across DOOH, in-store, in-store radio, NFC, Wi-Fi , mobile apps and more

* ADVenue: A tool that offers a single source of detailed digital media inventory and hyper-local venue selection across multiple location-based media channels

* ADTarget: Allows for targeting consumers most likely to purchase your product by layering venues with demographics and data from Nielsen, Environics, Polk, Simmons, PMB, BBM and more

Rob Gorrie, Senior Strategic Advisor at Adcentricity comments on the acquisition:

“The combination of local, shopper marketing, mobile, in-store radio and video networks has created a fractured landscape of thousands of smart, effective companies and media channels with limited ways to get the attention of, and adoption by, brands,”

“Together with Bee Media, we can now offer an even more powerful platform with the ability to target and distribute addressable content across every digital channel with a location attached to it – including mobile shopping applications, which Bee Media has been quietly building over the past year.”

Doug Woolridge, CEO of Adcentricity also comments on the acquisitions:

“When you couple Bee Media’s expertise on the consumer mobile applications side with that of Adcentricity on the location-based delivery side, it creates a platform that makes hyper-local mobile campaigns easy and executable for advertisers, brands and retailers,”

“Our location-based digital technology hub demystifies the complexities in this new media landscape enabling connections with on the go consumers in active retail environments. Our mission is to connect the digital world with the physical world with a few clicks and have the ability to measure and report on results in a timely fashion.”

Location-based advertising and marketing is quickly becoming a huge consumer influence and the partnership aims to streamline creation and delivery efforts to that end. Adcentricity has worked with American Express, Toyota, Samsung, General Motors, and many prominent others.

April 24, 2012
Mobile Now a Core Component of Google AdSense

Google AdSense for mobile was put in place while people were still using flip phones, in order to allow companies to monetize their mobile content. With the advent of smartphone popularity, Google has just made it easier for vendors to use AdSense mobile, by migrating all mobile ad unit sizes, as well as the mobile banner ad unit, into the core product. The new AdSense code automatically formats the ads for the the particular device.

Google states it will also continue to support high-end ad requests from AdSense mobile content until May 1, 2012. In the meantime, Google states, “we strongly encourage publishers who have designed mobile web pages for high-end devices to use the new AdSense ad code to avoid disruptions to service. Note that publishers with mobile websites built for WAP browsers should continue to monetize using AdSense for mobile content.

Google notes that it continues to be committed to helping our AdSense publishers monetize their content as the mobile ecosystem evolves.

For more information about the AdSense transition, visit Google’s AdSense Help Center.

February 16, 2012
Get to the Point With Your Mobile Marketing

I probably don’t have to tell you that mobile marketing is incredibly complex. Why is this? Because mobile encompasses nearly all other forms of media in one. Mobile is talking on the phone, the mobile web, images, video, radio, interactive apps, location, etc.

"The challenge here is: how do we balance scale with engagement?" said Jeff Plaisted Microsoft Advertising National Specialist Sales Manager. Here at ad:tech NY, Plaisted, along with Adam Hughes, Digital Media Supervisor at Starcom, discussed a campaign they worked on for GMC.

We won’t get into the whole case study here, but just a couple takeaways. "Make it quick," said Plaisted. "Get to the point really quickly and deliver that value."

This is probably good advice for marketing through mobile or through any other channel. While there are certainly exceptions to the rule, it’s getting harder and harder to command consumers’ attention these days, if for no other reason than the fact that there are so many entities vying for it through all different channels.

That’s why the GMC campaign used an in-app calculator that asked consumers to answer just a few quick questions, rather than a whole bunch of questions. If you’re lucky enough to get them there, don’t drive them away by threatening to use up too much of their time.

The real reasons to increase you mobile marketing efforts are that mobile is "universal" and "insanely personal", as Michael Becker of the Mobile Marketing Association pointed out.

According to Becker, there are 6.8 billion people on planet and over 5 billion mobile subscriptions. In the U.S. there are 277 million subscriptions, with 233 million unique users. Is that enough reasons?

Read here for some mobile marketing tips.

November 4, 2010
Android Continues to Demand Marketers’ Attention at a Growing Pace

Earlier this year, we asked which would be more critical to marketing between the iPhone and Android. While not everyone agreed, many of you thought Android. We’ve gotta say, it’s not looking like this assumption is wrong so far.

New data released by Nielsen indicates that Android was the most popular mobile OS in the U.S. among smartphone buyers who purchased devices over the past six months. The data takes into account a full month of iPhone 4 availability.

"Among all smartphone owners, Blackberry still holds the dominant share with 31 percent of the market, though its lead over Apple is declining," the firm notes. "Twenty-eight percent of smartphone owners have Apple iPhones, compared to 19 percent who have Android devices."

Clearly Android still has some ground to make up before it catches its competitors that had head starts, but as the charts above illustrate, it’s making that ground up at a pretty good pace. Google TV, due out soon, won’t do anything to slow it down either.

Recent stats from Smaato, which serves over 16 billion ad requests from over 7,000 publishers and over 50 mobile ad networks, indicates that Symbian actually beats all other mobile marketing operating systems when it comes to ads clicked (and Nokia’s new family of smartphones are running this), but Samsung just announced it will no longer support Symbian. Also, rumor has it that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been discussing the possibility of getting Android on Nokia phones.

Obviously, you don’t want to ignore any of these major mobile operating systems if you’re trying to maximize your audience, but it helps to know what the people are looking at, and more and more, it seems they are looking at Android. It may be on bottom in the above chart, but how long do you think that will last if sales continue the way they have been?

WebProNews recently had a conversation with Tim Nguyen, a sales manager for mobile marketing firm Trumpia, which has worked with plenty of small and large businesses in assisting them with utilizing mobile marketing to drive traffic and revenue. He gave some pointers for effective campaigns.

How big a factor is Android in your marketing mix? How about mobile in general? Comment here.

October 5, 2010
Why Nokia’s New Smartphones Mean Good Things for Marketers

As reported earlier, Nokia has announced a new family of smartphones powered by the Symbian platform. The Nokia E7, C7 and C6 join the previously announced N8.

Depending on how well these devices sell, this could mean good things for the future of the Symbian platform, which itself has been greatly updated. This could also mean good things for marketers, as stats from Smaato indicate that the Symbian beats all other mobile operating systems when it comes to ads clicked (via Wired). Smaato serves over 16 billion ad requests from over 7,000 publishers and over 50 mobile ad networks.

"Symbian and Feature Phones continue to perform well with a CTR Index of 130 (145 in July) and 120 (118 in July) respectively," the company says. "RIM passes Android in performance, with its strongest month since Smaato’s metrics began. Apple overtook Windows Phone, as it fell by almost half from 98 in July to 58. The Index consists of the average CTR of all devices and this number is set to 100."

"Symbian remains the leading OS in both regions [USA and Europe] as Windows Phone and Android both dropped by around 40% in the US (Windows 153 in July 80 in August. Android 103 in July to 60)," says Smaato. "In Europe, Windows Phone and Android dropped in performance, but while Windows remains the second best OS, Android fell to last place."

Smaato co-founder Harald Neidhardt told Wired’s Ryan Singel he could only speculate on the CTR differences among operating systems. A couple guesses he made were related to displays and demographics.

Whatever the case may be, if the numbers are indicative of the big picture, more advanced Symbian phones in more users’ hands would appear to be a good thing for mobile marketers moving forward. They would also appear to suggest marketers have a ways to go for effectiveness on other operating systems.

Read our interview with Trumpia’s Tim Nguyen for some mobile marketing tips.

September 14, 2010
ChaCha Launches MMS Rich Media, Coupon, Video Ads

ChaCha has launched a new MMS service for movie trailers, coupon images, rich media ads, and other video content to "virtually all phones". The service works on even the 75% of US mobile phones that aren’t smartphones, the company says.

Known as an answers service, ChaCha will begin serving MMS ads to its users (ChaCha claims 15 million active monthly uniques). As mobile marketing becomes increasingly important, this might appeal to a range of advertisers.

"This is a big deal for both our advertisers and users," says ChaCha CEO Scott Jones. "Many marketers view sight, sound and motion as major enhancements to their brand’s message, and we are now in the ideal position to support these objectives in mobile channels. Smartphones have whetted the consumer’s appetite for mobile, rich-media content. MMS allows media to finally reach virtually all mobile phones in a way that advertisers can have their messages seen and heard. Our users will benefit regardless of their phone type."

<

"ChaCha has grown to be the ‘smart friend’ millions of people turn to for all their answers, and now marketers can leverage these relationships by inserting media-rich ads in response to specific questions or keywords," says. Jones. "ChaCha MMS also enables marketers to capture device information so that audiences can be segmented by region, handset, or interest to achieve the highest return on investment. We are the only mobile answers service powered by humans, and are now the only one to provide MMS mobile advertising for our partners within an engaging one-to-one conversation."

The company says that in 2010, 73% of its mobile advertising campaigns resulted from renewals because engagement and response rates are demonstrably higher on ChaCha.

September 14, 2010
A Few Pointers for Effective Mobile Marketing

There’s no question that mobile is getting bigger, and is becoming an increasingly important channel for businesses to reach customers.

We had a conversation with Tim Nguyen, a sales manager for mobile marketing firm Trumpia, which has worked with plenty of small and large businesses in assisting them with utilizing mobile marketing to drive traffic and revenue.

"One of the most unique mobile marketing campaigns we have been a part of [is] definitely our recent work with Sony Pictures’ new movie, Takers," says Nguyen. "This was unique in that we were not only working with one of the biggest companies in America, but we also had T.I., a very influential cast member and musician heavily promoting the campaign."

As the company said in a blog post about it, Takers had thousands of people text in their mobile keyword in les than a week, to enter a giveaway for tickets to a private screening of the film. Trumpia called this "a testament to how quickly and effective mobile keywords can be when marketed correctly."

The campaign manager called it a huge success, saying, "After a quick export and some segmentation we were able to see where people were visiting New Orleans from. Using users area code we were able to see what state they originated from, giving us a much deeper analytic view for our client."

That is certainly an added benefit to this kind of mobile marketing.

"Mobile Marketing much like any type of marketing will be ineffective if you are not providing substance or something of interest to your targeted market," Nguyen tells us. "Therefore, really to be effective you have to be cautious with what you’re texting to individuals and make sure the message is relevant and carefully thought out."

We asked him about the differences in effective strategies between small businesses and large ones. After all, small businesses don’t always have the resources the big boys do.

"Really no difference between the two because large or small they are trying to accomplish the same thing which is to bring in more revenue," says Nguyen. "This can easily be done assuming your marketing campaign is strong enough that it drives individuals to act upon your offer."

As far as advice for the small business with a tight budget, Nguyen says, "Don’t hesitate to go mobile! Often times mobile marketing will be much cheaper than print ads, paid advertisements, mailers, etc, so one you will be saving money by going mobile."

"Two, text messages are delivered in real time and go directly to cell phones, which almost everyone in the United States has," he adds. "Therefore text messages will be read immediately and delivered straight to the source to increase conversion and the effectiveness of your marketing campaign."

He says that typically, not all businesses should worry about having their own mobile apps, because they can be expensive to develop. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking advantage of other existing apps. He names Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare as places for your business to be found in apps. I’d suggest that you explore some app stores and see not only which apps are most popular, but which ones offer services that you can practically apply a use case for your business to.

"Mobile marketing is really on the rise, and at the end of the day it really is the most effective means of communicating with individuals today," says Nguyen. "You have to consider that almost every individual has a cell phone, which they check almost religiously! So it is impossible for someone to say they didn’t receive your message or didn’t know. Mobile Marketing is extremely effective in that it’s easy to reach individuals immediately and effectively, at much lower costs than other marketing streams. I’ve never known a business [to] say no to a more effective way of marketing while at the same time saving money, it really is a business owners dream come true!"

Have you found creative ways to use mobile marketing effectively? Tell us about them.

September 13, 2010