Mediaplex's MOJO Blog

Internet-enabled mobile communication devices are maturing as a marketing medium. The mobile phone in particular has reached penetration and engagement levels warranting new marketer focus and spending. Increased usability and improved functionality make smartphones attractive to advertisers. In the past 18 months we’ve seen mobile-focused networks and agencies rise, some technology barriers fall and advertiser budgets grow. Operators, networks, app developers and other entities offer new utilizations of the phone for advertising.

Increasing sophistication – better handsets and software, faster connections, richer content – has heightened interest in the medium. Unfortunately, it’s still complex to consistently deliver and quantify marketing experiences in mobile. This is a short-term issue indicative of mobile marketing’s current development stage. Leveraging best online media practices and standards eventually will increase mobile’s utility. Advertisers will embrace it and demand fully enabled ad delivery/reporting technology from providers like Mediaplex.

Mobile Advertising Business Notes:

• By 2009’s end, four-fifths of the U.S. population had a mobile phone, nearly 45 million people used the mobile Internet regularly, and nearly three-quarters of these users were reached monthly by a display ad network
• Although mobile ads take many forms and SMS continues to be a dominant platform, many marketers are working with display banner and text ad units
• Industry sources predict U.S. ad spend will reach 400M-500M dollars in 2010, up from >200M dollars in 2008. The “mobile ecosystem”, as defined by the IAB in 2009:

• The IAB also notes how mobile inventory types are used for different marketing goals:

• The mobile display planning and buying process has become similar to other online media
• Mobile display ad budgets and rates have risen from the perception that adopter behavior and limited clutter mean higher click/response rates
• Mobile display production costs are lining up with web advertising. Landing page production can be costly and time-consuming, as mobile browser page rendering isn’t standardized and most advertisers haven’t optimized development best practices for mobile-specific content.

 Mobile Advertising Technology Notes:

• Mobile Internet Browsers:
  • Standard HTML rendering is becoming a norm with iPhone/Android penetration
  • Display creative standards are emerging for easier production and trafficking
  • Rich ad capabilities are limited but will grow as enabling technologies – Flash particularly – come online. However, adoption outside of the app market could lag due to network bandwidth limitations and emerging data plan pricing models
  • New mobile technologies and ad platforms, like those introduced by Apple this year, will push the boundaries of what’s possible creatively beyond browser technical limitations.
  • The browser market remains fragmented. It is still difficult to manage user/session ID, deliver targeted ads and analyze post-click user experience across browser platforms.

• User Targeting and Tracking
  • Major browsers allow cookies and user management of cookies, script and pop ups
  • Carriers are still gatekeepers. Some strip cookies at the network or handset level.
  • Third-party mobile demographic data isn’t widely available – yet. Numerous vendors are making significant inroads in mobile app ad targeting/analytics, and carriers do provide network-level data.
  • Carriers/manufacturers have offered behavioral targeting and location-based targeting, but demand is limited. Privacy considerations are making marketers conservative in initial approach.
  • Technical issues limit wide availability of reporting and analytics, as unique user ID, de-duplicated user data and standardized reporting aren’t always available across carriers/networks.

Mediaplex Position

The demand for Mobile display on the web and in applications is legitimately heating up. In 2008, mobile agencies and networks started educating the market and introducing product. 2009 saw new display budget allocation by many large advertisers – some with previous SMS and mobile marketing experience, many without. As the business, technology and decision data mature, 2010 will see mobile display and search ad spending tick upward and become a solid part of standard budget planning.

Ultimately we will navigate a world with full mobile graphical, video and text ad capability. We will also consume mature mobile response and branding analytics data. While this won’t happen right away, we wish to make it easier for our clients to start working with mobile right now. You should have the ability today to work with mobile publishers or networks, and to integrate the mobile channel for ROI and learning purposes.

As a result, Mediaplex is introducing new enhanced targeting support for mobile display ad campaigns. The enhancements make it easier to create targeting rules based on mobile device recognition. When used together with MOJO Adserver Mobile Channel reports, our Rules Wizard update facilitates extending IAB standard campaign serving and delivery reporting to mobile. And our standard view-click-ROI correlation and Channel ROI performance metrics apply in most cases.

For more information on MOJO Adserver mobile channel targeting and reporting, please contact your account representative.