In-App Advertising » mobilegroove

A must-read mobile marketing research report from Netsize, a mobile communications and commerce enabler. Based on a global online survey of +220 executives and influencers across a variety of industry segments, the report provides insights into what execs plan for (for example, higher usage of SMS to turn marketing into a two-way conversation with people on their mobile phones) and expect to accomplish (for example, acquire and retain customers) with their mobile marketing efforts.

Targeting is tough

The report (which you can download here) found that execs have a heightened interest in mobile marketing, driven by the increasing and pivotal role of mobile in cross-media campaigns. Other drivers include the reach mobile delivers (a logical consequence of mobile devices central in people's daily routine) and the ability to track and measure campaign success and conversion.

TWO-THIRDS OF TWEETS COME FROM THE WEB, says a new report from Rapleaf. The big news today is that location information is coming to Twitter, as the service will make location information about its users available. But Rapleaf says that 65 percent of users’ messages come from their PCs. 6 percent come from text, 4 percent come from the mobile web, and another 5 to 9 percent come from BlackBerry and iPhone apps. Source The bottom line: This is sort of a chicken-and-egg situation. Does the fact that roughly a fifth of tweets come from mobile users make location information slightly irrelevant, or will the availability of the location info drive more mobile usage? We’ll take the glass-half-full view: getting 20 percent of tweets from mobile devices is a solid amount, and giving users the chance to leverage their location should increase it further. ----- MOBILE AD BUDGETS BUCK THE WIDER DOWNWARD TREND, and will hit $5.7 billion by 2014, says Juniper Research in a new report. While overall ad spending is being hit by budget cutbacks, mobile is set to grow, as it offers engagement with the consumer and a more quantifiable ROI than other mediums. Still, that $5.7 billion will only account for 1.5 percent of the total global ad spend in 2014, with many advertisers as yet unconvinced that mobile has a big enough reach to justify higher spending. Source

VODAFONE OPENS: On Tuesday Vodafone announced that it will stimulate a new generation of mobile Internet applications by providing Internet service developers with a single point of access to their global customer base. With direct access to Vodafone's billing system and controlled access to other network capabilities such as location awareness, content partners will be able to reach all customers on mobile devices. Conducted through the global Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), which also includes Verizon Wireless, the initiative is designed to help developers create widgets for an audience of up to one billion customers across the four JIL partner networks. This has been widely heralded as Vodafone's venture into the app store market. Only after the APIs are released to developers will it be any easier to tell if Vodafone has a good chance of emulating the success of Apple's original. (Source) The bottom line: Betavine, Vodafone's open source developer community will also need to play a key role in feeding out information and supporting developers. *** VODAFONE MOBILE AD RESULTS: Vodafone announced on Wednesday that it had fulfilled its ambition to open up mobile advertising services to 18 operating company markets in the last 18 months. It says strong revenue growth from mobile advertising services was experienced during 2008/9, and it plans to continue the roll out, expanding the type of mobile advertising services and their reach. Over the last year Vodafone Marketing Solutions has run over 2000 campaigns across its global footprint for hundreds of global brands. These brands are enjoying considerable success with mobile banner campaigns and newer mobile advertising formats such as branded content, sponsored alerts, opt-in push messaging and advertising on service based text message, according to Vodafone. Vodafone says it will continue to invest in its advertising offering over the coming year by adding to its global reach through affiliates and partners "including operators such as Mobilkom, Proximus, Vodacom, and China Mobile" and by seeking to extend the number, type and effectiveness of its advertising service portfolio. (Source) The bottom line: These developments in mobile advertising can only be good for a still nascent, yet evidently burgeoning market with many new technologies to explore. As the technologies and partnerships develop, together with mobile Internet usage and penetration of sophisticated handsets, so will the numbers exposed to mobile advertising. *** ORANGE TRAFFIC: Orange revealed record mobile Internet traffic