Mobile Advertising Startups Attract VCs Despite Rough Economy

We already saw how bad economy has managed to make a lot of companies interested in mobile advertising. It does not stop there. It keeps getting better and better. According to the latest reports, a lot of VCs (venture capitalists) are interested to invest in mobile advertising start ups as they show a lot of promise despite the rough economy.

Two examples come to my mind right now.

1. Blyk, one of the most popular companies in the market right now, recently managed to raise more than $50 million in private investments in its third round of funding. Considering the growth it has had so far, I would have to say that the investors have made the right choice.

2. AdMob, yet another famous U.S. based company, managed to raise around $16 million a few months back. Again, considering the numbers we have seen so far, this does not sound surprising at all.

If you notice carefully, you can see that there has been a paradigm shift in the advertising industry lately. The money spent on traditional advertising methods like TV ads, radio ads, and print ads has come down significantly. At the same time, mobile advertising is slowly becoming a lot more affordable than it used to be in the past. And thanks to the state our economy is in right now, businesses cannot afford to spend money on ads that don’t deliver results.

The biggest advantage with mobile phone advertising is that it delivers terrific results. The average CTR (click through rate) of a mobile advertising campaign is in the range of 1.5% to 2%. In some cases, it has been unbelievably high thanks to specific, targeted advertising campaigns. For example, the average response rate of Blyk’s mobile ad campaigns is a whopping 29%. So, even if you spend a little more money than what you usually spend, you are bound to get very good results. This is what makes mobile advertising so good.

Research firm eMarketer says that mobile advertising market will grow significantly in the next few years. It says that the proliferation of high end phones has made things easier for mobile advertisers as these smartphones open a lot of possibilities for ads.

In summary – I just have to say what I always say. Mobile advertising is here to stay. Don’t you guys think so too?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Debunking the myths about mobile advertising

Alright; I’m back in my pavilion. I was just reading some articles on mobile marketing and this one caught my attention. The author has written something about eMarketer’s Mobile Advertising Report. The report focused on the impact of mobile advertising in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) market and its possible implications in the US market.

Now, the article says that by subsidizing mobile data plans by advertising, mobile advertisers are trying to turn mobile phones into TV sets. I wonder how on earth he came up with this correlation. Even I feel bored to say this again, but then…

Mobile advertising has something called ‘opt-in’ facility. You have to opt in for a mobile advertising campaign to get ads in your mobile phone. In other words, you have the choice to keep your phone away from ads. Do you have such options in TV? Advertisements in TV, whether you like them or not, will always be there and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. So, please don’t compare TV to mobile phones.

Some of you must have heard about Sugar Mama from Virgin Mobile, which gives you free talk time for watching mobile ads. Now, the author even mocks this by coming up with this gem.

“I’m sure you’re ad creative is impressive, but I’d venture to guess that they went there to get free air cell phone minutes, not view ads.”

Oh yeah? People don’t watch TV to view ads either, you know?. They watch sitcoms and movies, in which they are served with ads, which they cannot escape from. The point is - It doesn’t matter. People are open to mobile ads as long as they gain something from them.

At last, he comes up with something about Americans getting tricked by mobile advertisers.

“You may have tricked us with TV commercials and OLAs, but we typically don’t fall for the same tricks twice (except for George W).”

Really?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Rant.

2 comments.