IAB Releases Mobile Buyer’s Guide at Mobile Conference

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) released a first-of-its-kind Mobile Buyer’s Guide for mobile marketing agencies at the IAB Marketplace: Mobile Conference on Monday.

The guide explains the medium of mobile advertising in detail and offers valuable information for mobile marketers to help them create and run mobile marketing campaigns successfully. The guide contains everything you need to know about mobile advertising – key terms and definitions, an overview of the U.S. market, a look at the key demographics, tips to create and run mobile marketing campaigns, and a number of examples to illustrate the intricacies involved in such campaigns.

You can take a look at the guide here.

Personally, I think this is a great initiative by the IAB. Though a lot of experts predict a big future for mobile advertising, it is still in its nascent stage and an unbelievably huge number of people are completely unaware of its potential. This kind of a detailed guide will definitely help people understand the value of advertising on mobile phones.

Mobile Marketer, AdMob, Mindshare, ESPN, HBO, NBC Universal, Nestle, AIG, Deutsch, IKEA, CNN Digital, Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, Pandora, Citi, and Nokia Interactive Advertising were some of the names involved in the conference. The future of mobile marketing was discussed in detail and the general feeling among both business owners and marketers was that mobile marketing as a medium is poised for huge growth.

Some of the important points raised at the conference include

• The click through rates of mobile display ads are five to ten times more than the click through rates of banner ads on websites.

• Online advertising has reached a point where almost every other website is filled with ads and people have started ignoring a majority of those ads. Advertising on mobile phones, on the other hand, is still in its nascent stage and a lot of consumers show interest in it.

• Microsoft, which has been trying really hard to dominate both the online and the mobile space, has had very good success with mobile ads so far. Compared to their online ads, mobile ads have performed exceptionally well so far. As a result, Microsoft is planning to invest a lot of money in mobile advertising.

• At the time of recession, mobile phone advertising can help businesses irrespective of their size. Mobile advertising campaigns are easy to create, easy to manage, and give excellent results. The response rates of these campaigns are usually way higher than the response rates of traditional advertising methods.

• A lot of companies have yet to try mobile coupons, location based advertising, and other types of mobile marketing which give very good results. However, experts believe that the situation will change slowly as more and more people are becoming aware of the potential of advertising on mobile phones.

Based on what I have seen and heard so far, I am of the opinion that mobile advertising, as a medium, will break through to the mainstream in a few years from now. What do you guys think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Verizon Wireless to charge companies for text messages

Verizon Wireless has announced that it will charge its partners 3 cents per text message sent to its subscribers, a move that has surprised a lot of people. For nearly five years, Verizon has not charged its partner companies that regularly send plenty of text messages, most of which are promotional in manner, to its millions of subscribers. Come November 1st, it will all change.

From now on, companies that have partnered with Verizon have to pay 3 cents for each text message they send through Verizon’s network. Companies offering text message alerts, interactive SMS polls, and SMS search will have to pay this amount from the first of November. However, Verizon has made it clear that this charge applies only to standard and premium programs and not to the free-to-end-user kind of programs.

While 3 cents per text message might not look that big an amount now, it could form a significant source of income for Verizon in the long run. This is the first time the company has reassessed its charges ever since it started partnering with other companies in 2003.

Now the important question is – will other carriers follow suit? After all, if a network carrier wants to charge for the text messages sent through its network, there is not much its partners can do. Especially, with SMS advertising becoming more popular than ever, they cannot afford to lose a highly targeted advertising medium. So, the companies will most probably try to come to terms with these changes in the industry. It will be interesting to see the reaction of other carriers in the coming days.

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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