'Net Features : mobile ads

Chevy Finds New Roads With Zumobi

Amberly Dressler — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:30:00 GMT

Content is king - a popular phrase proven repeatedly.

In the case of mobile media company, Zumobi, content was the leading catalyst for impressive results out of a recent mobile initiative for the Chevrolet Technology Series campaign. The promotion was a content advertising experience that ran across Motor Trend's print magazine, website, iOS and Android Apps.

"We presented Zumobi with a challenge to preserve the creative elements of our print and online campaign to create a cohesive brand identity across mediums and yet build a unique experience that addresses the specific usability and content aspects for mobile," said Carolin Probst-Iyer, manager digital consumer of engagement at General Motor's Chevrolet Division. "They far exceeded our expectations on mobile. The results of a 37 percent engagement rate are a testament to the success of this campaign and the ZBi platform."

Zumobi Co-Founder and Vice President of Product Design John SanGiovanni credits three different reasons for the success, including the aforementioned content.

"This campaign was really about trying to engage the user with content and teach the user about their manufacturing, so their goal was specific: engagement with the site," said SanGiovanni. "Chevrolet wanted a car enthusiast to really spend real time and watch the long-form videos and engage with other excellent content."

And engage they did. People spent as high as 6.4 minutes interacting with the Chevrolet ZBi ads and a low 4 percent bounce rate. SanGiovanni counts the actual integration of the experience as the second reason for the campaign's achievements. Chevy's advertisements weren't presented as an in-app banner. Instead, the ad displayed like a new content channel that captured the attention of the user and subtly integrated brand messaging.

The third thing that affected Chevy and Zumobi's success was the time-release of new chapters of content. The additional content gave users a good reason to use Zumobi's Footprint feature, which creates a leave-behind app on their mobile device home screen, so they can revisit the content at any time. Once saved, the companies could still get valuable analytics from the users, such as session times, the number of people who saved it on their home screen and so on. Nearly 7 percent of users saved the integrated content experience to their home screen using this feature.

It should also be noted, that Chevy's advertising agency, Detroit-based Commonwealth, played an integral role in this campaign.

The Real (Energy) Cost of Free Apps

Michael Garrity — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:35:00 GMT

A recent study at Purdue University revealed some interesting information that may just help businesses sell a few more paid apps.

As it turns out, as much as 75 percent of the energy consumed by free Android applications is actually spent serving ads or tracking and uploading user data for marketers. Popular apps like the free version of Angry Birds or the NYTimes were shown to only use about 10-30 percent of their energy consumption to actually power their core functions.

All this means that running a single free app can completely drain the battery of some smartphones in approximately 90 minutes.

This discovery was made my computer scientists at the university as they were developing a software to analyze the energy usage of different applications. A lot of the energy being used in some of that apps was for things like finding and uploading the user’s location with a GPS to send them location-based ads via a 3G connection.

Much of the energy consumption is blamed on inefficient third-party code that developers include in free apps to turn some kind of profit from them.

Where Are All the Mobile Ads?

Mike Phillips — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:15:00 GMT

Google's AdMob recently released data about global mobile ad impressions, and where they are being seen. It turns out, the majority of mobile ads are viewed in North America (43%) followed by Asia (33%).

What is surprising is that Western Europe accounts for just 15% of all AdMob ad impressions. Of course, this is just one mobile ad network -- although AdMob does have one of the widest reaches out there.

Some other interesting findings include:

The UK (33%), France (17%) and Germany (12%) drove more than 60% of all ad impressions from Western Europe, where all countries experienced more than 400% growth. In comparison, North America saw 266% growth.
India (26%), South Korea (13%) and Japan (12%) accounted for more than half of all ad requests from Asia.
Five countries in Asia - South Korea, Japan, China, Singapore and Thailand - had growth rates of more than 1,000% in 2010.
Brazil’s growth in 2010 far outpaced that of any other country in the region at 1,251%.
South Africa (21%), Nigeria (21%) and Egypt (12%) led Africa's 81% overall growth.

iAd to Open Doors for Advertisers and Developers

Linc Wonham — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:45:00 GMT

A major part of Thursday’s introduction to the iPhone’s new operating system was dedicated to Apple’s big plans for mobile advertising, namely the iAd platform. Apple will sell and host the ads, connecting them more seamlessly to applications with the new multitasking feature, and developers will receive 60 percent of the revenue.

“We have figured out a way to do interactive and video content without ever taking you out of the app,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during his presentation,

Apple intends for mobile ads on the iAd to be much more interactive than we’re used to seeing anywhere. They will also be able to use location services, which could prove to be a breakthrough for local advertisers.

Apple’s research shows that the average iPhone user spends 30 minutes a day in the 185,000 apps that are presently in the App Store. With a potential ad every three minutes totaling 10 ads per day, and close to 100 million iPhones, that means 1 billion ad impressions per day.

Which should all be good news to advertisers, app developers and ad agencies — not to mention Apple.

“This is a pretty serious opportunity,” said Jobs.

Google Mobile Ads Now With Click-to-Call

Mike Phillips — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:34:00 GMT

If you're a mobile advertiser, Google has just added a feature to their mobile ads you will want to check out. Click-to-call is now available for mobile ads, so that a browser can simply touch the screen of their mobile device (or navigate to it using a trackball) to immediately call the advertiser.

This new feature should be especially attractive for local businesses. Instead of requiring a user to navigate to a website and search for a contact number, immediate access to the business is available for users on the move and who might be in the immediate area of the business. The ads are also geo-targeted, meaning a business closest to the user's current position will be highly visible. In all, the ability for immediate interaction is a key component to shortening the distance to a sale. Learn about getting your phone number clickable in mobile ads.

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Greystripe Goes Android For Ad-supported Games/Apps

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Mobile brand advertising network provider Greystripe announced it has delivered over 300 million ad-supported games and applications on the iPhone and Java platforms and that their full-screen ad formats will now be available for Android games and app developers with an Android SDK.

“Given users reluctance to adopt Google Checkout and pay for apps, the free-ad supported model makes sense for Android,” said Michael Chang, CEO for Greystripe. “As the number of Android phones has reached critical mass, providing a cross-platform solution that reaches a broad base of consumers becomes even more important for our developers.”

Both existing and new developer partners are able to leverage Greystripe’s technology on the iPhone, 1,400 feature phones, and now Android phones. Greystripe’s Android SDK supports pre-roll, interstitial and post-roll inventory. Application and game developers can add Greystripe’s Android SDKs and start monetizing their content immediately .

“After seeing how well our games fared on the iPhone, we have an opportunity to monetize even more with Greystripe, “ said Amit Khanduja, Executive Vice President for Jump Games. “We’re excited about the extended offering on Android and look forward to our continued partnership with Greystripe.”

Mobile vs Non-Mobile Ad CTR

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:47:00 GMT

Online advertising network Chitika released a rather telling study of mobile vs. non-mobile Internet usage this week. If you've bought into the potential of the mobile market, you might want to reconsider that position. The study suggests that mobile users are approximately half as likely to click on an advertisement as non-mobile users.

According to the announcement, "Of the 92 million impressions cited in the study, approximately 1.3 million (1.5%) came from mobile browsing. While non-mobile held steady with a 0.83% clickthrough rate, mobile as a whole pulled a mere 0.48% – just over half of the average."

While growth in smartphones might indicate a strong market potential for mobile advertising, users are apparently not receptive to it (or too savvy to click on the ads) perhaps because of the immediacy (find answers quickly) that mobile provides. What I also find interesting is that iPhone users (those with the best UI) have the lowest click-through rates - just 0.30%. This might suggest, especially in light of the fact that Palm (and those from the "other" category) has an atrocious UI and is difficult to navigate around indicating some invalid clicks on some level as well.

Ready for a Mobile (Advertising) Storm?

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:27:00 GMT

A report from Juniper Research has found that growing consumer adoption of mobile Internet services and heightened brand engagement with mobile services will be reflected in a sharp increase in expenditure on mobile Internet advertising. How much of an increase? According to the report, ad spend on the mobile Internet will reach $500 million globally in 2009 and rise to nearly $2 billion per year by 2014.

The catalyst for all this future spending is of course the technology which will enable companies to spend that $2 billion, but how accessible are specific programs for marketers. Case in point, mobileStorm, yesterday announced its new “Go” and “Pro” product packages for online marketers needing email and SMS marketing solutions.

mobileStorm Go allows for the quick setup and delivery of mobile and email campaigns and features personalized support for every client (with a real, U.S.-based representative), 24/7 Web-based access to the mobileStorm Go platform with email and SMS marketing channels, and a reporting system with full export capabilities. mobileStorm Go also offers APIs, an Event Manager and on-demand campaign management services.

mobileStorm Pro takes marketers to another level entirely by adding dedicated account management personnel to manage the system and campaigns, including marketing channels like RSS, Voice, Fax and Video, Database Management, extended reporting, and full integration services with APIs.

Stay up to date on the latest Internet trends:
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IAB Mobile Buyers Guide

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:40:00 GMT

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released a valuable primer for marketers and agencies looking to buy mobile advertising.

The guide includes an overview of the U.S. mobile advertising market including its audience breakdown and specific advertising options for reaching those segments, key definitions in mobile display and messaging campaign metrics, an overview of how to buy mobile display and messaging campaigns, an explanation of common short codes and methods for activating mobile campaigns from traditional media campaigns, and finally a series of examples across different types of mobile advertising execution.

“We designed this guide to provide everything an agency or marketer would need to create a mobile advertising campaign,” said Jeremy Fain, Vice President of Industry Services at IAB. “Marketers and agencies are now creating multi-screen campaigns and mobile is playing an increasingly significant role as more advertisers use it to reach their customers.”

AdWhirl Makes Mobile World Revolve

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:36:00 GMT

Just a month after launch, AdWhirl announced today that they are serving over 200 million monthly advertisements worldwide on iPhone and iPod Touch applications in the Apple App Store (and five of the top 50 applications in the App store). AdWhirl is essentially a mobile advertising platform which enables developers to serve ads from different mobile ad providers like AdMob, Quattro Wireless, Videoegg, Jumptap, and Mobclix.

"We're very excited about AdWhirl's ad platform and what it means for the mobile advertising industry. AdWhirl will help Stitcher to maximize 3rd party mobile ad revenue by providing us with the ability to choose dynamically between multiple ad campaign offerings," said Noah Shanok, founder and CEO of Stitcher, a free mobile service for listening to on-demand radio.

There are a few advantages to using AdWihrl; optimized CPM's (the service identifies the highest paying ad to display from the various participating networks), the opportunity to create custom ads (used for the cross-promotion of other applications) and guarantees 100% fill rate. Developers can set up "rollover priorities" which switch to the next available ad network (or custom ad) to provide a consistent inventory of advertisements.