Monday, July 25, 2011

“Monetization” – The Most Important Word in Digital Media

by Steve Anson, Director of Business Development, Mocean Mobile

In its simplest form, the word monetization is defined as the process of converting or establishing something into currency. Defined in a digital context, the term refers to the generation of revenue streams from an owned property through the means of advertising or a method of e-commerce. Sounds powerful, doesn’t it? Toss a couple of those words in a deck with a few green numbers and you’ll cruise through the monthly review meeting like a hero in a parade.

New revenue streams are always positive, but what needs to be considered are the measures of that which is being left on the table and, going a step further, the degree of value that is being delivered to the end user.  Remember, at the end of the day, value delivered directly correlates to bottom-line revenue.
The beautiful thing about the mobile industry is that it has the potential to bring never-before-seen value to digital advertising. Having a commerce-enabled Starbucks ad served based on geo-location when a user is looking for an iced coffee on 38th and Madison is quite remarkable. Mobile ad serving technology sits at the core of this movement and allows publishers of mobile content to put an engine in place that will push the most valuable ad available to the end user in an instant.
But what does this engine look like? How powerful and intelligent is it really? Will it allow publishers to rest easy knowing that even while they sleep, a fleet of servers is ensuring that the most valuable ad available is being called and pushed to a device according to prioritization rules they have put in place? 

Mobile publishers need to start peeling back layers of the onion and re-evaluating the ad serving solutions they are currently working with. The mobile industry is moving fast and it is essential that the proper technology is put in place today so that your sales team doesn’t get left in the dust, unable to sell and “monetize” their inventory effectively.

Given the power of mobile devices, your ad server should be able to deliver on your needs.  Being told “we aren’t able to target with that level of granularity” or “unfortunately we can’t serve those types of ads” is unacceptable. I bet there is a company out there that can do it all and has redefined the mobile ad serving standard; you just need to take a leap and give them a call.