The Mobile Diamond in the Rough

by John Katsos, Senior Sales Engineer, Mocean Mobile

Near Field Communications (NFC) isn’t the only way to make money from mobile devices. Even though it is currently one of the hottest topics in the mobile industry, there are other ways to leverage the ever increasing number of smartphones out there. So where else can people invest? What is the next can't miss industry? How can I get a step ahead of the competition? Mobile advertising.

According to Gartner, the mobile ad revenues are expected to double this year from last from $1.6 Bn to $3.3 Bn. They are forecasting growth to $20.6 Bn by 2015. Clearly there is money to be made and holes to fill.  If you can develop, or if  you have a site which draws traffic online, why not create a mobile version and find a white label, self serve advertising solution? 

The key to white labeling is that it's your company that customers see. You can “create” your own secure ad network out of the box, white label it and suddenly you have your own customized ad server. You don't need to create this functionality yourself and staff a product support team. You can allow advertisers and publisher to manage their own mobile ad campaigns. You can take payments by credit card, or even paypal. The rest is up to you.

Some of these white label solutions even have different ad networks already integrated in their platform so that you can seamlessly populate unsold ad slots from other ad networks, no one will ever know, and your fill rate will be higher than the rest. All they see is your name and brand across the site. NFC may be the hot topic, but white labeling your mobile optimized site is the hidden diamond in the rough.

Geo-Location: The Key to Unlocking Mobile Value

by Grahm Mosley, VP Platform Solutions, Mocean Mobile

Mobile smartphones have changed our lives.  Texting, social, weather, news and games at your fingertips when you are “on the go”.  Last year a Pew Research Center study found that 83% of Millennials (18-29 yr old) like to keep their phone within reach while sleeping.  A stat that I don’t find surprising at all, partially because it’s also my alarm clock.  Our phones are with us at all times, which means that the content and ads that we consume are also “on the go”.

For the first time a unique users’ hyperlocal geolocation is available for one-to-one marketing.  This is the holy grail of impulse marketing.  A city street corner targeted “buy now” coupon banner ad for coffee or some targeted item is the classic example.  Are marketers doing this now?  Is your business being left behind?  Can a store target every person that walks down their storefront street?

The quick answer is “no”, at least not at scale.  There are a couple of challenges that have staved off the adoption of this hyper-local advertising, namely that not all mobile ad calls are created equal. Normally, ad requests that come from standard mobile web browsing only contain the same level of targeting as a home desktop computer, gateway IP address.

Application based requests from platforms such as iOS and Android will contain city corner level GPS data only if the user allows the application.  This significantly reduces the scale that a marketer can leverage this hyper local targeting.  It’s also possible for a publisher to collect profile information such as address or zip code, but this won’t give you location of a user at a given moment. 

Even with this access to hyper-local, it’s difficult for marketers to effectively craft campaigns to leverage this at reasonable scale.  Most marketers are still buying on DMA basis and targeting platforms (iOS, Android, RIM, etc) and carriers.  Some publishers that have access to granular geo information are using mobile based ad servers to offer agencies very targeted campaigns, but this has not become accessible across the entire ecosystem.

Geo targeting is intrinsic to mobile advertising and will be a cornerstone to maximizing the value in this medium.  There will likely be a number of changes during the next year that will affect what publishers and marketers are allowed to do.  It is important that the partners and technology vendors that you choose to work with, allow you to leverage this information and provide you with the proper guidance on best practices.

“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 38^th 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.  

Contact Mocean Mobile to learn more about how you can monetize your mobile networks.