Mobilista» advertising Archives – Mobilista

Optus jump on Mobile Advertising wagon

Emily — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:23:56 +0000

Optus has announced the launch of a new media division that will sell Mobile Advertising.

Today’s article in the Australian gives us the usual launch and press release stuff but is pretty light on details. B&T have managed to dig out a bit more information, including a name (Dawn Goh) to head up this new division and a URL from the Optus site www.optus.com.au/advertise (a search for Mobile Advertising on the Optus Home page still draws a blank).

We heard last week from Brad over at Digital Ministry that Optus will be using MIA’s AdFactory solution to serve and manage their mobile ad campaigns.

Although we’ve seen releases before from Optus talking about mobile advertising, with the appointment of a solution provider, it looks like it might finally be happening. There is also a bona fide rate card up on their site, with CPM rates for banners and M-Site Builds.

No surprises there – rates are generally comparable to the other players in the market, if a big high (untargeted banners are $30-$40 CPM) and there’s not much info about targeting capability.

With Optus servicing a large portion of Australia’s iPhone customers it would be quite a coup if they could offer iPhone targeting early on.

Speaking of which, I recently heard of another local carrier offering iPhone targeting, even though it’s not an advertised service. Anyone got any light to shed on this? I regularly target iPhone users via AdMob for my clients and I am not yet aware of any other Aus business offering this – would love to know more if you know otherwise?

Feedback on AIMIA Mobile Ad Guidelines

Emily — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:27:48 +0000

Rob Manson over at MOBusiness has published a detailed review of the AIMIA Mobile Advertising Guidelines launched last week. He offers some quite specific criticisms and suggestions for improvement.

The original document is here AIMIA Mobile Advertising Guidelines and see launch comments below from AIMIA:

“Mobile advertising is the placement of advertisements (currently display and search are the most commonly used) on mobile internet sites – both on the carrier portal and off-portal. Mobile advertising has the potential to deliver highly targeted, highly personalised advertising to a majority of the population – all those that have a mobile phone. Brands, publishers and agencies have begun to use mobile advertising for a wide variety of marketing motivations including customer acquisition, revenue generation, brand awareness and distribution.

Following extensive consultation with carriers, publishers, content aggregators and content providers here in Australia, and with industry bodies internationally, the AIMIA Mobile Industry Group has formulated Mobile Advertising Guidelines to support the professional growth and development of Mobile Advertising in Australia. The guidelines have also been endorsed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia. This is intended to be a living document, growing and changing as the mobile advertising industry grows and matures.”

Given AIMIA intends for this to be a living document – I thought it would be good to have a central place to encourage discussion on its future.

Things move very fast in this industry, and no sooner is a document published than new handsets, browsers and standards emerge. If you have an opinion on the AIMIA Mobile Advertising Guidelines, or thoughts on where future guidelines ought to focus, please comment below.

I’ll also update this post with links to any discussions elsewhere if you send them through.

Mobile Campaigns – After the Click-Through

Emily — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:01:51 +0000

I just received a copy of Amethon’s recent report on Mobile Advertising microsite performance. Amethon is a specialist provider of mobile web analytics tools. Their clients publish almost 10,000 mobile sites globally and regularly publish aggregated data about mobile behaviours that they have identified in their client mobile sites. (A bit like AdMob’s monthly Mobile Metrics reports based on ads served to their publisher network)

This latest report is based an about 100 mobile campaigns, from Amethon’s global customer base. All of the data comes from developed countries with similar mobile penetration and is normalisd by population. Given this, and the fact that Amethon is an Australian company, I would suggest the data is fairly relevant to Australia.

The report ‘Mobile Advertising – After the Click-Through’ focuses on user interaction for mobile campaigns AFTER clicking on a banner ad.

Some of Amethon’s findings

Mobile Sites (including Telco & off-deck) make up 23% of all mobile campaigns
Automotive, Movie and Alcohol categories make up 44% of all mobile campaigns
50% of Movie category campaigns and 38% of Alcohol campaigns have a downloadable component
Page views per visit were almost identical for campaigns with/without downloads
Average page views per visist is 1.53
Bounce rates for mobile campaigns sites are very high – 67%
Excluding bounce visits (leaving after 1 page) average page views is high – 4.15%
Only 33% of consumers venture beyond the first page of a mobile campaign site
Mobile Services are the most common campaign type (22%) however these have below average page views per visit (1.35)

I thought the report successfully highlighted the current failure of our industry to deliver campaign microsites that offer a compelling, engaging experience.

Bounce rates (the number of people who leave after the first page) are significantly higher than online, where you might aim for 20 – 30% as an ideal. This highlights just how badly we as an industry are using ‘micro-sites’ in my opinion. While Mobile Advertising boasts higher than average click through rates, advertisers are clearly not optimising their campaigns to hold on to customers once they have clicked through.

Another observation made by Amethon is that campaigns have little ‘made for mobile’ content – ie. they are repurposing TV ads, movie trailers and the like. In my mind this is closely linked to the high bounce rates.

Mobile is a unique medium with obvious advantages for interaction, conversation and engagement. If we squander this opportunity by throwing old, re-used content at mobile users, we should expect little more.

Mobile Advertising is not just about getting the click throughs – it’s about what happens next, and it makes me tired to see the same old strategies being trotted out time and time again. It’s actually been years now. Let’s try something different!!

So what do you have to do to bring those bounce rates down and pick up average page views per visit?

Clearly communicate the benefit of clicking on an ad – and don’t disappoint the customer once they arrive
Use your mobile destination to create a MOBILE specific interaction by taking advantage of the unique properties of the medium (location, context, identity, mobility, immediacy)
Don’t repurpose content from another medium – unless it makes perfect sense to do so (Movie trailers are an example that work. TV Ads are generally not)
Use a mobile specialist to build your mobile site / micro-site / landing page. They know how to work with the small screen and optimise for different handsets. An average (or crappy) user experience does not encourage your customers to stick around.
Think about mobile at the beginning of your campaign plan and integrate with online & offline components, with mobile to tie it all together.
Be creative (please???)

Mobile is not ‘the little web’. It’s something else altogether – a whole new medium. Use it that way, and you WILL see results.

Now let’s cross our fingers that Amethon’s report this time next year will show a prettier picture and prove we’ve learned our lessons and moved on from here!

For more information and to request a copy of the report, visit Amethon.

AIMIA to launch Mobile Ad Guidelines on June 10th

Emily — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:24:14 +0000

The AIMIA Mobile Industry Group is launching the updated AIMIA Mobile Advertising Guidelines on June 10, 2009 in Sydney. The launch event is from 9.30 – 12.00 on the 10th at the KPMG Auditorium and includes presentations on Mobile Advertising from Kelly Ajai (Communicator), Kerry Field (Mindshare), Jon Slade (NineMSN) and Angus Beattie (3 Mobile). The morning will be moderated by the inimitable Jennifer Wilson, Chair of the AIMIA Mobile Industry Group.

This will be a good chance to mix it with the local mobile advertising crew, and hear about mobile advertising from the experts. I’ll be there! More info and registration details from AIMIA.

ADMA announces Mobile Marketing Course

Emily — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:10:35 +0000

I’m thrilled to be able to announce the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) is running a Mobile Marketing Course in Sydney on June 11th and Melbourne on June 18th. Apart from the fact that I’ve been asked to present the Melbourne course, I am quite genuinely pleased to see an industry organisation of ADMA’s strength paying attention to mobile as a marketing tool.

Oliver, Jenny and I have been putting the finishing touches on the course materials and I am really looking forward to the opportunity to work with a group of enthusiastic wannabe mobile marketers! The course will cover the latest trends in mobile technology and marketing, and teach participants how to take advantage of them.

Course Content includes:

how to engage consumers through the mobile channel
the logistics of implementing a mobile marketing campaign
how to integrate mobile into your overall marketing strategies

I’ll be running the show down in Melbourne on June 18th and will have a few guest lecturers there on the day to impart their wisdom and expertise. Jenny Williams (IdeaGarden) will fire up Sydney attendees on June 11th with a little bit of support from yours truly (I’ll be making cups of tea)

I would love to see you there. I know if you’re reading Mobilista then you’re already interested in mobile marketing – perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to take that interest and turn it into some really exciting mobile marketing activities before 2009 is out.

At the start of the year I predicted we’d see some great local examples of mobile marketing and advertising in Australia in 2009. Will you be behind one of those great examples??

The course will run over a full day and costs $865 or $665 for ADMA Members.

Visit the ADMA site for more information and to book your place today.

Mobile Ads – Australian Telco update

Emily — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 10:57:00 +0000

It’s a while since I wrote anything about the Australian Telcos, so I thought I’d make mention of a few snippets of relevance to the local mobile advertising industry.

Firstly, I recently came across the Sensis MediaSmart mobile advertising rate card online. It includes rates for buying advertising media on all of the Sensis and BigPond mobile sites. There are also descriptions of the various ad products and some case studies. Not sure how long the MediaSmart rate cards have been live for, but it’s probably been a good year since Vodafone published their mobile advertising rates in a bold move that gave the other Australian Telcos a push in the right direction

And finally, in January this year, Natalie Apostolou from Digital Media magazine reported that Optus had announced its intention to enter the mobile advertising space. Interestingly there was no press release from Optus and no information on the Optus website (still) about this development.

The Digital Media article mentioned that “Optus has appointed digital sales agency 3D Axis as its first sales partner for the offering and will consider developing an in-house mobile advertising sales team as the market matures”.

3D Axis, previously part of the Q Ltd group of companies, was a mobile media specialist, but this company does not exist anymore! Upon investiation, qnother Q Ltd company, 3D Interactive can be seen to have included Optus Zoo (mobile) on their site list, with 4 million impressions available for $45 CPM. Given this is the same rate 3D Interactive publish for Optus Zoo online, I suspect they will be bundling online advertisers into mobile, at least initially.

It is an interesting move for Optus, given that they are already so far behind the competition locally, to appoint an agency with limited mobile expertise. It’s also intriguing to note that Optus have made so little fuss about their foray into mobile advertising. Not even a press release?

Finally we can only speculate about what will happen to the combined Vodafone and Three mobile advertising strategies should the proposed merger go ahead later this year.

Lexus goes mobile with codes

Emily — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:47:00 +0000

Lexus recently ran a mobile advertising campaign utilising QR codes, mobile banners & a mobile destination site. Lexus’ agency TMS worked with Sensis to implement the various campaign components. TMS have previously done quite a lot in this space with Toyota, but this is the first time they have trialled QR codes.

Since Telstra installed code readers on a large number of handsets in Australia, there has been a lot of QR buzz about town, and a handful of advertisers are using them in print campaigns to link through to mobile content. In my opinion the implementation often leaves a bit to be desired, and shows a limited understanding of the mobile user and mobile content in general.

The Lexus campaign is better than many, but like all good things, there is always room for improvement! The code was printed in the bottom right of several 1/2 and 1/3 page print ads in the AFR as well as major metro press and regional markets. The small print beneath the code stated “Scan the code with your Telstra Code Reader for more details on L’EXHIBITION”. The reference to Telstra is understandable – the campaign was managed by Sensis. There is reference to ’..particular handsets with appropriate scanning software..’ in the small print’ but it could be made clearer that QR codes can be scanned by any number of free downloadable readers, thus making it possible for anyone (not just Telstra customers) to scan the code.

Scanning the code automatically launches the Lexus campaign ‘adsite’ which was built by Sensis. Sensis build & host template based mobile sites for many of their mobile media clients. The templates are based around simple layouts and functions such as info, click to call, downloads and forms.

The Lexus adsite repeats the information from the print ad and expands on this with links to more detailed product information and images of the various Lexus car models. This is a good use of the mobile channel to deliver more info than can be effectively sqeezed into a print ad. There is also a dealer finder which lets users specify a state to see a list of Lexus dealers and click to call them.

What I didn’t much like was the use of a TV commercial that can be downloaded from the adsite. I know it’s fun to have some moving content and the ad itself worked fine on the small screen. It’s just that in this case it didn’t offer the user anything new. The TV ad repeated the content & imagery from the print ad, which was also repeated on the mobile adsite.

Telstra customers paid nothing to download the ad, which is great. On the other hand there was nothing to alert me to that fact, I just happen to know! Customers of other carriers would have seen the ‘warning’ on possible data charges and if they’d gone ahead, would have incurred data costs of anything up to $5.00 depending on their data plan. Given the limited additional value offered by
the TV ad, I wonder if it was worth risking quite a few unhappy customers just to have it there.

Backing up the print implementation apparently are mobile banners distributed across the BigPond portal. I was unable to view these however, as I’m not in the target audience – too young apparently – damn

Overall this was a nice implementation that showcases some of the possibilities for integrating more traditional media with a mobile component.

Matt Joyce from The Media Store tells me there is more to come in the next few weeks, with an integrated Toyota campaign utilising QR codes as well. According to Matt, TMS are continuing to test mobile and mobile technologies and intend to apply all learnings to an increasing focus and budget toward Mobile. I look forward to seeing more from these guys and congratulate them on being early to market once again in the mobile space.

For an interesting insight into future possibilities for the automotive industry, check out this 2 part interview with Marc Mielau, Innovation Manager for Mobile Marketing at BMW. BMW Driving Mobile Innovation Part 1 and Part 2

An Australian ad-funded mobile service

Emily — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:14:00 +0000

SMSPup has recently launched a new mobile service that they claim to be Australia’s first advertising subsidised mobile phone service.

SMSPup already has a 140,000 strong opt-in online database offering free web to mobile SMS to subscribers who agree to receive ads & online surveys in return.

The new mobile service called SMSPup Mobile offers subscribers $130 worth of call value a month for $10 if they agree to receive SMS & email based advertising offers. The service is provided by Comtel (who operate Reward Mobil e in Australia) an MVNO on the Vodafone network.

Subscribers will receive up to 5 promotional messages a day to get the deal, or $29 if they don’t want the ads. See the SMSPup Mobile FAQ for more info. According to SMSPup Mobile the ads will reflect customers demographic and lifestyle preferences.

Included in the $130 is mobile, landline & international calls, sms, mms, voicemail, and mobile data at a rate of 2 cents ber kb. This is in line with Telstra & Vodafone’s rates for casual mobile internet use (so, if a subsriber was using predominantly data they would use up around $100 of their $130 to get 5MB of data). Given the SMSPup mobile target audience is unlikely to be heavy mobile browsers it’s probably a fair plan.

Another component of the service is a reward system whereby customers can earn points by interacting with or responding to the advertising messages. The reward points can then be redeemed for benefits including movie passes, travel discounts or used in auctions for devices such as handsets on the SMSPup site.

While its great to see this example of an ‘ads for mobile services” model in Australia, I think it would be better to see the plan being truly free to customers, with advertisers covering all of the costs.

Or what about focusing specifically on data browsing – I might agree to receive ads in return for completely no charge data browsing.

What do you think? Will the SMSPup model work? Has anyone signed up for it and checked out the ads you receive?

I am also interested to hear more about the value that Advertisers will receiving from targeting SMSPup Mobile subscribers. My own previous experience with SMSPup’s SMS database showed great CTRs (as recipients earned points for clicking), but ultimately poor conversions. I wonder how the reward scheme will operate under this new service and if it is likely to encourage similar behaviour?

Thanks to Andrew Grill for alerting me to the SMSPup Mobile launch last week. Check out his blog London Calling to see the SMSPup Mobile press release and further comments from Andrew, comparing the service to a similar offering from UK company Blyk.

Creating a Mobile Advertising Community

Emily — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:32:00 +0000

As discussed below, I’m hoping to use this blog as a starting point to create a community around the Mobile Advertising industry in Australia.

I plan to leave the ‘industry association’ stuff to the experts but I think we can all benefit from an ongoing conversation in a more informal way.

I’m the first to admit Mobilista is pretty low-tech and doesn’t offer the best tools to enable this kind of interaction. For this reason I suggest using a couple of the popular social networking tools to get things moving along.

Facebook

I’ve created a Facebook group called Mobile Advertising in Australia. I realise many of you (myself included) are a little ‘facebook fatigued’ but I don’t know another more widely used platform that provides the same ease of interaction and involvement, with simple tools for establishing a community. Consider it a starting point. Please drop in and make yourself known.

Twitter

I’ve found Twitter to be an invaluable tool when used as a business & information resource. I follow people in the mobile industry globally and locally, and get to hear first hand about the daily experiences they have working on mobile sites, campaigns & products. It would be great to connect with more local operators and start having conversations about our mobile advertising industry.

If you already use Twitter my username is emilyfreeman . If you don’t, why not give it a shot. ‘Follow’ me, and then drop me a line to introduce yourself. I’ll put you in touch with some other people I think are worth following.

From little things big things grow. First, lets start talking.

A Guide to Mobile Advertising in Australia

Emily — Sun, 04 May 2008 12:23:00 +0000

So you think you’re ready to run a mobile advertising campaign. Or perhaps you have a client that likes to be ahead of the game and you want to show them you know where it’s at. This guide to Mobile Advertising in Australia should help you get something off the ground.

You’ve probably read all the articles about how big an opportunity Mobile Advertising is, and heard case studies for brands who’ve done ‘great things with mobile’ overseas. But what about here in Australia. A recent ACMA media release put the number of 3G mobile phones inAustralia at more than 4.5 million. That’s an audience worth targeting. But what is possible, how do you do it & how much does it cost? Oh, and what is it again??

What is it again?

I define Mobile Advertising as mobile display, mobile search & mobile content sponsorship. Unless you already have a mobile site, your mobile advertising campaign will need a mobile destination site, or mSite for the user to click through to (mobile TV advertising would be an exception here).

Mobile Advertising might be used to build brand value, drive traffic to a mobile site or to support a mobile marketing strategy such as an SMS mailout, competition, game or giveaway. Web to mobile techniques like beams, mobile barcodes or SMS shortcodes can be used to supplement mobile advertising. (added later: QR Codes are also a mechanism for driving users from offline channel to mobile)

For some background on all of the above, see my recent article about driving traffic to a mobile site – reposted here on Mobilista.

Mobile advertising should support your traditional campaign goals and can be implemented independently or in support of traditional channels. Although branding is the simplest mobile execution, traditional direct marketing campaigns convert well to the mobile channel (competitions, give-aways, direct response by phone / email etc).

As a mobile advertiser, you need to put your message in front of customers who are already looking at content on their mobile phone. In the most simplistic terms, mobile advertising is about placing your message within that content. Just like online media, you can serve banners into a mobile site, buy ads to appear against mobile search results or sponsor a mobile website or mobile TV show.

Buying Mobile Media

A mobile banner is simply a clickable graphic served onto a mobile page. Globally, click thru rates (CTRs) on mobile banners average at around 6%.
Some local campaigns have seen CTRs of 10, 20 & 30%. These CTRs will likely settle at between 1 – 3% as mobile advertising becomes more common, and the ‘curiosity factor’ is reduced. Unlike online, mobile banners tend to dominate the mobile browsing experience, taking up as much as 25% of the screen.

So how do you buy mobile banner media? In Australia the media buying environment for mobile is fragmented and the ad products vary widely. (added later: MDigital is a Melbourne based startup who can now take care of your aggregated mobile media buying)

The nature of the mobile industry means that your audience can be reached in three ways. Via the mobile phone Carrier, the content Publisher, or an Ad network. Across all of these channels, I would estimate there to be at least 500 million impressions available for buying in Australia. That includes banner ads served across the major publishers’ mobile sites, banners & sponsorships on all the available carrier inventory, and text ads using Google Mobile & AdMob. My estimate is most likely conservative.

Based on the addressable market and performance estimates, there’s no reason an advertiser couldn’t achieve several hundred thousand clicks on a month long mobile campaign.

2008 has seen the Australian carriers really step up to mobile advertising. Vodafone, Telstra & 3Mobile have formal strategies for selling advertising on their mobile content portals. Vodafone leads the charge in simplicity & transparency, with a published rate card available online (http://www.vodafone.com.au/personal/aboutvodafone/mobileadvertising/index.htm).

Additionally, Australia’s major mobile publishers, Fairfax, News, NineMSN & Sensis all offer mobile advertising on their ‘off-deck’ sites. Off deck sites are simply mobile websites that are not available from a Carrier’s home page or portal. Even sites which ARE linked to from a carrier’s portal can be accessed ‘off-deck’ by typing in the URL, requesting a link via SMS shortcode or finding it on a mobile search engine.

Unfortunately, buying mobile media is not as simple as sourcing all the rate cards and buying up impressions. Each carrier & publisher has a different view on how mobile advertising should be positioned & sold.

NineMSN offers a CPM based approach, whereby banners can be served across each of their mobile sites for approximately $75 CPM. This includes their ‘Mobilised’ portal as well as their popular Entertainment Guides, Cleo, Ralph and 9News.

Similarly Vodafone will serve banner ads on their mobile portal ‘Vodafone live’ for between $60 – $75 CPM. On top of this, targeting can be added at a rate of + $5CPM for each targeting filter, such as age, gender, location or device type.

If you want to reach the big user bases, you need to deal with Telstra & 3 Mobile. Telstra offers a ‘run of network’ proposition of $30 CPM for untargeted banner ads across their Sensis & BigPond mobile network. This includes mobile sites like Yellow, Whereis, CitySearch & the BigPond mobile portal. Add another $20 to your CPM and you can target by age, gender, income and more. $10 on top gives you location targeting as well. Sensis MediaSmart is set to release an updated rate card & brochure in the next few weeks, which will include details of all the mobile advertising opportunities on Sensis & BigPond’s mobile sites. (added later: I still haven’t seen this)

3 Mobile has a more customised approach to mobile advertising. Rather than offering simple banners on the Planet 3 mobile portal, 3 prefer to work with advertisers to design customised, integrated campaigns. This customised approach is also adopted by News Digital Media who publish a news portal, Carsguide & mobile ticketing site Moshtix, and Fairfax Digital who publish The Age & SMH mobile sites, Drive, Domain and the Good Food Guides on mobile. More on integrated campaigns below.

Buying mobile banner media is only part of the equation however. One of the tricky things about designing for mobile phones is the variance in device types. For this reason, mobile banners need to be created in multiple sizes. AIMIA has established a Mobile Advertising sub-committee to create and lobby for adoption of standard mobile ad sizes. The latest version of the Mobile Ad guidelines can be found here (http://www.aimia.com.au/i-cms?page=1.35.3434.3435) and are a good starting point for consistency in mobile advertising, but not all publishers support them yet. Until industry standards are adopted you should ask for banner specs before designing your ad creative.

A Mobile Destination

In addition to mobile banners, you will need a mobile destination site. Also knows as msites, adsites, campaign sites, mini-sites or landing pages. This is where your customer clicks to after seeing your mobile ad. Whether you use banners, search, SMS or another means to promote your mobile campaign, the ultimate destination is (almost) always a mobile site.

So how do you put together a mobile destination site? This is a complex area and one I should discuss further in a future article. In brief, you can either outsource or build it yourself. The most expensive option is outsourcing to a specialist mobile development house, such as TigerSpike or Icon Mobile. The sky’s the limit in terms of cost, but this is the only way to guarantee creative control.

At the other end of the scale there are many free online solutions for building a DIY mobile destinaton, such as Mippin (http://www.mippin.com) and local startup MoStyle (http://www.mostyle.mobi). These solutions work well for community sites or for the delivery of blog & newsletter content.

Local company mNet lets you create mobile sites online for as little as $100 per month using the Campaign Mobile online self service platform (http://www.campaignmobile.com). Campaign Mobile is well suited to simple mobile ad campaigns and your mobile site can be up and running fast. Or if you’re willing to spend a little
more, mNet’s mobile development team can custom design a site for you for as little as $2k.

If you want the whole thing taken care of, the easiest option is to sign up for one of the campaign based mSite solutions on offer by the Carriers & Mobile publishers. Vodafone will build you a simple mobile site for $3750, Sensis’ template based adsites start at $3,500 and 3 Mobile’s basic offer is $2,950. Many will now include a free mobile ad-site or landing page with a media buy, but be warned that this site may not be available off-deck and will probably be deleted as soon as your campaign ends.

These simple websites will include 2 or 3 pages of text, images, and a basic function such as a content download or direct response form. More complex ‘standard’ sites can cost up to $10k and all offer customised development at a price, usually charged by the day.

Integrated Mobile Marketing Campaigns

If you already have a mobile site, or have a good handle on the various components of a mobile marketing campaign you may simply want to buy mobile banner media and manage the rest yourself. (as mentioned above, MDigital can arrange an aggregated quote for mobile media based on your requirements).

3 Mobile work with advertisers & agencies to develop end to end solutions targeting their user base. A typical campaign might start with a targeted SMS push message to opted in 3 customers. The SMS would include a link to a customised mobile campaign site. Mobile banners across the Planet 3 portal would drive additional users and content sponsorship might be arranged for a suitable section of the portal. The mobile site itself could incorporate a competition or give-away, such as a free ringtone or mobile game. Angus Beattie, Mobile Advertising Manager at 3 Mobile believes at this early stage that there is a large benefit from dealing directly with the media owner, and he would welcome calls from interested advertisers.

News Limited & Fairfax also work with Advertisers to design appropriate branding opportunities on their mobile sites. Banners, co-branding and content sponsorships can be arranged.

Commonwealth Bank’s sponsorship of Fairfax’s Domain mobile site (http://m.domain.com.au) is an example of a mobile sponsorship that works well for both parties. CBA includes branded banners on each page of the Domain mobile site, which click through to an mSite listing recent offers & an interactive mortgage repayment calculator. Talk to Chris Watt at Fairfax to find out more.

As well as offering simple CPM based media buys, Vodafone’s rate card also offers SMS & MMS mailouts, mSite development, Mobile TV sponsorship, Bluetooth and an image recognition tool called ‘Colour Snap’. For full reach of Vodafone’s audience, you can also advertise on the phone bill & in Vodafone’s glossy print mag.

The limitation of developing an integrated campaign with one carrier is that you are constrained to their user base. A mobile site built by a carrier is generally rated ‘free to browse’ for their customers. This means you don’t need to worry about your users copping data charges for interacting with your campaign. On the other hand, if you want to extend your reach beyond the carrier’s user base, this may be cause for concern.

NineMSN perform something of an aggregator role, as they can arrange mobile banners (on their own properties) across several carriers, as well as onselling some of Vodafone’s inventory. Not just a media aggregator, NineMSN have an impressive portfolio of Mobile Marketing case studies through their 5^th Finger company and can put together a mobile solution to suit most scenarios. 5^th Finger make excellent use of messaging in support of mobile advertising, will build a mobile campaign site to your specs and can work with some of the carriers on your behalf.

Alternatively you can put your own campaign together by buying a selection of targeted banner media from one or more of the carriers/publishers, choosing the mobile site development option that gives you the most flexibility, and even setting up a simple push SMS to your own database of customers.

There’s nothing stopping you from driving additional traffic to a site built for you by a carrier or publisher – it’s just a website after all, with a URL that can be distributed in various ways. Below I describe some of the ways you can drive additional Australian users to your mobile site.

Off Deck Traffic & Mobile Ad Networks

Mobile Ad Networks Google & AdMob offer Advertisers the opportunity to buy traffic on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis. These Ad Networks generally focus on users looking at off deck sites.

Both Google & AdMob deliver simple text based ads with character limitations of around 30 – 40 characters. CTR averages range from 0.3% – 3% depending on the campaign & message.

Google Mobile Adwords is a search engine marketing (SEM) product, very similar to their online SEM offering. Google has a mobile search engine which can be accessed by visitinghttp://m.google.com.au . Several of the Australian carriers also make Google search available on their portals.

Advertisers bid for mobile keywords separately to online keywords. Mobile text ads look much the same as Google Ads do online, except they are a little shorter. Ads are returned in search results, usually at the bottom, and they link through to a mobile site, or a ‘click to call’ phone number.

Usage of Google Mobile in Australia is still small compared to the number of customers browsing the carrier portals. But at an average of 10c – 15c per click, mobile search is a cost effective way to generate additional usage & awareness of a mobile campaign – after all you only pay when someone clicks. Google has recently launched Mobile Image ads in Australia, which gives Advertisers the opportunity to extend an existing graphical banner campaign.

AdMob is a global network of mobile publishers who are willing to display your ads on their site. The ads are text based and are very similar to Google Ads. Each mobile site publisher in the AdMob network is allocated a channel such as Downloads, Entertainment or Communities. Advertisers bid by channel to display their ads on mobile sites within that channel. Average bids range from 25c – 60c.

AdMob provides some impressive targeting which makes their local proposition appealing. Ads can be targeted by country, carrier & specific device (added later: now includes iPhone targeting & iPhone specific ad units). This means for example, a mobile ad campaign booked onto the BigPond portal can be supplemented with text or image based ads through AdMob, targeting only Telstra customers using eg. Nokia N95 and iPhone handsets. Australian traffic on the AdMob network is significant, with many millions of impressions. Even with a CTR below 1%, a typical campaign can result in as many 10,000 clicks to your mobile destination.

To drive mobile traffic from your online site, check out new beta service BeamMehttp://www.beamme.info/. BeamMe offers a send to mobile button that you can insert on your website. Users enter their mobile number to receive an SMS with a link to your mobile site. Alternatively you can set up an SMS shortcode that allows users to SMS a request for your link to be sent to their phone. SMS the word ‘TV’ to 19 34 34 to see how it works.

QR codes are an option for driving traffic from a print or outdoor medium. QR codes are a type of barcode that can be printed or displayed in a newspaper or magazine or outdoors on a poster, billboard or bus shelter. When customers scan the code using scanning software on their mobile phone they are instantly linked through to a mobile site. Check out local startup QMCodes (http://qmcodes.com) for more information.

Get onto it!

If you’ve made it this far, there’s no reason you can’t launch a mobile advertising campaign inAustralia right now. Admittedly it is a complex and fragmented market, but this shouldn’t stop Advertisers making the most of the opportunities that are on offer. When you start planning your campaign, don’t be afraid to ask questions and demand flexibility. Many of the major players would prefer you deal exclusively with them, but no-one has all the answers and in the current marketplace you can pick & choose the services you need.

If you’re interested in finding out more you can contact me on emily@mobilist.com.au or subscribe to this blog to stay up to date with the latest industry offerings. My business Mobilist provides mobile advertising consultancy and Mobile SEM services.

NOTE: This article was originally published on Digital Ministry, but has since been moved or deleted (?) I have reposted it here so that it will have a permanent bookmark.

NOTE: the facts in this article were valid at May 2008. For an updated view please feel free to contact me on emily@mobilist.com.au

(sorry I’ve had to block comments temporarily to deal with spam on this post.. commenting will be back up soon!)