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Leveraging the internet model
There was a lot of emphasis on browse and buy by Bango's Anil Malhotra. During the webinar he explained that Bango's back end services can help the user navigate the brand's web page, collect payment and even help track downloads and site visitors.
Overall, the focus was on the advances of browsing from ads and search. Both presenters in the webinar were optimistic that the new advances can help users find content via search.
Most marketers are familiar with how sponsored search works on the web, and the webinar walked us through the three steps:
- User conducts search
- Business sets up an account and submits search terms, titles, descriptions and then market determines cost per click
- Listings are dynamically ordered by click price
The webinar showed the comparison of search on the web for the term "flights" (meaning airline flights) and search on the mobile web. If the advertiser has a WAP site, the user will see the ad's title, paid link, advertiser's URL. If the advertiser doesn't have a WAP site you'll see the web ad landing page created and hosted by Yahoo, the ad logo, and on certain phones, the phone number will even be clickable leading to a direct call. The new Bango/Yahoo Search Marketing relationship allows Bango clients to submit their sites to Yahoo's global WAP algorithmic index for free. To make it even easier, Bango clients sign up for Yahoo Search Marketing Mobile sponsored search through the Bango interface.
Bango promises to evaluate the success of mobile campaigns for brands, their agencies or SEO firms. Malhotra says Bango's advanced evaluation method can help marketers fine tune campaigns, reduce fraud and verify users and identify the most productive segments of the mobile marketing campaign
In an online post after the webinar, Fierce Wireless moderator Antony Bruno admitted that they didn't get too deep into the biggest challenge of this effort-- getting eyeballs. There is a need to drive users to mobile sales channels and that can't all be done on mobile. You've got to consider that TV, Radio and print charges add up, and even strong brands like ESPN struggle to get audiences in the crowded wireless field.
Mobile internet usage up
After the seminar, I did some additional research and found that globally just over one-fourth (28 percent) of mobile owners worldwide had browsed the internet on a wireless handset by the end of 2005. The good news is that the mobile internet is growing and had over 34.6 million mobile users in June 2006, according to Telephia's "US Device Census Report for Q2,'06." Of that 34.6 million users: 6.5 million went to Yahoo Mail, 5.8 million for The Weather Channel and ESPN received 5.3 million unique hits with Google Search attracting 4.4 million unique visitors and MSN Hotmail getting 3.4 million.
Yet the stats show that U.S. mobile web surfing hasn't really caught on yet.
Yankee Group found that about 18 percent of wireless users in the U.S. had at least tried using the mobile internet, but only six percent considered themselves regular mobile internet users.
One of the biggest challenges for brands entering the mobile marketing arena is creating good interfaces that work on a variety of handsets and determining the real value of a user's click on a mobile search result. A hint I heard repeated at a recent Digital Hollywood mobile seminar was to make it 'light and tight"-- make sure your mobile marketing is brightly lit and tightly worded.
Of course, the other hurdles include lack of standards and the myriad of choices possible for mobile search and marketing.
A quick chat with IAB's SVP and general manager, Sheryl Draizen, seemed in order because the Internet Advertising Bureau announced the creation of the IAB Mobile Committee on October 31. Draizen explained via phone that measurement guidelines, best practices and research by IAB would help members expand their offerings to clients in the mobile arena. More than 30 top firms are already members of the IAB's Mobile Committee ranging from Yahoo to Google to CNN to Enpocket. This contributor remembered attending the inaugural meeting of IAB's Wireless Advertising Council back in May, 2000. Draizen explained that group disbanded during the dot com fallout and that the new Mobile Committee was formed based on member and market-demand.
Back then, I ended my article about that first Wireless Ad Council meeting by saying, "I don't care what you call it-just get me a device that works anytime, anywhere-- and if you throw in some free services like weather, traffic, sports, stock quotes and instant messaging, even I might be willing to watch or listen to ads. This time maybe we'll even go beyond the 468 x 60 banner!"
Yet before I could finish this story on next-gen paid mobile search, Yahoo announced the rollout of beta tests of banner ads on its mobile web service. Online reports reveal that the launch advertiser is Peps who will promo its Diet Pepsi soft drink and test brand ads on the small screens. By the way, the ads will be 150 x 21 pixels in size.
Six years after that first Wireless Ad Council meeting at least something has changed, the new Yahoo banner ads have settled on the format of 150 x 21 pixels in size. Of course now there are also more than 194 million subscribers in the U.S. with market penetration of about 65 percent according to the latest CTIA reports. In Northern Europe penetration is 100 percent. And China dwarfs us with more than 400 million mobile phone subscribers.
It will be interesting to see if this new crop search and banner apps can help mobile marketers cash in. By the way, just around the corner I can see the new rollout of GPS enabled handsets leading to an increase in local search opportunities.
Joyce Schwarz is a frequent contributor to imediaconnection who wrote many of the first articles on mobile marketing and consulted on some of the earliest mobile campaigns for the US Olympics and Hollywood music and film studios. She heads JCOM consulting which launches new platforms and services in emerging media and entertainment located in Marina Del Rey, California. Schwarz also blogs at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com. You can reach her at joycecom@aol.com.
