An iPhone application is a necessity for mobile marketing, but a cluttered marketplace makes it extremely difficult for an app to get noticed. Marketers are starting to solve that mystery by enlisting mobile ad networks, including AdMob, one of Google's recent acquisitions.
AutoWeek, a decades-old print publication, worked closely with AdMob when developing it first iPhone app and enlisted the network for a brief mobile campaign. One week after launching, the app, which stream news, photos, and content from the magazine's website, had reached No. 37 in Apple's list of most popular news applications.
A few days later, AdMob launched a mobile display campaign in the U.S. that promoted the app on mobile sites popular with AutoWeek's intended audience, and the downloads skyrocketed, according to ClickZ. The campaign lasted only two days, but downloads quadrupled in the week following the campaign, pushing the app into Apple's top 25.
Although the publisher didn't track downloads that resulted from AdMob's display ads, it estimated that 90 percent of downloads came as a result of the campaign.
