Time for a rethink for mobile advertising?

 In advertising

Peggy Anne Salz, my good friend and fellow blogger over at MSearchGroove (where I write occasional guest columns) has posted this week on a subject dear to my heart – that of the need for mobile advertisers to deliver more benefits to publishers and advertisers.

In Peggy’s recent post she says:

“The mobile advertising market has reached a new phase of maturity where targeting is essential and performance is a given. Increasingly, publishers and advertisers demand monetization schemes that match advertising and audience. Last year we settled for traffic, but this year we demand more. I know from my own experience testing ad networks with Maria Sanchez – for my series of mobile advertising white papers – that a lack of targeting and quality inventory in some cases has forced us to spend money like water. Want to spend $100+ in 15 minutes? Who needs Las Vegas when you have a plain-vanilla mobile ad network?!”

Here, as always Peggy gets to the heart of the matter.  Existing “blind” ad networks that just pump out ads to mobile sites aren’t the future.  Proper targeting and matching the right ad to the right person is a must if the market is to grow beyond an “internet” type model.

I echo Peggy’s sentiments – last year we settled for traffic, but this year we demand more.

If we are to move forward in 2009, we need to provide the way for consumers to identify what they are interested in, so we can match the right ads to the right people to reduce wastage. We also need a “learning” campaign engine and platform that looks at past campaigns and selects the right media for the right campaigns to reach the right people.

This was one of the topics covered at the recent Mobile Europe roundtable on mobile advertising.  Right now the team are busy putting together the video of the event – it will be well worth viewing in when ready towards the end of January.

About 

Based in London, The Actionable Futurist and former Global Managing Partner at IBM, Andrew Grill is a popular and sought-after presenter and comementator on issues around digital disruption, workplace of the future and new technologies such as blockchain. Andrew is a multiple TEDx and International Keynote Speaker.