Category — mobile advertising

itsmy.com - a popular mobile-only social network with over 1 million registered users announced today that they will be handing over control of ads to their users.

Users can now self-select from 15 categories what types of ads they’d like to receive. For example, there are fashion, sports, and entertainment categories. An initial test of 20,000 users saw 82% make their own ad selection. CTR response rates in the test group was 3%.

This whole strategy is interesting and worth following over the coming months as it’s essentially taking the exact opposite approach of behavioural targeting which has been working great in other online channels.

If they can combine user behavioural targeting with self-selection, my bet is that response rates would improve even more. I would even test a subscription model for self-selecting “no-ads”.

Having said that, many mobile devices do not support cookies or other user tracking mechanisms, so trying out a self-selection model makes sense… for now.

Here’s a re-post of a video demo of their platform from this year’s world mobile congress:

I received an advance copy of a report being released today by Greystripe which has some interesting statistics for those of you interested in advertising on mobile gaming platforms.

The data is fresh - based on research from Feb 15 through May 15, 2008.

Here are 5 arbitrary highlights:

1. Average worldwide clickthrough rate for ads on the Greystripe mobile ad network is a remarkable 10.1%. This is around 6 times higher than average mobile banner ad programs
2. 47% of mobile gamers are between the age of 18-24. That number jumps to 75% when you look at 18-34
3. Men and women are pretty equally split in terms of usage (60/40)
4. 51% of gamers are the primary purchase decision makers in the household (although no word on whether living in your parents basement counts as a separate household or not)
5. Favorite types of mobile games (in order): Puzzles, Action, Arcade, Adventure, Mobile-Pets

Although no Canadian specific stats were made available in the detailed report, I’ve asked if any can be made available to be posted on this blog.

Marketers looking to reach the coveted 18-34 demographic should consider a test campaign using the mobile gaming channel.  With exponential growth in the console gaming advertising market over the last few years, mobile is a natural extension of that market.  

Greystripe is a leading ad-supported content distributor with over 65 million mobile game downloads to date. 

Click here to see my previous post on them from CTIA with a video demo of their product.

You can also request the full report by emailing insights @ greystripe dot com.

The Globe and Mail recently reported that mobile advertising was years away from a breakthrough. You can read their full article here.

Although I agree we are still in the early stages of mobile advertising, I would suggest that “years” is more likely about two years. Just as we’re seeing exponential growth in leveraging the mobile channel for marketing activities, we are now seeing similar growth in mobile inventory for brands looking to place ads on carrier networks (both on and off-deck).

In Canada, there was virtually no mobile ad inventory to buy a year ago. Today, there’s well over 5 million impressions in mobile inventory to be bought on and off-portal. Although relatively small in comparison to email or the desktop web, this is growing rapidly.

Industry insiders have indicated that the metrics are looking pretty good too.

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