Real-time bidding has become a key feature of online ad exchanges, allowing advertisers to buy targeted ad impressions individually and instantaneously. Lately, real-time bidding (RTB) has been finding its way into mobile advertising as well. In that vein, mobile ad exchange Mobclix today announced it has started offering RTB for its ad inventory. The company promises that its RTB system will help publishers boost effective CPMs by 40% to 85% over rates achieved for non-bidded inventory. It's also intended to let ad networks and demand-side platforms used by agencies make more efficient buys. Mobclix co-founder Krishna Subramanian said he expects total mobile inventory bought with RTB to be 10% to 15% of total ad buys for 2011. Mobclix, acquired last month by mobile ad firm Velti, allows more than 25 mobile and online networks including Millennial Media, Jumptap and InMobi to buy targeted advertising across mobile applications on the iPhone, Android devices and other phones. It serves 8.5 billion ad requests a month through some 15,000 developers who use the exchange to sell ads in their apps. Partners already on board using the company's new RTB capability include on-demand platforms such as [x+1], RadiumOne and LucidMedia; mobile ad networks InMobi and Jumptap and video ad network BrightRoll. In September, Microsoft launched what it said was the first mobile ad exchange supporting RTB in advance of the rollout of its new Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Demand-side platform DataXu partnered with WPP's GroupM division the same month to launch a joint ad solution for mobile, and Ericsson unveiled AdMarket, "an open marketplace for targeted mobile advertising." More recently, Google said it would begin allowing iPhone and Android developers to run AdSense ads in apps when an ad from AdMobi, the mobile ad network it acquired last year, wasn't available. The step marks a growing integration between Google's existing online ad systems and its mobile operations.
Just another friendly reminder to retailers: Your customers are way, way ahead of you when it comes to using mobile as a resource. Even my mobile-averse fiancée is ahead of most of you. And that is saying something. Whenever I hand her a phone in the car to look for directions or a local resource she still looks as if I 'd just handed her a rabid ferret. But she knows very well that I can get just about any product information we need on a smartphone. "Google it," she commands from the steam-cleaner aisle at Best Buy. Well, luckily Best Buy has it covered (almost -- see below), but according to new research from Brandanywhere and Luth Research, they are rara avis. In Brandanywhere's new Mobile Indexer, which polled 7,000 sites on 10 devices, only 4.8% of U.S. retailers had mobile-specific Web sites. The top-tier retailers are faring better, but not well. Almost 23% of the major retailers as defined by traffic levels from Alexa had mobile Web sites. When broken down by verticals, the results across all merchants actually are worse, however. While auto parts retailers (20.78% with mobile Web sites) and auto dealerships (15.66%) were relatively more mobile-ready, department stores (3.41%), clothing and shoe stores (1.61%) and grocery stores (1.60%) were pathetic. According to Dan Flanegan, Managing Partner, Brandanywhere, the big disconnect is with consumers who say they would give preference to retailers that had mobile presence. His company partnered with Luth to poll over 1,000 consumers on whether a brand's mobile-readiness affected purchasing decisions. "One in two consumers would give that preference based on whether the retailer has a mobile site," he says. "It indexes even higher with higher-value purchases. There is a big opportunity retailers can grab onto." Luth and Brandanywhere also asked how consumers prioritize the functions they most need on a retailer's mobile presence. Interestingly, transactions were not among the most popular features. Foremost, they wanted to know about the special offers and coupons available -- what could make them shop smarter. But the second most desired feature was product pricing. Store location came next and then product information. Again, I have to imagine there would be variances according to product types. In Best Buy, for us it is all about product information and feature comparisons. On the way out the door to Shop-Rite, it is the sales. Brandanywhere developed this Indexer to help agencies and their clients better understand how their digital presence is being seen across devices. The main focus here was on the mobile Web, where people are inclined to type in a familiar branded URL and hope for a desirable result. A number of mobile agency execs with whom I have spoken in the last year say they are making the "m-dot" strategy a priority for their brands. For years the .mobi extension struggled to become the commonplace suffix for all things mobile in the minds of consumers. In many cases the brands ended up creating m.brandname URLs instead. The best-case scenario is having a reliable redirect at the branded URL that kicks phones over to a mobile-ready version of the site. But as Brandanywhere's research shows, this reasonable expectation among mobile users is not being met. But there are other roadblocks to mobilizing retail. One issue that looms waiting to be addresses is consumer confusion between check-in apps and branded retail apps. When I walk into my local BestBuy, what should I be firing up? Best Buy's app or ShopKick? Both? By the time I rifle through the options on both, my fiancée is long lost in the appliance aisle. And I hate the appliance aisles. By the way, there is also the goofiness factor of scanning bar codes and QR codes to get an effect from a retail or check-in app. These check-in apps want consumers to behave like maze rats, scouring the aisles to scan codes into the apps to get "points" or "bucks." Sorry, I don't need another master yanking me around the store to scan products I don't want or need. That area of my life is already covered. "Google this one," my fiancée commands. "That refrigerator wouldn't fit in our living room, let alone the kitchen," I try to protest. "I just want to see." Yeah, well, epic fail. I know I have made this point, before but I am dead serious about the problem of cell phone reception in these cavernous stores. Just a few aisles into my local Best Buy, and its otherwise wonderful app is totally useless. Get into the center of that indoor football stadium that is Target and I think I catch my iPhone actually chuckling at me for trying. Or maybe that's my fiancée.
According to a new study from IHL Group, reported by Marketing Charts, eight in 10 US mobile phone users currently uses or will use mobile text coupons within 24 months. The other two retail-related consumer mobile activities currently used by more than 20% of mobile phone subscribers are regular barcode and 2D barcode. Coupons on mobile screen only have 16% current engagement, but 38% planned engagement within the next 12 months, second only to text coupons in this category. Consumer Mobile Engagement Methods (% of Respondents) Use and Plan to UseEngagement MethodAlready UseNext 12 Months12-24 Months Coupons 16% 38% 16% Text coupons 25 47 9 Regular bar code 22 22 22 2D bar code 21 23 17 RFID for payment 2 9 17 Consumer self checkout 9 9 9 Competitive pricing 7 18 7 Source: IHL Group, November 2010 The study data indicates 85% of US retailers support consumer use of the iPhone/iPod platform, and 88% plan to do so in the future. This current support rate dwarfs the 55% support of the next-most-popular consumer mobile platform among retailers, the iPad platform. However, 72% of retailers plan to support consumer iPad use in the future. While only 50% of retailers currently support consumer use of the Android platform, 79% plan to support it in the future. Windows Mobile has 43% current support and 53% planned support, while Blackberry has slightly lower current support (40%) but slightly higher future support (58%). Consumer Mobile Platform Support (% of Respondents) PlatformCurrent UseFuture Use iPhone/iPod 85% 88% iPad 55 72 Android 50 79 Blackberry 40 58 Windows mobile 43 53 Windows CE/7 23 36 Source: IHL Group, November 2010 Retailers display different preferences for supporting mobile platform use by their employees, and at much lower percentages. The iPhone/iPod and Windows Mobile platforms are tied for second place with 42% current support. However, 67% of retailers plan future iPhone/iPod support, while only 41% plan future Windows Mobile support, implying a small number of retailers currently supporting employee use of Windows Mobile devices plan to end it. Android only has 26% current support, but comparatively high 41% planned future support. Perhaps explaining the popularity of text coupons, 94% of mobile phone owners have text included in their phone plan. This makes texting by far the most popular feature of US consumer mobile phone plans. Other popular features include email (80%) and mobile web (78%). The data for this study were obtained by performing a web-based survey during the August-September 2010 timeframe. A total of 570 responses were used, of which 66 were retailers. For the study from the IHL group, please access the PDF file here.
Advertisers and marketers may not have heard of near field communications (NFC) technology, but the newest version of the Android phone, codename Gingerbread, supports the chips. Google CEO Eric Schmidt talked about it Monday at the Web 2.0 Summit. As a tech geek writing about NFC for years, I know how the technology will open the door to innovative campaigns on mobile devices that many advertisers and marketers night not thought possible. NFC provides more than a tap-and-go technology allowing consumers to pay for items through mobile commerce like many media reports suggest. For technology geeks developing applications for Android devices, NFC is a short-range, high-frequency wireless communications technology enabling the exchange of data between two devices. The technology is an extension of radio frequency identification (RFID) that allows two devices to transmit information between them without contact. For advertisers, the more exciting applications focus on sending coupons, promotions and advertisements for products and services to phones. In some cases, the marketing campaign centers on the person's location determined by the GPS transmitter in the smartphone, according to Mark Roberti, founder and editor of RFID Journal. "Imagine a commuter gets off a bus and receives a discount coupon for a store across the street from the bus stop, and the consumer can redeem the coupon instantly at a store using the phone that delivered it," Roberti says. "Stores could develop kiosks and other interactive devices that communicate with smart phones via NFC." I agree with Roberti when he says developers now have an option to create apps for managing loyalty card points, but instead of being just based on purchases, the marketing campaign might include other valuable activities such as tweeting on Twitter about a company's new product. Gingerbread will push NFC into commercial use as developers design applications around the technology. But Google isn't the first to integrate NFC into smartphones. Earlier this year, companies began releasing open-source middleware for phones. Shortly after, Nokia EVP for Markets Anssi Vanjoki announced all new smartphones delivered by the company beginning in 2011 will come with NFC technology. Companies making NFC chips such as the Philips Semiconductors' spinoff NXP Semiconductor waited years for commercial deployment. In the early days I tried a cashless payment app from NXP, where the mobile phone becomes the purchase mechanism to buy a bottle of water from a vending machine. In 2008, NXP began seeing more NFC applications for mobile phones, commerce, and the starts of chips designed into cameras and other consumer devices. That year 230 San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) riders began a four month trial allowing consumers to use specially equipped mobile phones to pay for transit tickets and download information from smart ads. For the test, Jack in the Box loaded $20 in coupons on each phone giving consumers a chance to pay for food with the cashless systems. BART also loaded $48 worth of ride tickets. Marketers and advertisers are the creative bunch. Think of the possibilities. Have anything in mind?