Facebook’s much-publicized effort to ramp up mobile advertising showed results in the third quarter, when it reported 14% of its $1.26 billion in revenue came from ads run on mobile devices. But that doesn’t mean campaigns always extend seamlessly to handheld devices. The transition can be challenging when marketers run branded apps on their Facebook pages to help spur viral sharing, comments and other social actions. around a promotion or broader ad effort. Without optimizing for mobile screens, users may need to pinch and zoom the page to make it viewable or get stuck with a dead link. In a blog post last month, Facebook ad partner and developer Friend2Friend highlighted glitches some of the largest brands have encountered translating Facebook apps to the mobile side. It pointed to the “What Can Your Coke Become” app on Coca-Cola’s Facebook page. Fans who clicked on contest videos were taken to a blank error page, according to friend2friend. Similarly, Converse’s Rubber Tracks and “Warrior Remix Context” apps on its Facebook page generated updates in fans’ mobile news feeds that linked to sites requiring “significant pinching and zooming. Following a link from its own Timeline for the shoe brand’s “Rock Your School” app led to an error message. Friend2Friend CEO Roger Katz suggests many brands have a lot of catching up to do to make their Facebook presence more mobile-friendly. “A third of [Facebook] users are trying to engage on these brand pages and in these branded apps on smartphones,” he said. “If a third of those experiences are failing, that’s a sorry state of mobile engagement.” To help bridge the gap between the desktop and mobile, the company has released an upgraded version of its social marketing platform that includes tools for running campaigns across platforms. They include a self-serve system allowing brands to create mobile-optimized Web content and apps once on run simultaneously on PCs and mobile devices. It also lets marketers combine social campaigns in a single, standalone app that can be promoted through various channels, including the Facebook news feed, email, Twitter and QR codes. The platform automatically builds a mobile-friendly “SmartLink” and accompanying printable QR code for driving traffic to brand executions built by Friend2Friend. As a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, the company offers publishing, analytics and management tools. For clients Outside magazine, Build-Bear-Workshop, SmartWool and New Belgium Brewing, it has developed a mobile-optimized presence on Facebook. About 60% of the social network’s 1 billion users are accessing it via mobile. Friend2Friend says its social apps on Facebook mobile have increased 450% since the spring, while mobile “Likes” have increased 500% to client brand pages from mobile fans. But overall, “brands haven’t made the leap to taking the experiences they have in environments like Facebook and bringing them so they’re effectively presented in mobile,” said Katz.
Are mobile and email a match made in heaven? Suggesting as much, new data shows that consumers are significantly more likely to open email on mobile devices -- 37% -- than through Webmail using a browser -- 30%. That’s according to findings from email specialist Return Path, which reports that mobile open share has increased 300% since 2010, and shows no sign of slowing, with four out of 10 emails sent being read on a mobile device. “The data shows a clear opportunity for marketers who take audience device and platform preference into consideration,” said Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path. Which sectors are benefiting most from the chemistry between mobile and email? Of all retail, consumer product and real estate emails sent and then opened, about 40% were opened on a mobile device, versus an email desktop client (like Outlook) or through webmail on a browser. The study also found that the type of information being reviewed could impact open rates on mobile devices, as a significant amount of banking-related emails -- 60% -- are still opened on desktops, probably for security reasons. Email users still make most of their online purchases through a desktop computer. Globally, the report also found a variance in mobile usage by region. More Americans open email on mobile devices than their European and South American counterparts. In most regions, Android and iOS dominate the mobile marketplace. Return Path also found that mobile behavior varies depending on the mobile operating system that consumers use. More Apple users are using their devices to open and read email than any other group, with the iPad seeing more growth in email opens when compared to the iPhone. Meanwhile, Windows Mobile saw an 85% increase in email opens since April, although the OS still only comprises 0.3% of all emails opened on a mobile device. "E-mail on Smartphone from Shutterstock"
Ads featuring video and rich media as well as location-based units are helping drive demand and increased value for mobile advertising. That’s according to a new report from mobile exchange Nexage analyzing trends and activity on its network in the second half of 2012. The company reports a 24% monthly increase in ad spending from May to October in its real-time bidding (RTB) marketplace, which handles 20 billion impressions a month and boasts more than 200 buyers. Lifting spending are holiday season campaigns driving in-store sales as well as m-commerce. Nexage points out that the increased buying activity comes from a broad base of sources, including DSPs, ad networks, app advertisers, online media companies and agencies. Higher-value ad formats in particular are drawing buyers. Nexage noted a 30% per month increase in demand for location-enabled ads as marketers focus on local and hyper-local campaigns. Likewise, publishers using the exchange are seeing a 33% monthly rise in location-based impressions. Separately, publishers are offering more rich media and video ad placements, capitalizing on growing adoption of smartphones and tablets, with the latter providing a more conducive platform for video ads. That push has helped to increase rich media and video ad impressions 19% per month, with those ad types now accounting for 26% of exchange traffic. Growing use of both location-related and rich media units is also helping to boost ad pricing, with average eCPMs up 44% from the second quarter to the third quarter. Location-focused ads command premiums of two to five times average CPMs, while those for rich media/video ads are five to ten times higher, according to Nexage. Mobile RTB made up 26% of all mobile ad spending, with that proportion doubling over the last six month on 37% monthly growth. RTB auctions increased 33%, while bids per auction were up 96% in the same period. Nexage expect more aggressive strategies from brands and publishers will lead to accelerating mobile ad growth next year.
Friskies is launching an app that allows people to see themselves in cat form using cat photo templates and quirky captions. The app, called "Catify Yourself," allows users to choose a cat background template (including holiday-themed options) featuring a cat in a playful pose, and then add their own photo or a photo of a friend or family member. Then users can add a caption from the list. Friskies offers dozens of funny captions to fit a variety of expressions and situations including “Awkward,” “Somebody a grouchy bear today?” “I’ll explain later,” “Can you pick up some paper towels on the way home?” and “Do you feel as good as I look?” The St. Louis-based brand, owned by Nestlé Purina PetCare, has created a how-to video to get users started. The app is available for free. “Cats have incredible sensory abilities and playful imaginations,” said Shawn Brain, assistant brand manager for Friskies, in a release. “We’re fascinated by them, and this app lets us have fun with the idea of what it would be like to be cats for a while, at least in photos, and share those photo moments with family and friends.” In addition to sharing with family, friends, images created with the “Catify Yourself” app can be used as mobile phone wallpaper or social media profile pictures. Create and upload photos to share with us anywhere you’d use a photo of yourself, including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and even LinkedIn. Friskies offers a variety of free tablet and mobile games and apps for cats and humans, including “Cat Fishing” for cats on iPhone and Android mobile and tablet platforms, and “You vs. Cat,” the first Friskies game you can play with your cat, for Android and iPhone tablets.
As the digital candy shelves get increasingly crowded, the Federal Trade Commission issued a second report on mobile apps for kids yesterday that it hopes will “light a fire” under the industry by holding both the app makers and their resellers –- cyber-corner shops such as Apple, Google and Amazon -– responsible for safeguarding privacy. Without naming any names, the FTC says it is “investigating whether the practices of certain apps violated a federal law requiring Web site operators to get parents’ permission before collecting or sharing names, phone numbers, addresses or other personal information obtained from children under 13,” writes Natasha Singer in the New York Times. "We're not naming names, in part because we think this is a systematic problem, and we don't want people to think that if they avoid certain apps that they're home free," according to Jessica Rich, associate director of the FTC's financial practices division in the bureau of consumer protection. Among the specific recommendations for the industry that are made by the “Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade”report:
The popular virtual-pet app Mobbles routinely gathers email addresses and other data from children without first attempting to obtain their parents' consent, the privacy group Center for Digital Democracy alleges in a complaint filed on Tuesday with the Federal Trade Commission. The group is asking the FTC to investigate whether the app -- available through iTunes and Google Play -- violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. That law prohibits operators of Web sites aimed at children from knowingly collecting personally identifiable information from users younger than 13 without their parent's permission. The Mobbles app, designed for children ages 4 and up, features a variety of virtual pets that players collect and care for. Mobbles, which only became available to the public in May, is monetized through in-app purchases of virtual currency. The complaint alleges that Mobbles unlawfully collects a host of personal data from children. For instance, Mobbles allegedly provides virtual currency and in-game coupons to children who disclose their email addresses in order to subscribe to a newsletter. Children also are asked to share their GPS data with Mobble for one of the game's features, according to the complaint. "Mobbles makes no attempt to provide direct notice to parents and offers no opportunity for parents to opt out of further use of their children’s information," the complaint alleges. "The newsletter sign-up page does not even ask for a parent’s contact information." Mobbles co-founder Alex Curtelin tells Online Media Daily that the company doesn't sell any data to third parties and retains as little data as possible. "We don't store any location-related data," he says. "We don't need to store it for our game to work." He also says that the company uses players' emails for two purposes: to resend their passwords if they forget them, and to reach players who opt in a weekly newsletter. The complaint comes one day after the FTC criticized developers for failing to inform parents about the data collection practices of apps. The FTC said it planned to investigate whether app developers are violating COPPA.
More newspapers are offering free or discounted tablet computers with digital subscriptions to sweeten the deal for subscribers. Thie week brought a limited-time offer from The Financial Times, which says it will give a free Nexus 7 tablet computer to anyone in the U.S. who signs up for any of its subscription packages, including print and digital subs. The offer is valid until midnight, Eastern Time, on Dec. 17, according to the venerable British business newspaper, which specified that the offer is for a WiFi-equipped 8GB Nexus 7 from Google by Asus. The offer is limited to subscribers with mailing addresses in the continental United States, who haven’t already signed up for a FT subscription in the past six months. A digital subscription to the FT costs $49 per month, or $446.50 per year. Last week, another storied British newspaper, The Times, began offering a new digital subscription package which bundles a steeply discounted Nexus 7 tablet computer along with an 18-month subscription to the newspaper. The new subscription offer includes a 32 GB Nexus 7 tablet for £50, or about $80.50, compared to a retail price of £200, or roughly $322. The 18-month digital subscription costs £17.33 (or $28) per month, if paid on a monthly basis, for a total price of £362 or $583; if purchased all at once, the “Digital Pack” subscription costs £299 or $482. Previously, Barnes & Noble offered a one-year digital subscription to The New York Times with various Nook devices, and last year, the Philadelphia Media Group, which publishes The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, revealed plans to market a relatively cheap tablet-style reader using Google's Android operating system to readers.
In a surprising development for the burgeoning real-time media marketplace, advertisers and agencies now have the ability to programmatically target and place ads online based on content that users tag as being most relevant to themselves and others. As part of its Programmatic Advertising Platform, ad tech developer RadiumOne is enabling “hashtag targeting.” “Basically, we’re just intelligently going out and targeting what people are already having a conversation about,” says Gurbaksh Chahal, CEO of RadiumOne. “If McDonald’s wants they can target people who hashtag #McDonald’s, or anyone who tags #burgers or #fries. They can even target #hungry.” Initially, Chahal says the hashtag targeting will be available via RadiumOne’s own social media platform Via.Me -- which currently reaches about 11 million users per month -- but over time, he says RadiumOne hopes to integrate with other networks that enable users to hashtag, including Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Chahal says the concept makes sense for real-time media-buying, because users are hashtagging what’s relevant to them and sharing it with others in real-time. By enabling marketers to target based on hashtags, RadiumOne is effectively borrowing a page from search marketing, and RadiumOne Vice President-Marketing Doug Chavez says the advertisers and agencies will likely develop similar approaches to keyword and key term targeting, albeit via social media. “Take a brand like Meow Mix. If users are updating pictures of their cat and hashtagging it ‘purrrr,’ they can target cat owners by targeting the hashtag ‘purrrr.” Chahal says that based on RadiumOne’s initial user testing, “clickthrough rates go up” when brands target ads based on user hashtags, which he says makes sense, because consumers are effectively tagging what’s relevant to them by using hashtags. He says it will likely take some time before the ad industry figures out how to apply the concept in targeting, but he believes it will ultimately expand the number of segments a brand can target, because hashtags can be both explicitly and implicitly related to brands. “Part of our job on social is that there is a lot of noise out there, and we have to do a better job of creating better signals for targeting people. We think hashtags are one of them,” Chahal says.
Not too long ago, there were relatively large variations among global markets, but mobile is now getting in sync around the world. When QR codes were big in Japan, they were a novelty in the U.S. Now the codes are becoming common across geographies, with more than 17 million European smartphone users scanning in a three-month period this year, according to comScore. This is an increase of 96 percent in the past year. In Germany, 19 percent of smartphone users scan codes and in the U.K, that number is three million. But QR code scanning is but yet one small indicator. Another small gauge of mobile market synchronization is the increase in the number of tablets around the globe. For example, tablet sales in Argentina increased 69 percent to 91,000 units in the first half of the year and tablet sales in Mexico will reach 1.5 million -- more than double last year's sales, according to IDC. Retail sales of tablets in Latin America will reach $1.2 billion this year, but will triple to nearly $4 billion next year, says research firm Euromonitor. Eighteen percent of smartphone users in the U.K. own a tablet, followed closely by Spain with 17 percent and Italy and France with 15 percent penetration among smartphone owners, according to comScore. But those are very small indicators in the grand scheme. The most significant bellwether is smartphone penetration, which until recently was widely inconsistent and certainly below the majority of phones in most markets. In Southeast Asia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Cambodia increased smartphone sales ranged up to 400 percent over the previous year, according to researchers at Gfk. The research also shows that smartphone penetration in Singapore and Malaysia has reached 88 percent, with almost nine out of every 10 consumers using a smartphone In The Netherlands, more than half (58%) of Dutch consumers use smartphones -- up from 42 percent just a year earlier, according to a new report from Telecompaper. Nielsen pegs current U.S. smartphone penetration at 55 percent. Smartphone penetration in major European markets is on the rise, according to comScore:
Site search, search engine optimization (SEO) and mobile commerce will become the biggest priorities in 2013, according to findings from a survey of more than 450 online retailers released Tuesday. The SLI Systems study found that 18% plan to improve site search, 18% will focus on ecommerce, 17% on SEO efforts, and 15% on mobile commerce. Forty-eight percent of retailers said relevance is the most important factor when thinking about improving site search, followed by ease of use at 20%, and total cost of ownership at 14%. To accomplish the tasks, 52% will add A/B testing; 48% will make refinements; 39% will add merchandising features; and 34% will add auto complete. These features received the highest ranking of new site search features that retailers will add in the new year to give site visitors a better experience. Some 40% will add a mobile version of their Web site in 2013, with 20% planning to create a mobile app. Some 63% of retailers said improving conversions on ecommerce sites will become the biggest challenge in 2013; followed by 61% who said the greatest challenge is attracting more customers to the site, and 23% who cited improving logistics. The findings also show that retailers understand the value of content to drive traffic and conversions. Many have created content just to educate potential and existing customers who need more information to make a decision. Some 57% of retailers have posted Twitter feeds to their sites. About 56% have posted press releases and articles, while 53% took to blog posts and videos. When compiled, the content created to educate consumers creates an interesting time line for a year gone by. As a side note, Twitter created a timeline of 2012 events -- something we've been conditioned to see on television at the end of the year, rather than on social sites. It's something companies might want to consider as another piece of content to share with those who love your brand.
Higher prices to fly, rising baggage fees -- and, of course, flight delays. But we still can't use our tablets while flying to catch up on last week's "Modern Family"? Times are tough enough, so modern electronics should give us a little bonus -- that is, if one's broadband or streaming service works well enough at 35,000 feet moving at 600 mph. Live TV programming through airline seat monitors has been around for some time. But giving flyers access to time-shifted programming via their personal mobile devices would be better. Certain airlines provide in-flight Internet use via in-seat devices. But fliers are not allowed to use their own mobile devices, especially phones. Users of iPads and other tablets need to set their devices in "Airplane Mode,” meaning no access to YouTube, Hulu or Netflix accounts. The Federal Communications Commission has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to allow passengers to access emails and conduct other Internet activities on airplanes via mobile devices. An initial step would be allowing use during take-offs and landings. We don't have supersonic passenger planes to cut flight duration – It still takes five to six hours coast to coast. People already work on spreadsheets, business presentations and the like between take-offs and landings, but haven't been able to do any real communications -- phone, email, video or otherwise -- via their own devices. But hey, you can pay the airlines a separate $12.99 fee, can't you? Safety issues are always the sticking point. But many now believe there is a very small risk here, with the rewards being greater. The FCC chairman wants what any strong business-proponent executive would want: greater productively. For some, flight time can be a forced vacation of sorts – which can also mean delays in catching up with work. But has anyone thought of my need to catch up on "Modern Family" and "The Voice"? A good worker is a well-rested, entertained one. Fliers should push for in-air fulfillment of their TV entertainment needs. Surely, network executives will thank us for all that higher TV usage.
At the MediaPost Email Insider Summit, Dan Quintero, founder of AdStack, said data shows between 40%-60% of all emails sent is opened on a mobile device -- but 60% of individuals will click out if the email is not mobile friendly. Design is critical so content is optimized for particular devices. The appearence needs to be effective whether opened on an iPhone or Android device -- and same for a landing page that an email can direct someone to. Also, Quintero said people who check email on a mobile device are doing so at least five times a day. Has mobile email reached a plateau? "We definitely see there's definitively an increase in mobile ... across the board," he said.
TurboTax's Elizabeth Berger said at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit some people do their taxes via mobile devices. The company decided to define success by how many people came to the TurboTax landing page and logged in because then TurboTax can market to them with email or online advertising. Last year, TurboTax's Web site traffic doubled and 10% of visitors came from a mobile or tablet device, so the company is looking for ways to optimize the mobile experience. That includes considering how emails best appear on the devices.