Commentary

Millennial Media Offers Self-Serve Mobile Ad Tools To Broaden The Base

Tablets-PhoneTaking on the conventional wisdom that flying mobile ad campaigns is still too complex and esoteric for most medium-sized and small businesses, ad platform Millennial Media has brought its mMedia self-serve product out of private beta. Aimed both at developers/publishers and advertisers, the tools may help expand the company's client base by leveraging technology rather than direct sales.  

On the buy side, mMedia seems designed to walk small and medium-sized businesses through the process of finding audiences through advanced targeting tools, including a hyper-local feature that allows the marketer to hand-draw a region in which ads will appear. Campaigns can be targeted by device and operating system as well. Creative can be uploaded directly into the system and managed via a gallery. A dashboard enables marketers to manage their campaigns, bids and analytics.

Developers can monetize their apps and sites across devices through a range of SDKs and options to run ads sold directly by the publisher or third-party ads from others like AdMob and JumpTap. The reporting dashboard gathers stats on requests that an app makes to the ad network, fill rates, clicks and CTR and eCPM.

mMedia seems designed to hand-hold the uninitiated. Many of the elements are illustrated with video tutorials. Step-by-step visual walkthroughs demonstrate most processes.

The technology has been available in a private beta since last month.  It complements an existing in-app monetization platform for app developers called mmDev, and Millennial says its existing customer base can access both systems via the same portal.

Millennial recently filed with the SEC for an initial public offering. 

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