• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 1, 2012

Will the testing and learning phase in mobile ever end? Joule's Michael Collins says probably not, at least for the forseeable future, because all the business models and platforms are so nascent. But what he said is changing now is the brand commitment to mobile. While only a quarter of advertisers have budget alloted to mobile, Collins sees the proportion growing quickly. "It's still very much early days," he said, not just in terms of the tools but methods for mobile marketing.

Ansible's Young agreed, but said it's important for brands to focus on testing the righ things. Too much focus now is on measuring whether people tap mobile ads when it's already clear the mobile audience has arrived. Instead, she suggested companies should go a step further by looking at things like how different screens, including mobile, relate to and impact each other. That would shed more light on the effectiveness of integrated campaign including mobile than tests still aimed at determining if there's a viable mobile audience.