Mobile advertising for developers

MobiCampBoston
2008-03-15

I gave a talk on mobile advertising from the application developer's perspective at Mobile Camp Boston in March. These are my rough notes.

Why I care

• The applications that we build at Nellymoser depend on recurring revenue as part of their biz model--we have skin in the game.
  
• Monthly recurring charges (MRC) don't work well enough, a la carte purchasing isn't good enough--MRC is a barrier to user.
  
• We need better revenue source, and in-app ads provide an interesting alternative.
  

About

• Richard Kasperowski
• Nellymoser Engineering Manager
• Mobile since 2003
• Founder of Boston Mobile, etc.
• Nellymoser
• Mobile 2.0
• Rich mobile app's
• Audio & video on demand
• Social networking
• Personalization

Want to share my experiece with mobile advertising, including the challenges, and hear how you do it.
Compare mobile app's to the ISP I use at home. I pay for a data connection--I don't have to pay by the month for every web site or app I use.

First

• Let's be honest: the mobile app is itself an ad, reinforcing someone's brand. For example, the CBS Sports Mobile app is branded to distinguish it from ESPN; the Virgin Mobile Headliner music app is branded to distinguish Virgin Mobile from other carriers.
  

WAP

• Almost just like web
• Text links or img links
  
• Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) specifies standard ad image sizes for various screen sizes
• E.g., developer puts img URL on WAP page: no big deal
• Players: Third Screen, Millennial Media, Google, AdMob, etc.
• Paid by impressions, click throughs
  

In-app through an ad supplier/ad agency

• Immature: unreliable, not documented well, etc.
• Ad supplier offers library that you include in your app
• Benefits
• guaranteed to work?
• Rich media ads
  
• Challenges
• Too large--your app won't fit on target handsets when combined with the ad library
• Rich media ad inventory not available
  
• Ad supplier offers simple RESTful web service
• Inputs: app ID, handset user agent, end user ID
• Outputs: sized banner ad, sized full screen ad, URL for click-through to related WAP site
• Challenges
• Custom
• Scant documentation
• Reliability of ad service: hard to cope with reliability issues, given handset constraints
• e.g. if ad server is down, can't necessarily timeout gracefully on mobile handset
• also report impressions via RESTful interface
  
• Players: Third Screen, MillennialMedia
• Paid for impression of banner ad, paid more for impression of full screen ad, paid more for click-through to related WAP site
  

In-app, app-specific

• E.g., featured artists UI element at top of screen in a music app
• E.g., featured artist start page widget in a music app
  

Discussion

• Ad suppliers: how can we integrate better?
• Developers: what coping strategies do you use?

Actual user demographics difficult to know

• Carriers guard this information.
• Difficult to obtain end user phone number