CTIA: Mobile advertising tackles metrics in 2009

Quattro Wireless has had an undeniably successful past year – it saw its impressions grow 30% and added 1,000 mobile advertising campaigns – but not everyone in the industry shares CEO Andy Miller’s enthusiasm for the market in 2009. The Mobile Marketing Association is focused on the issue of metrics for 2009 in order to make 2010 the year that mobile advertising really takes off. The industry consortium is angling to figure out what all needs to be measured on mobile and how exactly to do that, according to president and CEO Mike Wehrs.

“There’s a lot more that matters on mobile than just impressions,” Wehrs said. “It doesn’t deal with the idea of improved conversion rate. We want a response and call-to-action component to what is measured. What are the key components you need to report out on? How can we get there? Are the efforts of the GSMA sufficient or is there more to be done? There is clearly more to be done.”

Wehrs said the industry needs a global approach so advertisers understand how to measure ads or marketing campaigns – and even a flawed system is better than none. Right now, most advertisers don’t know what they’re getting from mobile. This fact alone is holding back advertisers from doing a significant spend on the mobile channel, if they are even launching at all. CPM (cost per thousand) is not the ultimate measure of a successful campaign, Wehrs said.

“A service that provides mapping information so the end user can get a GPS like experience on their phone – there is no destination page, no CPM associated, but also no question of the value,” he said. “In mobile it becomes such a fundamental component of the services possible that have location or personalized awareness, we need to figure out how to account for that. The CPM model doesn’t account for enough of that stuff.”

The economy has undoubtedly delayed the mobile marketing push. Advertisers aren’t reducing their spend, Wehrs said, but the rate of increase is not as high as some might have thought. Go2 Media is one company that works with all the major operators to provide a mobile-centric view of local advertising and marketing. The company’s publishing platform aggregates feed-driven content with original local recommendations, generated from a nationwide writer network. For example, its latest initiative, go2 Colleges, is a mobile local entertainment guide with contextual advertising for 473 colleges across the US.