If this week had a label, it would be “the week of market reports”. That means this week’s column of “This Week in Technology” will highlight how new technologies effect marketing, advertising, and customer engagement.
As if you didn’t already know, online advertising is heralding the destruction of network TV, newspapers and most print magazines. In most cases, online advertising is simply more effective, or at least offers a better return on investment, considering the amount of user engagement and data tracking that is possible. That is not meant to discount the effects of more traditional advertising, however being able to target exact demographics at exact times, and get instant and in-depth feedback is something that print ads simply cannot provide.
One of the newer forms of advertising is on mobile devices – ads that are specially designed to reach into people’s hands and engage the customer. Mobile application advertising can be even more effective than web advertising since users generally do not share phones in the same way that they would share a home computer, which allows mobile advertising to be precisely targeted.
New research released this week by Admob also shows how unique the demographics are for each particular device. Not surprisingly the iPod Touch is dominated by youth, with 65 percent of its users under the age of 18, whereas the Android system, iPhone, and webOS seem to be a bit more balanced, with a more equal representation across most age groups.
Not only that, but gender also varies surprisingly by device, with males overwhelmingly preferring the Android, with 73 percent being owned by men, whereas the other devices range between 54 – 58 percent owned by men.
This report is consistent with other reports except that recently Android has gained a substantial portion of the mobile market share (although still less than half of Apple’s) and people are trending towards the cheap by downloading more free apps and less paid apps. For advertisers, this information is extremely valuable as it highlights the subtle difference of each platform, and hints that ad supported programs might be more popular than paid mobile apps.
The battle for OS control also is a battle for ad revenue control, with the winner gaining control of billions of dollars in ad money. For example, in 2009 Google ad revenue brought in almost $18 Billion in revenue. This, of course, is almost entirely from ads on Google sites, however as mobile phones increase in capability and connectivity, the ad market for mobile phones will expand exponentially.
A report by the Federal Communications Commission released this week showed that currently less than 28% of adults who own a cell phone even use it for Web browsing, which means the market definitely has room to grow.
More than Just Mobile
In addition to the expansion of the mobile advertising market, “traditional” online advertising is also expanding. One of the biggest expansions is the opening of new platforms to advertising opportunities. An example of this was Twitter’s announcement this week that they will be launching an ad platform to their site.
According to Dick Costolo, COO of Twitter, the new platform will be somewhat organic, in that it will display ads related to the content of the tweets. There are no real details yet but for immensely popular but altogether unprofitable sites like Twitter, allowing advertising seems like the natural direction.
Speaking of which, YouTube is reportedly on track to have its first profitable year ever. Since Google acquired it in 2006 (for $1. 65 Billion), and even since its launch in 2005, YouTube has struggled to actually make money. Despite its hefty price tag, YouTube may have lost as much as $470 Million last year, according to some analysts. Even so, Google thinks it is on track to post positive earnings of $700 Million in 2010. How will Google do this? By attracting advertisers and visitors, of course.
Additionally, search engine advertisers and content providers should be attracted. This week Google revised its advertising systems by releasing a new service called DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). This new service combines Google Ad Manager and the DoubleClick’s DART system in order to provide a unified and upgraded service to publishers. In short, Google’s $3 Billion purchase of DoubleClick last year has finally been integrated into the Google ad system.
In short, it will now be easier to sell and purchase advertising space on all platforms, but especially across Google services, and especially for small-scale publishers looking for a good way to micro-manage ads sales on their site.
Amadeus Consulting is an expert in the mobile development market. As these changes take effect, rest assured our talented team is incorporating the latest and greatest techniques and tools to optimize your custom software development needs.