So you want to start an advertising campaign targeted on mobile devices. Where do you go to?
Here’s a guide for you, a helpful list of Mobile Ad platforms and providers.
1. Admob.com - Recently bought by Google, now in the top ranks of mobile advertising platforms. They serve text ads, banners, ads specialized for mobile web sites and native applications.
You can target your ads according to:
- Platform/Device
- Geography/Operators
- Demographic (Gender & Specific age group)
Minimum amount for funding your account is $50; Bids for a click start at $0.01.
2. MSN Mobile - Part of Microsoft’s advertising solutions, you get two high-impact, robust solutions: display and search advertising. Their mobile display ad solution connects your brand to nearly 50 million unique users or 55 percent of the U.S. wireless web audience.
Aside from full control of targeting by device type, geography, service provider and demographic, they also offer extended mobile services, including:
- Post-click solutions such as click-to-download, click-to-video, SMS, and much more.
- Mobile campaigns tailored for consumer needs like sweepstakes, click-to-buy, data capture, consumer polls, and surveys.
- Click-to-call
Minimum amount for funding account is none. You just need to provide your billing information/payment method and you get billed according to your choice of frequency and to your ad spend.
3. Inmobi.com - One of the world’s largest independent mobile ad network. They cover 165 countries and a total of 485 million users/consumers in their network of more than 10,000 mobile apps and sites.
They offer the following variety of ads:
| Smart Formats | Feature Formats | Calls to Action |
| Full Screen Ads | 120×20 Banner | Click to Landing Page |
| Expandable Ads | 168×28 Banner | Click to Download |
| Scrolling Ads | 216×36 Banner | Click to Video Play |
| Touch To Engage Ads | 320×48 Banner | Click to Call |
| Rotating Ads | 300×50 Banner | Click to Lead |
| Video Ads | 40 Character Text | Click to Text |
Targeting can be done according to country, carriers, states & regions, device types, categories, demographics and technical specs of mobile devices.
Minimum amount for funding your account is $50; Bids for a click start at $0.01.
4. Adsmobi.com - As taken right from their site, they are “A mobile media buying platform that focuses on placing successful mobile campaigns for mobile advertisers. adsmobi delivers premium advertising traffic for advertisers through partnerships with leading mobile mediation and optimization platforms.”
They boast more than 50,000 app developers and mobile publishers, 40+ billion mobile ad requests per month and serving more than 230 countries across the globe in their network.
They offer Push-App program (for mobile apps promotion), Rich Media, Audience Targeting, Global Reach and Special Promotions for your ads.
For additional details, you have to contact them. They are not one of the Do-it-yourself ad platforms.
5. Mobgold.com - A mobile advertising network for individual advertisers and advertising agencies. They offer mobile text ads, banner ads, SMS ads and mobile email ads.
You can monitor and tweak your ad campaign from your mobile phone. They have an advanced ad inventory caching system, comprehensive reporting, on-time email alerts and 24/7 support system whenever you need help.
You control your own daily budget for ad spend and your own PPC bid.
Targeting can be done also according to country, carriers, states & regions, device types, categories, demographics and technical specs of mobile devices.
Minimum amount for funding your account is $50; Bids for a click start at $0.01.
6. Adfonic.com - A global mobile advertising marketplace where advertisers can access over 200 million mobile users in 190 countries worldwide in their network of publishers and app developers.
They now (Feb 2012) have over 10,000 mobile site publishers and app developers in their network. They serve an average of 4,000+ campaigns and 35+ billion ad requests each month.
They support a full range of ad formats including text link ads, banners and images for all major mobile device platforms – Android, iOS, Symbian, etc.
Reach your target audience with their advanced and intuitive targeting by country, location, operator/carrier, demographic, platform, part of day and device.
Minimum amount for funding your account is also $50; Bids for a click start at $0.01.
7. iAds – The advertising platform specifically for Apple devices – iPod, iPhone and iPad. iAd reaches millions of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users around the world in their favorite apps.
With the iAd Network, you can reach the Apple audience. The same “audience that has installed more than 15 billion apps, has activated more than 250 million iTunes accounts, Spends on average 73 minutes per day using apps and engages with iAds for an average of 60 seconds per visit.”
You don’t get to choose a lot of mobile device types aside from the ones by Apple but still you can target users with precision by geographic location, demographic, application preferences, music passions, interests and network (Wi-Fi or 3G).
They have one of the most comprehensive tracking and reporting system for your ad campaigns. Among which, you can get information about average time spent, pages viewed and other unique visitor metrics.
You’ll have to contact them to get started and you will be assigned with a sales executive.
Wrapping it up, there are still a lot of other mobile advertising networks out there but the ones in this list are among those who stand out. Each one of these ad platforms listed here provide detailed tracking and reporting system for you to collect data on your campaigns.
You just have to pick one of them in order to get started. Pick one that suits best the campaign that you are planning to launch. And be sure to track and analyze the performance, conversion and other details of your campaigns once they are up and running so that you will know which ones are performing and which ones you should drop. You wouldn’t want to keep spending money on the ones that are not converting/performing.
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It’s popularity is gaining more and more each day as the number of mobile device users are growing also. People seem to be shifting from desktop computers to their mobile devices for their usual tasks. Of course, with the smartphones that are getting smarter each day, there’s virtually nothing more that an inexpensive smartphone/tab can’t do.