If Facebook Were an Ad Network, It Would Be the Biggest

Yesterday in the context of its mobile event Facebook announced (consistent with my prediction) that the company had more than 200 million active mobile users around the world. I earlier asked Facebook to break this out by US vs. international numbers, which they declined to do. But let's try and figure that out . . . shall we.

Facebook itself says that 70% of its usage comes from outside the US: "About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States." That means (assuming 500 million total users) that 150 million users are in the US. 

If we were to assume that mobile usage breaks down along the same US-international lines that would mean 140 million mobile users would be international, while 60 million would be in the US. My guess is that mobile usage doesn't break down along those lines exactly. Much of Facebook's mobile usage is likely to come from smartphones and its mobile apps in particular, although Facebook does operate sites for non-smartphone browsers and has a text only site at 0.facebook.com.

The US doesn't have the highest smartphone penetration among Western countries, Spain probably does. But in absolute numbers the US has more smartphones than any other country. Let's say (based on a collection of third party data points) that are something like 60 million smartphone users in the US. How many of those people are using Facebook (probably not 100%). Yet Facebook's mobile usage doesn't come exclusively from smartphones. We don't know, however, how many non-smartphone Facebook users there are in the US or elsewhere in the world. 

Nielsen says there are 85 million mobile Internet users total. So one would need to assume that there aren't more US mobile Facebook users than 85 million. My guess then is that there are about 75 million mobile facebook users in the US. If we were to treat Facebook as a mobile ad network, where would 75 million users put them in the hierarchy?

According to the Nielsen data in the chart below, Facebook would be the largest mobile ad network. 

Credit: Nielsen/TechCrunch/4Info 

Notwithstanding Facebook Deals, announced yesterday, it doesn't quality as a mobile ad network -- quite yet.

4Info Moves Beyond SMS to Become All-Purpose Mobile Ads Platform

Despite its reach SMS gets little respect in the mobile marketing world. Brand advertisers seem preoccupied with rich media and display and DR marketers are focused on mobile search or remnant display. Traditional media are enamored of the way barcodes may tie their physical ads to the Internet. (SMS has been able to do that for a long time.)

4Info has long been one of the largest SMS platform purveyors but now it's making a bid to be a "complete mobile ad platform." For the past year the company has been building out other ad format and channel capabilities and has announced AdHaven, which "offers display and SMS advertising, as well mobile app, rich media, and video ad units."

Citing Nielsen data 4Info claims impressive reach, second only to Millennial Media: 

The company also announced today that through AdHaven, the mobile web display portion of its Mobile Audience Network now reaches a unique audience of more than 63 million, which represents 75 percent of all U.S. Mobile Web users according to a recent Nielsen report*. The overall reach of the 4INFO Audience Network is even greater, as it includes the largest SMS ad network in the US, with more than 45 million unique users.

Amazingly 4Info's display network's reach is greater than its SMS network. TechCrunch published (perhaps provided by 4Info) Nielsen data supporting the reach claims:

Credit: Nielsen/TechCrunch/4Info 

I'd be interested to hear Nielsen weigh in on these numbers. But assuming they're accurate 4Info emerges as one of the largest mobile ad networks, with huge reach across the existing US mobile audience. 

The reach plus "all in one" value proposition and repositioning of 4Info will undoutedly get agencies and marketers to take a much closer look at the company, which may have seemed "parochial" to them in the past. 

WHERE teams with Constant Contact, Integrates Mobile & Email Marketing

Mobile marketing platform provider WHERE.com has teamed up with small business email vendor Constant Contact to combine the benefits of mobile and email marketing. Email marketing, though "old school" compared to mobile, is highly effective and so regarded by many small businesses. Indeed, they often rate it as the most effective or one of the top three most effective marketing tools they use.

The WHERE-Constant Contact deal contemplates that WHERE daily deals and offers can be marketed to existing customers through email via Constant Contact. And the reverse is true: Constant Contact users can now reach WHERE's consumer audience and mobile ad network (a combined 50 million people) with deals and offers.

This is an oversimplification, but WHERE sees itself as the new customer acquisition platform while Constant Contact is the CRM tool: 

This integration will allow small business owners to create daily deals through WHERE and market them to their current customers through Constant Contact’s email marketing tool, as well as to WHERE’s 50 million mobile consumers. WHERE merchants can also add Constant Contact’s “join my mailing list” (JMML) button to their listings, an easy way to grow their email subscriber list. The collaboration will enable Constant Contact’s customers to utilize the WHERE platform to deliver deals to their existing customers, while reaching new customers through WHERE’s location-based mobile advertising. In addition, WHERE’s recent acquisition of LocalGinger.com , a pioneer in the local group buying category, gives merchants interested in group buying deals a massive platform to help drive foot traffic.

This collaboration aspires to be a kind of "360 degree" solution for small business to help drive people from the Web into stores. Constant Contact reported that it had 415,000 paying customers as of the end of Q3. Yesterday Constant Contact released an iPhone application. 

Constant Contact's customer base offers a massive potential audience for WHERE, which offers mobile landing pages and a wide array of promotional opportunities for SMBs. 

Facebook Mobile Deals Coming on November 3?

As is now widely known Facebook is having a "mobile event" on November 3. There have been many rumors of a "Facebook phone." That would be pretty interesting and exciting but it's fairly unlikely. So what will be announced?

My guess is that Facebook will first rattle off some impressive mobile statistics. Here's where Facebook's mobile stats stand today:

• There are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
• There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

I'll guess that we'll hear that there are now more than 200 million active mobile users on Facebook among other juicy tidbits. 

I've long speculated that Facebook would eventually become a mobile ad network. The amazing thing, if it were to do so, is that it would have equal or greater reach than any mobile carrier and probably any other mobile ad network today. But Facebook isn't immediately concerned with making money in mobile; there's no internal pressure to monetize mobile. Some have estimated that Facebook is on track to do $2 billion in online ad revenue. 

Another reasonable guess is that we'll see the debut of "Facebook Deals," which may be partly tied to Facebook Places. It may also have an entirely independent existence on the PC. Right now Facebook Places doesn't offer any "reason" for users to check in -- unlike other LBS services that offer badges or coupons. I've seen estimates recently that Facebook Places has "7X" the check-ins of Foursquare, which now boasts about 4 million users. 

A deals product could offer a check-in incentive and a nice advertising vehicle for brands and SMBs alike. Regardless of what gets announced next Wednesday, Facebook is a kind of "sleeping giant" in mobile and LBS. Anything it does in these realms has the potential to shake up (or accelerate) the industry. 

Millennial: Geo Top Targeting Method for Mobile Campaigns

The Millennial Media SMART report for September is out. As usual it has lots of data about advertisers and their campaigns. You can get the full report here.

I will, in my capricious way, selectively highlight data from the report. Of interest, 44% of mobile marketers on Millennial's network used some sort of targeting while 56% wanted broad reach. Among the targeting methodologies used (geographic, demographic, behavioral audience and audience takeover) 42% used geotargeting. That means roughly 18% of advertisers on Millennial's network are doing geotargeting.

Equally interesting are data published by Millennial but from InsightExpress' Q2 2010 Digital Consumer Portrait of mobile moms:

• 32% of moms own a Smartphone in 2010 vs. 20% in 2009 (a 60% increase)
• 32% of moms say they use the Mobile Internet once a week in 2010 vs. 20% in 2009 (a 60% increase).

General smartphone penetration in the US is 25% per Nielsen. Moms make the household buying decisions so they're one of the most critical audiences for marketers to reach. The first chart below has more of the IE mom-related data:

Moms and their mobile usage: 

Targeting on Millennial's network:

Campaign destinations/landing pages:

Compared to a year ago many more advertisers are driving application downloads. 

Sprint's War on App Stores Could Turn into Litigation Nightmare

In the ongoing struggle to make themselves relevant to consumers and developers carriers have launched app and developer initiatives. Verizon is the highest profile of those with its Android apps. But now Sprint is making a move with a "cross platform" initiative that would use the browser rather than a traditional app store to deliver apps to consumers. 

According to a write up in Computerworld the company would offer network location as well as demographic and behavioral data about users and analytics to woo developers, potentially giving the effort superior data and tools vs more "traditional" app stores: 

Sprint is looking at providing data on user activity across both device-resident and Web-based applications, according to McGinnis. It could offer both general statistics about the subscribers that use an app and data on a particular user, he said. The individual subscriber data would only be used if the customer gave explicit consent, and personally identifiable information would be removed, he said.

But that data could give developers the resources to make their Web applications more relevant than those in the established app stores, according to Openwave's Nguyen. The information could include location, Web browsing history and other data. With data about where a particular subscriber has gone on the mobile Web, carriers could use Integra to place that subscriber in a particular demographic segment, Nguyen said. Knowing that demographic segment would help the application provider offer more targeted content or advertising.

Location, analytics and user data is certainly one way to make carriers relevant in the new smartphone world. However there's a privacy nightmare looming here. The online world is currently grappling over myriad privacy controversies and litigation. Unless it was very carefully executed (opt-in) carriers and their partners would find themselves on the receiving end of class action lawsuits.

Though the passage above references "explicit" consumer consent, any scenario in which carriers "watch" their users and provide demographic and behavioral information to third parties (even if anonymous and in the aggregate) will be met with litigation.

The O2 More-Placecast opt-in SMS model is a much cleaner and better approach to reinserting the carrier brand into the consumer experience (and reaches a broader audience as well). Of course it's not mutually exclusive of providing data and location to developers. However too much data is going to be a major legal problem.

Carriers do have some sway over Android and potentially Windows 7 Phones. But this cross-platform app strategy won't work on a device like the iPhone, where the consumer's allegiance is to Apple and the carrier is the incidental provider of bandwidth.  

What Is "Google Offers"?

On Friday Mobile Marketer published an article, based on a talk given by Google's Mike Steib in New York. The article appeared to "announce" a new Google couponing effort called "Google Offers":

“The Holy Grail for local advertising is location-targeted coupons, and we’re building Google Offers to enable that, as well as click-to-call functionality for nearby businesses,” Mr. Steib said. “If you have the ability to reach out to consumers nearby and pull them in using mobile, it’s great for consumers and advertisers.”

I had an opportunity to talk to Google on Friday (though not Steib) about this, as well as its $1 billion in mobile ad revenues and other subjects of interest. Most of the conversation was off the record. However my conclusion is that "Google Offers" is much more of an idea than a product at this point. What the talk in New York really means is that Google sees locally oriented advertising on mobile devices, driving calls and foot traffic into stores, as very powerful and desirable both for consumers and merchants.

Part of that calculus is coupons, which more than any other advertising vehicle have a direct impact on consumer purchase behavior. Currently SMBs and others with Places pages on Google can offer coupons. However Google needs to do a better job of surfacing those coupons in order to gain consumer notice and further merchant adoption. Somewhat more visible are Google "Tags," which can also be coupons.

There's also the broader question of how deeply Google wants to get into coupons. Does the company, for example, want to integrate them into Google Shopping/Product Search or limit them to service businesses exposed via Local/Maps? Would Google create a "coupon destination," as others have done, including Yahoo and Ask?

I'm sure that Google has looked carefully at the "daily deals" segment as well. But so far the company has declined to either buy a company or mimic the offering. However it did recently invest in a company called Signpost, which is in the same general space. 

It's clear that Google does want to get more deeply into local deals and coupons and is trying to figure out what's the best, most scalable way to do that. It also appears there's no new product (ad) announcement coming in the immediate future. 

Millennial: iOS on Top but Android Revenue Growth Beats iPhone

Millennial Media's MobileMix report is out this mornng and it has some interesting data points. The story is mostly the same as previous months: iOS devices lead but Android is fastest growing collection of devices. The data also suggest that RIM is holding its own in an increasingly competitive smartphone landscape.

Here are the top data-points, followed by some charts from the report:

• Android ad requests grew 26% month-over-month. Since January, Android has grown 1,283%.
• Apple ad requests increased 10% month-over-month. Since January, Apple has increased 18%. iPad ad requests grew 63% month-over-month.
• RIM ad requests increased 16% month-over-month. Since January, RIM has increased 143%.
• This month, for the rst time, Android revenue exceeded iPhone-only revenue on our network amidst strong raw iOS impression growth.

Compare March 2010 Millennial data, showing smartphones with a 45% share and Apple with a 70% share of that segment: 

 Now back to the current month:

What do we take away from all this? Apple's iOS suite of devices remain the market leader (though the iPhone is far less dominant), with Android gaining. And good ol' RIM is alive and kicking, showing some growth in this report. 

Update: Millennial ads some "color" to the numbers released this morning in a blog post: 

One of our key observations was the continued growth of Android Smartphones on our network. Though we’ve predicted that Android would eventually overtake iPhone in revenue, we didn’t anticipate it to happen this soon.  In September, Android revenue exceeded iPhone-only revenue.  However, impressions from iOS still outpace Android impressions.  So how is it that Android could see fewer impressions, but come out ahead in revenue?  Here are a few reasons:

1. Devices versus operating systems – We are only comparing iPhone and Android devices, not operating systems. iOS includes not only iPhone, but also iPad and iPod Touch. Currently, Android only consists of Smartphones on our network.  Of course, as Android-powered tablets and other consumer electronic devices hit the marketplace in the near future, that will certainly change.
2. Less inventory coupled with soaring demand – We saw higher average fill rates, click-through rates and prices on Android applications and mobile web inventory than on iPhone inventory last month. Why?  We believe this occurred because there are fewer applications available on Android than on iPhone (though the gap is narrowing), and the mix of applications available on Android is still different than the mix on iPhone.   This means less inventory to meet current advertiser demand, resulting in higher fill rates and prices.
3. Reaching a diverse set of Smartphone buyers – Many Android users are often first-time Smartphone buyers.  We believe some advertisers are paying a premium to reach those users early in their Smartphone experience.   Our advertisers have also shared that Android allows them to reach a diverse set of consumers across all major carriers, making the platform highly desirable and increasing demand for the platform.

When we consider all of these elements together, it helps us see how Android overtook the iPhone on a revenue basis on our network in September.  With more advertiser demand per each available impression on Android, it resulted in more revenue per impression.

Unpacking $1 Billion in Google Mobile Ad Revenues

One could almost hear the collective gasp yesterday when Google's SVP of product Jonathan Rosenberg announced that Google would make $1 billion in top-line mobile ad revenue on an annualized basis. Here's the relevant discussion from the earnings call transcript:

Mobile is on an annualized run rate of over $1 billion. This means the people who are accessing our products and services through their mobile phones are adding a $1 billion annually to our existing revenue streams. Clearly, this is the future of search in the Internet, more people in more countries coming online from these smartphones. Our mobile search queries have grown five times over the past couple of years. And of course, a lot more of those queries are now coming from Android phones.

Let's "unpack" this very impressive number.

My understanding is that it's a mix of AdMob display revenues, Google mobile search and mobile AdSense revenues and a sprinkling of Android market revenues.

I would imagine that the Android market revenues (30% of the sale of paid apps) are quite small. Google/Android has underperformed in the sale of paid apps. It's safe to assume that the contribution to the $1 billion figure is less than $75 million and maybe closer to $50 million. 

Next is AdMob.

TechCrunch reported in November last year that AdMob board member Jim Goetz, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said the following: “[AdMob] built what is approaching a $100 million business in three years." AdMob's revenue split was 60/40 to publishers. In other words the company's revenues would have been $40 million at the end of 2009.

Mobile advertising accelerated in Q4 last year and continued to accelerate this year.

Let's assume, optimistically, that AdMob revenues are closer to $80 million as we sit here today (or if you want to count topline instead, perhaps closing in on $200 million). These figures are probably too large, if we assume the AdMob board member was reporting revenues accurately. But let's run with them anyway.

Putting these "optimistic" scenarios together would leave about $725 million for Google's "advertising" contribution to the $1 billion. How much of that is search and how much is display/mobile AdSense?

The Google Content Network represented about 30% of Google's revenues in Q3 2010. Let's assume that percentage holds for mobile as well (it might not). That would mean about $217.5 million of the $725 (based on the above) is attributable to Google's mobile AdSense. The rest, then, would be mobile search revenues, or $507 million. This number is consistent with an estimate that Citi's Mark Mahaney put out some time ago.

To summarize my revenue allocation: 

• AdMob: $200 million in topline (optimistic)
• Google mobile AdSense: $217.5 million
• Google mobile search: $507 million 
• Android app revenues: $75 million (optimistic) 

 Again, this is all loose math. But the $1 billion is real (and coming from somewhere). And it validates that mobile advertising has definitely arrived.

Google Says Mobile Ad Revenues Now $1 Billion

Google's Jonathan Rosenberg just disclosed on Google's earnings call that the company had $1 billion in mobile ad revenues. This number includes both search and display and is probably global. (Update: revenues are split between, search, display and Android apps). 

Eric Schmidt: Display will become a "very significant" component of mobile ad revenues. There's "hockey stick-like growth." 

This is the first time that Google has shared such a number. If that number is a projection for 2010 based on a current run rate it would represent a small amount of what will likely turn into a $29-$30 billion year for Mountain View. But in general it's a very large number and it shows that Google already has a very real business. 

No doubt that revenue number is substantially boosted by AdMob. 

Update: 

Google said CPC prices are "a good bit lower" on mobile vs. the PC. But Click2Call and hyperlocal are driving better CPMs and better monetization, relatively speaking. 

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Google isn't threatned by competitive Android stores (Verizon, Amazon). He said Google isn't looking to Android app revenue share as a meaningful source of revenue. 

xAD Raises Money, Game On in Local Ad Network Space

Local ad platform xAD (formerly V-Enable) just announced that it had raised $4 million Emergence Capital. It also announced that it is profitable, growing 20% per month and "serving 200m local search ad requests per month." The company also says it delivers 10 million calls per month.

xAD said it will use the money for technology upgrades and development. 

The company operates LocalAdXChange which was one of the first local ad networks for mobile. It takes inventory (ads) from many sources, including yellow pages publishers, and delivers those ads to a growing list of publishers across its network. It also optimizes ads across sites and by geography. 

In the past 12-18 months a number of other local and local-mobile ad networks have launched:

• CityGrid
• Marchex (calls)
• Chitika
• Where.com
• LSN
• Verve Wireless 

AT&T Interactive should also be considered a network and provides lots of inventory to others, including Bing.

Where there was once almost nothing now the segment is very crowded with local and local-mobile networks. That's good for advertisers and publishers both.

Generally speaking CTRs, engagement and performance of mobile ads beat the PC. In my previous post I discussed data that suggest mobile uses are better and more immediate prospects for local ads (or locally targeted ads) than PC users.

Yahoo Messenger Offers Video Calling over 3G

Several weeks ago at Yahoo I saw a demo of video calling from a PC to my Android phone. It was "pretty cool." Now the Yahoo Messenger app is out for the iPhone and allows users to make video and voice calls to mobile devices (with front-facing cameras) and PCs over 3G or WiFi. You can also call landlines and mobile numbers with a Voice Out account. 

Apple's FaceTime only works over WiFi currently. Qik, Tango and Fring also offer video calls on mobile devices.

Voice calls between Yahoo Messenger accounts are free. Yahoo Voice Out accounts are available to users in the US, France, Germany, Spain and Singapore. However you can make calls anywhere in the world. Voice Out offers low cost per-minute calling but no flat-fee accounts. Skype by contrast has unlimited flat-fee plans as well as per-minute plans.

Google is also involved here with its Voice offering, allowing free calls from PC-Gmail for the time being. There's also video chat on the PC. However, it's only a matter of time before an independent Google Voice and video calling come to mobile devices. 

Front-facing cameras and video calling will become a standard feature on smartphones going forward. One question is whether VoIP and video calls will count against carrier-plan minutes. Skype calls on Verizon handsets can't be made over WiFi, but can be made over Verizon's 3G network and don't count against minutes.  

A cat-and-mouse game with carriers will ensue wherein people try to use data to make free voice and video calls. Carriers can restrict or block these efforts but ultimately people will be making more calls (and video calls) over VoIP and WiFi networks.

Related: Tango’s iPhone/Android video chat app takes off with 1M downloads

Yahoo Makes Mobile Search More App-Like

Yahoo has enriched its mobile search experience for Android and iPhone users. The new, HTML5-powered search results include tabs that generally mimic or correspond to the new "accordion" design of Yahoo search results on the PC (see top image below). Here's the Yahoo discussion of the mobile search improvements:

Late last week, we rolled out an updated mobile search experience for smartphones. We’ve honed search results for local business listings, stock information, entertainment topics, videos, and images. You’ll see that results for these topics are neatly packaged so you can find exactly what you need when you’re out and about . . .

U.S. users of most iPhones and some newer versions of Android 2.x phones are automatically being taken to this new product when you search from http://m.yahoo.com. If you are an Android user, you can also search from the Yahoo! Search for Android widget (download it from the Android market on your phone). It is now available in 13 countries, and you can speak your query in English, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia.

Overall, there's more information "above the fold" and more functionality in the new results. They're also "cleaner" and more visually appealing than corresponding search results on the mobile Web version of Google. 

Hipcricket Integrates Barcodes into Platform

Hipcricket has teamed up with Scanbuy to integrate QR codes into the Hipcricket platform:

Through this partnership, Hipcricket clients have enhanced capabilities to provide information, pictures of a product, or other rich media delivered when a barcode is scanned. Over 90% of phones today come with a camera, making virtually any mobile device a personal barcode scanner.

Barcode scanning is gaining momentum in the US as another marketing tool for brands and advertisers. Barcode scanning is similar to using SMS in that it can "go anywhere": on a print ad, billboard, TV ad and so on. Thus it can help make "static" traditional media more dynamic and interactive. Marketers can tie any message, URL, video, landing page or image to a QR code.

The benefits to marketers are almost self-evident. The challenge is educating consumers and getting the software on their handsets. In the direct mail piece from REI above, it contains information about what QR codes are and where to get one for your phone. 

In this particular case the QR code sends you to a mobile optimized version of an REI store locator. It also contains a URL for people who want to go online to find stores.

Scanbuy recently released some interesting data on barcode scanning in the US in an effort to promote its usage by marketers. And in fact we've now moved from a kind of novelty phase in the US to real implementation of QR codes by marketers, as another tool to engage consumers. 

See also: Barcode (2D) Adventures in the Big Apple

Opera Introduces Ad Exchange Aimed Partly at Feature Phones

Most of the ad marketplaces and "exchanges" that have been created to date have been focused on smartphones. However Opera is announcing a new mobile ad exchange, based on its earlier AdMarvel acquisition, that is directed at least partly toward feature phones.

In January Opera bought AdMarvel for an estimated $8 million with a potential $15 million earnout. According to press materials:

The Open Mobile Ad Exchange makes the world's largest mobile audience, 66.5 million Opera Mini users, available to advertisers, publishers, and wireless operators. With this launch, Opera opens the world of feature phones, where Opera Mini is the dominant browser, to mobile advertising.

Called the Open Mobile Exchange, it will offer inventory on all Opera Mini browsers whether they're installed on feature phones or smartphones, such as Android and the iPhone.

When Opera acquired AdMarvel it wasn't entirely certain what it was going to do with the company. This marks a big shift for Opera, into mobile advertising in a serious way. The straddling of feature phones and smartphones offers something somewhat unique in a market that has a growing number of mediators, marketplaces and exchanges. 

Microsoft recently launched a new mobile ad exchange. Yesterday Velti bought exchange Mobclix. Google (through AdMob) has a mobile ad exchange. Smaato and Amobee are also broadly in this category too. So is Nexage.

We're in a period of consolidation and scaling. Winners will be the networks/exchanges with the greatest reach. However, companies such as Millennial and inMobi believe that the value in the ecosystem is created at the network level, with direct advertiser relationships. 

Millennial: Android, RIM Gain Impression Share as Market Becomes More Balanced

Millennial Media put out its Mobile Mix device index report this morning. I'm late getting to it because I'm at the Borrell Local-Mobile event in Dallas. Generally it shows that Apple is still the dominant OS and the iPhone is still the dominant handset on Millennial's network. But clearly the competition is gaining.

While Android gets most of the attention, RIM apparently has also gained, going from 14% of ad impressions in March, 2010 to 19% (immediately below) in August.  

Here's the share of smartphone impressions by operating system: 

Compare March 2010 data, showing Apple with a 70% share: 

 Here are the top handset OEMs for August and March (second below): 

RIM has fallen somewhat and Motorola has ridden the Android express to the third position in the hierarchy on Millennial's network.

Verve Wireless: We Want to Be the Largest Premium Lo-Mo Ad Network

Verve Wireless announced a new $7 million funding round led by BlueRun Ventures, bringing total funding to just under $10 million. Verve hosts newspaper and other publisher mobile sites and builds apps for its publisher partners. The company has built an ad network on top of 750 media company relationships, including AP, McClatchy, Hearst, Belo Interactive and others.

Its objective is, accordingly, to build "the largest premium local advertising network and publisher platform." To that end the company said that it has 14 million users and 150 million monthly page views (July, 2010) on its network. It still has a way to go, however, to rival Where and others in the local space in terms of reach. 

Beyond Verve, other dedicated local-mobile ad networks include: 

• Local AdXchange
• CityGrid
• Chitika
• Where
• Marchex (calls)  
• LSN Mobile
• Placecast
• AT&T Interactive

One thing is now for sure: with all these local ad networks in mobile publishers won't lack for ad inventory.

Location Should Be the Default 'Call to Action' in Mobile Advertising

Location is a problem that's now mostly solved on mobile devices. Through network location, triangulation and/or GPS, most ad networks now have access to location on mobile handsets. That means ads can be targeted and served with great precision -- unlike on the PC, which is still mostly stuck in the reverse IP lookup world.

The issues with location-based ads in mobile now revolve around secondary but important questions like:

• How can I get scale with local markets and LBS?
• What networks or exchanges should I work with? 
• What sort of copy/ad creative/offer should I use?

The easiest way to get scale and to create a call to action is to add a store locator or product finder. This can be done simply as one creative element of a display or rich media campaign. See for example the most unlikely of ads to include a store locator: Klondike Bar.

It created a simple, offline call-to-action in what was otherwise a brand campaign (iAd): 

Interestingly Dynamic Logic just wrote about best practices surrounding calls-to-action in online display (brand) campaigns. What it found was that time-based calls-to-action were most effective in generating action/response from consumers: 

In mobile the universal call-to-action should be location.

While there are many potential calls-to-action for mobile campaigns, product finders and store locators should and will likely become almost ubiquitous in display and rich media ads. Location is not incompatible with other calls-to-action and can lead consumers to the point of sale or to at least a place where they can see and touch a product -- or take a test drive as the case may be. 

I would predict we'll see local as an almost "perfunctory" part of mobile display going forward. The store locator or product finder won't define location-based advertising. But unlike online it will become a check box of sorts that the agency and brand will need to include in their campaigns, when they're not specifically doing something more interesting with location.