The battle for mobile ad revenues picked up pace last week as Google and Apple both amended their pricing models ahead of Facebook’s imminent entry into the marketplace.
Google shifted its AdMob platform to an AdWords-style auction, where the winning price is determined by the quality of the ad and the other bids on that impression.
Facebook could generate $1.2bn from mobile advertising in its first year from just six markets, according to research firm MobileSquared.
This would put it second only to Google, which is expected to generate $2bn from mobile ads in 2012.
The six markets included in MobileSquared’s estimate are the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – which have a combined total of 185.3m Facebook users.
When Steve Jobs unveiled iAd to the world, he promised an offering that
would revolutionise mobile advertising.
But delivering on that promise
has proven difficult for the technology company that has revolutionised
so much in the past decade.
In fact, the offering’s future looks quite uncertain. So what’s Apple to
do? Turn to one of your most-despised enemies, apparently.
The prediction that ”mobile is going to be huge!“ has been over-egged for nearly a decade, but the past several years have erased all doubt that may have existed about the truth of this statement.
In 2011 however, mobile “turned a corner”, according to Google at least.
When Steve Jobs introduced Apple’s mobile advertising network, iAd, to
the world, he effectively said it would be a game-changer for mobile advertising. Although some of
us were skeptical, who would bet against him?
A year later, it appears that the skepticism was well-placed. iAd is, according to a new report by Bloomberg, floundering.
The iPad provides a much richer experience and real-estate than the standard mobile phone or even the iPhone. New iPad advertising formats, dubbed iPadvertising, might start to bear fruit not only for mobile advertising, but the advertising industry in general.
Will mobile advertising finally grow up and be taken seriously with the emergence of the tablet?
Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform offers the enticing proposition of advertising seamlessly integrated into Apple’s myriad mobile applications. But according to one developer, the acquisition cost on the platform is around $15.
If other users have similar problems, this could spell trouble for Apple.
Developer David Smith of Cross Forward Consulting recently spent
$1,251.75 on an iAd campaign that generated only 84 downloads. He documented his issues on the company blog. According to Smith:
It may look like the iPhone is winning the smartphone wars, but according to a new study from Millennial Media, Google’s Android platform is nipping at Apple’s heels.
Most interestingly, these new numbers document the month following the launch of the iPhone 4. And it looks like Android’s popularity has only increased in that time.
There’s some good news for third party networks that want to sell ads on Apple’s mobile devices. The Jesus Phone maker isn’t currently enforcing its overly strict rules designed to keep competitors from selling targeted ads on its mobile devices.
According to Omar Hamoui, founder and CEO of Google’s AdMob, Apple hasn’t been cracking down on its overly aggressive ad rules.
Tracking the state of the mobile ad market is tough when you’re owned by Google. That’s what AdMob decided today. The mobile ad network published its final Mobile Metrics Report today.
Google’s Android phone may be making inroads with consumers, but if Apple is going to prevent AdMob from selling targeted ads on its devices, it hardly seems necessary for the company to continue documenting Apple’s impressive sales figures. That said, it’s still interesting to see where the two companies are shaping up in the mobile market.
If Silicon Alley Insider is correct that Apple’s iPhone 4 is an iPad
killer, advertisers haven’t taken notice yet. According to a new study from Millennial
Media, ad requests on the iPad are up 160% in the last month.
With Apple’s iAd platform launching this summer (and the company’s competitor-blocking ad policy), Steve Jobs’ prediction that Apple will serve half of the mobile ads sent in the second half of 2010 might not be that far off.
Apple’s rise to the top of the tech world has been marked just as much
by controversy as it has by success in the mobile market. The company’s
desire for control has made it a target for critics, and potentially
for regulators.
Apple attracted the spotlight when it implemented new rules that essentially killed Adobe’s iPhone/iPad ambitions by making it clear that apps developed using Adobe’s Packager for iPhone tool contained in the newest version Flash Professional would not make it into the App Store. And its dislike for Flash was made abundantly clear when the iPad was unveiled, sans Flash support.