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Burstly direct ad sales good news for mobile ad buyers

Posted on November 7th, 2010 by admin

Burstly is an innovative new mobile ad network based out in the US.  They have some nice tools for developers like a link exchange platform and ad mediation/ ad optimization for managing multiple ad networks.

They have also just launched something that should be interested to anyone operating on the buy-side of the mobile ad market.  According to techcrunch Burstly have rolled out a new feature for developers which is the ability to sell advertising in apps directly – bypassing mobile ad networks like admob.   The app developer just integrates the burstly platform into the PC version of their website and advertisers can use it to buy inventory.  You can target by geography, handset and so on.

This is potentially very big news for mobile ad buyers including affiliate marketers, app promotors and so on.   Blind networks like admob (where you can’t choose where your ad will be shown) have been great for providing scale and reach and good device, operator and geographic targeting capabilities but most people find that the traffic is fairly low quality – i.e. it doesn’t really convert well into sales or other actions.  Admob have done a lot to combat click fraud but you cant help but wonder if there isnt a good proportion of the traffic they send that isn’t for real.  Also whilst you can target by geography or device and so on the only control you have over where your ad is shown is to choose a broad category like “communities” “entertainment”.    If you read the mobyaffiliates blog post on mobile PPC affiliate marketing on admob you can see that using traffic that you know the source of has a huge impact compared to buying PPC traffic from mobile ad networks.  In fact, using our own traffic rather than admob lead to 25 times more conversions!!

So if you can now choose what sites to advertise on using Burstly this could make a huge difference to the success of any mobile marketing you are carrying out.  We are talking more conversions whether that is sales, downloads of an app or other measures of engagement.  Being able to choose the exact site you are advertising on will not only remove concerns about click fraud but also allow you to access the type of users you are looking for more precisely.   This could potentially be very powerful and smart mobile marketers should be filling their boots with this new source of quality inventory.

The issue is whether Burstly can sign up enough apps to the platform to provide sufficient scale.  Also Burstly will need to offer advertisers a centralised place to find all the publishers/ developers that are selling direct.  There is a risk that ad networks will boot publishers off their platforms if they start selling their own inventory but this seems unlikely.  After all there are plenty of ad networks out there and if one bans a particular publishers others will still be willing to work with them.  In the online world it is quite common for ad network and direct sales to sit alongside each other.

To date, direct ad sales in mobile has only been for the biggest players like operators or major brands.  Most people have sold via ad networks like admob or via agencies such as 4th Screen advertising.  The traffic sold through the likes of 4th Screen advertising can be expensive, is often priced on a CPM basis not CPC and it’s not easy to buy small amounts. Going directly to specific apps or sites yourself is time consuming and its hard to manage the campaign except on a tenancy basis unless you are going to track the conversions yourself using a mobile analytics solution of some kind (time consuming).   This move from Burstly promises to change this and let you buy ads directly in a very easy way.   So if you are involved in buying mobile advertising this is something you should definitely be onto.

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Mobile Pay Per Call and Click to Call Advertising

Posted on May 14th, 2010 by admin

Earlier this year Google launched pay per call advertising on mobile and the mobile ad network admob (now owned by Google) has been offering it as an option since 2008.

However, to date, Pay Per Call mobile has not really taken off.  Many advertisers complained of a very low ratio between clicks on the call link and actual calls completed.  Many handsets also did not support click to call ads and even if they did, consumers were very wary.  Also the type of advertisers who might use pay per call were not really ready to use mobile as a channel – in many cases local businesses are only just getting to grips with the internet, let alone mobile internet, whilst other potential advertisers had not yet emerged.

This is now changing as the market for mobile advertising becomes more mature and sophisticated.  Firstly, advertisers in pay per performance that use lead generation models involving the telephone such as insurance, debt consolidation, utilities, pay TV and so on are beginning to look to mobile as other channels become saturated.  For example, the mobile affiliate network mobpartner has recently started to offer pay per call programs such as an offer from the Polish subsidiary of the multinational, blue-chip Financial Services company Aviva.  The aim of the campaign is to promote cheap automotive insurance and it pays $2.1 per lead – not bad for Polish traffic if you can get it to convert.

The question is – can these type of offers convert well on mobile?  The key as always is getting the right traffic – and targeting very carefully according to handset, operator, geography and so on (see our previous posts on using admob PPC for CPA offers).   In any case, for those that can get it right, mobile pay per call looks like it could be a very lucrative area of the market and we’ll be telling you all about it here on mobyaffiliates.

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Mobile Marketing Association Mobile Affiliate Marketing Guidelines

Posted on May 9th, 2010 by admin

The mobile marketing association has just released its new set of guidelines – hat tip to the Amnavigator blog for noting this.  From the MMA Release:

“The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) (www.mmaglobal.com) today released the latest version of its U.S. Consumer Best Practices (CBP) Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Services. The guidelines are the industry standard for cross-carrier mobile content services such as text messaging (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS), shortcode programs, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and mobile Web.

Produced by the MMA’s CBP Committee, the new, version 5.0 guidelines provide measures of acceptable and unacceptable practices for all players in the U.S. ecosystem. The guidelines also serve as the benchmarks for the four largest U.S. wireless service providers – Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA – eliminating the need for brands, agencies and marketers to refer to four separate carrier playbooks.”

If you’re involved in mobile affiliate marketing this is a great resource and well worth checking out to check that any marketing or services you are running stay on the right side of best practice.

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Carnival of the Mobilists 223

Posted on May 9th, 2010 by admin

Roll up Roll up for the Carnival of the Mobiliststs touching down here at Mobyaffiliates – the no.1 place for making money on mobile. We’ve got a nice set of quality posts this week so have a read and keep up to date with the best of the mobile blogosphere.

Mobile Advertising

First up is an Epic post from Andy at the most excellent Mobithinking blog covering mobile advertising.  Andy asks if the FTC stop Google buying AdMob?  and should advertisers pay US$1 million for the ability to run iAds? Are Google and Apple at war? Will the FTC investigate Apple?  Inquiring minds want to know and Andy breaks it down.

Mobile Ads Go Mainstream: starring the FTC, Google, Apple’s $1m iAds and a soap-opera story-line that’s has the media hooked

The Mobile Boom

Carnival Veteran and mobile guru C Enqrique Ortiz has an indepth article which analyses why mobile is booming.   This is a cracking bit of work with a load of great stats and analysis and wins post of the week!

http://weblog.cenriqueortiz.com/mobility/2010/05/09/on-reasons-why-the-mobilewireless-usage-boom-was-underway-part-2/

Blackberry

Carlo Longino MBA (Congrats!) and Founding Mobilist has submitted a post from the WIP Wireless Industry Partnership reviewing their recent Blackberry event.  The post is a great overview of what’s happening in the world of RIM and is full of great stats such as that RIM accounts for 58% of the North American enterprise smartphone business.

http://www.wipconnector.com/blog/rim_wes_2010_report_from_widality

The Google Android Nexus One

Mark Bridge over at the thefonecast.com has a lively assessment of the Google Nexus One handset and

http://thefonecast.com/Opinion/tabid/87/EntryId/2755/Google-Nexus-One-quarterback-or-cheerleader.aspx

Meanwhile, in a similar vein, industry legend Ajit Jaokar asks – Is it game over for Google’s direct to consumer strategy and what can we learn from it?  In Ajit’s view the Nexus One has not lived up to Google’s expectations in terms of sales.  As usual a provocative and analytical post from the Open Gardens Crew.

http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2010/05/is_it_game_over.html

Mobile Web

Amdocs have a nice post covering the “off-portal” mobile market.  Consumers are increasingly going off-portal to browse and consume content from their mobile handsets. And while that’s seemingly not great news for service providers trying hard not to be squeezed out of a very lucrative value chain, Matt Anderson explains why it might not actually turn out to be so bad after all if the walls were to come tumbling down.

http://www.amdocs.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=149

Blyk is back

Finally, the Queen of the Carnival Peggy Anne Saltz over at the ever-excellent Msearchgroove reports that  the ad funded mobile network Blyk has re-emerged in the Netherlands following a less than stellar UK launch.  Go check it out -

http://www.msearchgroove.com/2010/05/06/blyk-is-back-with-ad-funded-service-in-the-netherlands-will-social-media-marketing-make-the-difference/

That’s it – thanks for all the excellent submissions and thanks for reading – feel free to browse our posts on mobile affiliate marketing and other stuff whilst you’re in town.  Have a great week!

iphone affiliate network apprupt gets more moolah

Posted on May 7th, 2010 by admin

Our friends over at Apprupt have emailed to say that they’ve raised investment from the mighty T Mobile.  Great news for the mobile affiliate industry with major players now spotting potential in the market.  Apprupt run an affiliate network based on iphone application link exchanges and white label app stores.  A great company and good news they are raising funding.

Here’s the press release:

T-Venture and Neuhaus Partners invest in apprupt

apprupt closes financing round with Deutsche Telekom, Neuhaus Partners and KfW. apprupt will use the additional funding to further accelerate the growth and international expansion of its mobile affiliate network.

Hamburg, May 6, 2010 - apprupt (www.apprupt.com), the first affiliate network for mobile applications, announced today the closing of a financing round with the Connected Life and Work Fund managed by T-Venture, the venture capital firm Neuhaus Partners and KfW. The funding is currently subject to approval by antitrust authorities.

“apprupt has successfully positioned itself in recent months as the leading affiliate network for mobile apps in Germany. Having already been financed in 2008 by Neuhaus Partners, we are pleased to have landed another strong investor with T-Venture, who is significant for us in this market segment,” says Jascha Samadi, Director Marketing and Sales. “Together with our investors, we now look forward to future international growth in an exciting and rapidly growing market environment”, adds Kjell Fischer, Director Product and Operations.

“We monitor the mobile Internet segment closely and have recognized early on mobile applications as an attractive target segment for us. We firmly believe in apprupt’s technology and the potential to develop the leading position in this rapidly growing market. We are pleased once again to invest in the company as well as the team and to support the further acceleration of growth,” says Paul Jozefak, Managing Partner at Neuhaus Partners.

Harald Eisenächer, Senior Vice President Personal & Social Networking of Deutsche Telekom, adds: “Mobile applications are currently one of the fastest growing market segments. apprupt is well positioned with its range of products and services and offers both app developers as well as publishers an innovative and convincing solution.”

About Neuhaus Partners: Neuhaus Partners GmbH is one of the leading venture capital firms in Europe. It invests primarily in companies in information technology. Since its founding in 1998, it has entered into 53 investments – with 47, Neuhaus Partners was a lead investor. Track record: two IPOs, eighteen trade sales, three buy backs, ten insolvencies. Neuhaus Partners is currently investing its third fund. (www.neuhauspartners.com)

About Connected Life and Work Fund: The Connect Life and Work Fund is managed by T-Venture, the venture capital entity of Deutsche Telekom. The goal is to support the Products and Innovation Department at Deutsche Telekom in the implementation of its objectives. The investment focus is on companies in the Internet and media segments. For more information, please visit: www.t-venture.de.

About the KfW Banking Group: KfW finances and supports, among other things, business start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) as well as investments in economic growth and employment projects in Germany. The ERP Start-up-Fund, administered and co-financed by KfW, offers equity financing for innovative, technology-based enterprises with excellent growth prospects. The fund finances research and product development as well as the launching of new products, procedures and services. KfW always cooperates with a lead investor and exclusively adopts market conditions. Since 2004; the 470 Mio. Euro ERP Start-up-Fund has so far allocated 300 Mio. Euro to emerging technology-based companies.  (www.kfw.de)

About apprupt: apprupt (www.apprupt.com) is the first affiliate network for mobile applications. Through its affiliate platform, apprupt enables app developers to market their apps on a on a pay-per-download basis to specific target groups of users within its network of wide-reaching publisher partners – app marketing becomes transparent and performance-based. apprupt enables publishers such as WEB.DE Mobile, FT Germany or Men’s Health through a white label app shop to offer their own users a relevant preselection of apps as well as to monetize mobile traffic through app sales on a transaction basis. The corporate headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany.

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Carnival of the Mobilists at Volker on Mobile

Posted on May 4th, 2010 by admin

The week’s best mobile blogging, including our post on mobile affiliate networks is over at Volker on Mobile this week.  Volker Hirsch has a collection of great posts including Msearchgroove on Appstore marketing and news of the excellent Mobile 2.0 Conference in Barcelona so go check it out.

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Mobile affiliate networks

Posted on April 29th, 2010 by admin

Affiliate marketing on mobile is a relatively new development, online, affiliate marketing is a huge business generating billions in revenue.  Historically, mobile advertising has focused on CPC or CPM based advertising – mobile affiliate marketing pays on the basis of CPA or Pay Per lead.    This can be very profitable if you find traffic that converts well – for example, you can easily get $5.00 for some programs for each registration, compared to a few cents for a click if you are using a mobile ad network like admob to make money from your mobile traffic.  Higher value mobile affiliate offers also open up the possibility of buying in mobile traffic from ad networks on an arbitrage basis as we have previously covered in our post on making money using admob PPC.

However, it’s not easy to find mobile affiliate networks to work with.   We’ve listed all of the networks active in mobile affiliate marketing over on our directory of mobile affiliate networks – here’s a review of some of the best.

Mobpartner

moblogo

Mobpartner is probably the biggest mobile affiliate network at the moment in terms of publishers with tens of thousands of affiliates.  They offer a range of programs from adult, to casino to applications, focused on the mobile web.   Mobpartner pay quickly via paypal and are a great alternative to using CPC networks such as admob.  Mobpartner do have many campaigns focused on particular countries but also a range of worldwide and international mobile affiliate programs.

Yeahmobi

Yeahmobi is a relatively new mobile CPA network.  They offer 100% fill rates and high quality offers ranging from mobile content to apps.  For advertisers and merchants they are offering services such as real time optimization.

Sponsormob

Sponsormob runs a very successful CPA-based affiliate network for mobile and has recently launched an advanced tracking tool for iphone applications.  They offer a large number of high quality programs and have excellent tracking technology.

Liquid Wireless

Liquid Wireless is the leader in mobile lead generation programs and is very strong in the US market.  They offer a number of unique mobile CPA and pay per lead offers such as surveys, loan consolidation and other services.

Offermobi

Offermobi has recently launched a mobile affiliate network focused on the US.  They are running a number of campaigns and look like one to watch.  In particular, offermobi looks like it will offer a number of pay per call products.

Conclusion

Although mobile affiliate marketing is in the early days its well worth giving some of these networks a try.    The early people to get into affiliate marketing online made a fortune and the same could be true on mobile.  Let us know how you get on!

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Offermobi

Posted on April 29th, 2010 by admin
offermobi

Make money with the offermobi.com affiliate network

OfferMobi.com is the first affiliate network focused on the mobile web. Led by industry veterans and leaders, we strive to bring our partners the very best service, pricing, and overall strategy to ensure growth for everyone.

For our Advertisers, we provide the ability to drive high quality, high volume acquistions with no risk, as our entire network is on a cost per acquisition model. We help with strategy and optimization to ensure the best consumers.

For our Affiliates, we give our affiliates the opportunity to generate additional income from their traffic, as we offer a wide Variety of offers, as well as valuable account services and updates. From big brand names to exclusive offers, we have them here.

Join the offermobi affiliate network

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Carnival of the Mobilists over at Mobienthusiast

Posted on April 29th, 2010 by admin

Another Carnival of the Mobilists over at Mobienthusiast this week.  Holly has done a great job reviewing all the latest and greatest mobile posts so go check it out.

Mobile marketing for the online casino industry – iphone, ipad or i dont know?

Posted on April 25th, 2010 by admin
This is an article which will be out soon in igaming magazine - publishing here as they don’t have a digital service.  It basically looks at what the opportunities are in mobile marketing for the online casino and gaming sector.
Mobile marketing for the online casino industry – iphone, ipad or i dont know?
According to the Wall St Analyst Mary Meeker, mobile represents a new wave of computing, on a par with previous technological cycles such as the desktop PC revolution.  She predicts that within the next five years more users will connect to the Internet over mobile devices than desktop PCs”.  Her most recent report points out that whilst some companies will “Win Big” from mobile, others will get left behind and will “Wonder What Just Happened”.

Already many Casino and gaming operators, affiliate networks, service providers, brands and marketers have begun to move into mobile.  However, as fast as the industry moves, it is hard to keep up with the new trends in mobile, which is developing at an incredible rate.  Just as the casino sector got to grips with the mobile web, along came the iphone and applications wave.  Now, just as the industry is beginning to understand the iphone along comes the ipad – another potentially explosive new platform and form factor – taking the mobile concept to the PC, rather than the PC concept to mobile.

So how can new and existing players in the market stay current and relevant on this evolving platform and how can they make the most of the opportunities available?

The Story so far

The landgrab for the mobile casino market has already begun. The likes of Spin3, Playtech and others have already deployed sophisticated platforms covering a range of games types.  Spin3 has a large number of brands active on its mobile platform including Ladbrokes, Jackpot City, All Slots Casino and Wild Jack Mobile Casino.  The mobile casino brand mfortune has begun advertising on television whilst a recent study by Comscore suggested that 7.6% of Smartphone users play mobile casino games. Major brands from the sports betting world such as William Hill are also ramping up promotion of their mobile services.  Affiliate networks such as Income Access, Brightshare, Euro Partners and Affiliates United have all begun recruiting for mobile casinos.  At mobyaffiliates.com, our directory of mobile affiliate programs, we have found that the market is dominated by the casino sector – which has rapidly overtaken other areas such as ringtones.
However, success so far has been patchy to say the least and many players are yet to see any positive return from their investment in mobile.  Mobile is in many ways much more complex than the PC environment that the online casino sector is used to.  Instead of catering to a handful of different browsers and one dominant operating system (Windows), the mobile channel is extremely fragmented across different operating systems, browsers and handsets. It is notable that mfortune, one of the more successful mobile casino brands is operated by a team from outside of the online sector.
In order to succeed on mobile and make get a return on investment what issues do existing industry players and new entrants have to consider on mobile?

What handsets and platforms to target?

The main complexity that mobile brings is the issue of dealing with multiple operating systems  and hundreds of devices.  This brings additional costs and operational overhead in terms of adapting services for each particular device.  The major operating systems at present are iphone, android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry, but there are also niche platforms such as Palm, Maemo and Mobile Linux – just to increase the complexity further.

As a result, an increasingly common approach for mobile service providers is to focus on iphone-only development. The iphone has a much lower installed base of handsets than other platforms such as Symbian (used by Nokia) however, it is the most commercially attractive option for many mobile service providers due to the type of users (early adopters) and the high rates of usage for apps and mobile internet.  However, this approach leaves a large proportion of the potential market inaccessible, and for some services, including casino, an iphone audience may not be the most commercially attractive. In addition, Apple’s iphone App Store is heavily controlled, which means that many casino services are unable to get listed. However, Darren Pollard of Mayfair Mobile Gaming states that the situation is more nuanced than a blanket ban, “Although there is a generally accepted rule that Apple will not approve and/or support real-money gambling Apps on its iTunes App Store, these stores are run in regionally specific silos, so gambling operators should look to building relationships with influential people in these value chains in countries where gambling is legally and socially acceptable such as the United Kingdom.”

Android, Google’s mobile operating system, has many of the advantages of the iphone in terms of usability but is a much more open platform.  There are a wide range of independent app stores for android which will host all types of applications and the Android Market (Google’s app store) is much less controlled that the Apple app store. A wide range of devices are now being produced by a range of manufacturers using Android which means that it will attract a wider group of users than the high-priced iphone.  Although android doesn’t have as much market traction as the iphone it is catching up fast and some commentators expect it to become the dominant mobile operating system over time.
As a result a number of casino services are now focusing on a “dual platform” strategy that focuses on both iphone and Android.  In terms of the other platforms, Blackberry suffers from a  commercial point of view from the fact that the devices are often linked to company accounts which means that they are not always able to install new applications or take payments for games.  However, with Blackberry increasingly moving into the consumer market it is also becoming a potentially attractive operating system to target.  Symbian, used by Nokia has the largest base of handsets, but suffers from version fragmentation making it harder to develop applications.  However, given the potential scale of the market, Symbian is still worth considering if you are willing to deal with the head-aches involved in working with the platform.
Focus on the mobile web – not apps?

An alternative to choosing one or two operating systems or taking on the high costs of serving multiple OS is to focus on developing for the mobile web rather than applications.  Creating a mobile web site using HTML creates a platform-neutral service which can be used across iphone, Android, Symbian and all types of handsets.  In addition, a mobile web ite does not have to be accepted onto an app store which provides more flexibility for the casino sector on some platforms and in some markets.  Whilst a mobile-web based service cannot handle some of the rich interaction that can be provided using an application it is an adequate platform for a large number of services and is only increasing in power as mobile handset browsers improve and new web standards emerge.  For example, the new HTML 5 standard promises to allow much richer mobile web experiences on platforms including the iphone, and is potentially where gaming platform companies should concentrate their efforts.
User education is key

There have been a plethora of well documented issues plaguing the mobile gambling industry over the last five years in terms of user-education. This is to a large degree what is hampering take-up of the platform amongst casino players. Mayfair Mobile Gaming’s Darren Pollard says, “online gambling companies have not done themselves any favors by not addressing the issue of “mobile specific education” which has long been the Achilles heel on the uptake of mobile gambling” Gaming companies need to do much more to educate potential players on mobile specific issues such as data charges, network dropouts (players should not login to play a real money game on their mobile if they are about to get on the subway) and ease of discovery and installation of the mobile gambling application. Darren Pollard notes that “Although Apple has done a great job on user education with its user-friendly iTunes/iPhone ecosystem, the “true gambler” is not necessarily going to have an iPhone or Android device.”

what about the ipad and other emerging mobile platforms?

Increasingly, mobile internet is becoming more about other types of devices than the mobile handset.  For a while now a number of publishers and developers have found that web-enabled games devices such as the PSP account for a significant proportion of their mobile traffic.  In addition, the ipod touch has become a major source of traffic and usage for mobile web sites and “iphone” applications.

Now it appears that another category of web-enabled tablet devices might be the next big thing on mobile after the successful launch of the Apple’s ipad.  Already, the ipad has sold over half a million units and a range of similar devices are set to be released by competitors.  Potentially, Apple could have created another device class for the mobile web, which could fit very well with casino and other gaming services, perhaps more so than the mobile handset.   Some casino brands will already be developing specific web sites and applications for the ipad in order to take advantage of this new opportunity.  Whilst existing websites or apps designed for the iphone do work on the ipad it is likely that specially adapted services will be most successful in the long run.
So, whilst mobile does represent a big new market, operators and other industry players need to clearly understand the channel before making a play.  The right choices need to be made about which platforms and devices to target, and the most appropriate approach to product development.   The mobile platform keeps evolving at a rapid pace so ongoing investment is required to keep up to date with the latest opportunities.  However, given the growth of the platform, for those who succeed, the rewards will be enormous.
James Coops is the founder of mobyaffiliates.com, which helps merchants and networks to recruit affiliates for the mobile channel and enables affiliates to find the best mobile programs to make money on mobile.  He also runs mjelly.com – a directory of mobile sites and applications that helps publishers and developers to get traffic to their mobile services.
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Mobile affiliate marketing using PPC – using targeting to increase conversions

Posted on April 16th, 2010 by admin

Following last week’s post on using PPC mobile ad networks like admob for mobile affiliate marketing here’s an update – showing how using targeting can increase your conversions. The table below shows the results from changing targeting on PPC traffic from aiming at smartphones in general (iphone, android etc) to focus on a specific mobile operator network.  As you can see, targeting a specific operator increased the conversion rate from 2% to between 17%-19%.  The revenue per click increased from 1c to over 8c.

Conversions using PPC mobile advertising clicks – Smartphone vs Mobile Network based targeting

Day Targeting clicks conversions Conversion Rate Payout ($) Revenue per Click
1 Smartphone 725 11 2% 4.95 0.01
2 Network 564 107 19% 48.15 0.09
3 Network 703 121 17% 54.45 0.08
4 Network 537 97 18% 43.65 0.08

With each click costing just 5c this made the campaign ultra profitable – we are talking margins of nearly 100%. So the holy grail of mobile PPC arbitrage is possible, you just need the right targeting. In this case targeting a specific mobile network was better than targeting by handset.  The type of customer particular networks have can be a more attractive audience than that of a particular handset.   These type of targeting issues simply don’t arise in the online world, so there’s clearly plenty of opportunity out there for those (like us) that can get it right!

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Carnival of the Mobilists

Posted on April 12th, 2010 by admin

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is over at http://arjw.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/carnival-of-the-mobilists-219/

There’s three sets of posts with great mobile blogging from the likes of msearchgroove and more so go check it out

Mobile affiliate marketing using admob PPC

Posted on April 7th, 2010 by admin

Ok so a lot of people are getting interested in mobile affiliate marketing and whether there is a PPC arbitrage model yet on mobile.  Can you take traffic from a pay per click mobile advertising network such as admob or inmobi and drive it to a CPA-based mobile affiliate program and make a profit?

In some cases this can work, but it needs very careful management, tracking and targeting.  One of the issues with mobile advertising at the moment is that the quality of a lot of traffic on the blind mobile ad networks if of questionable quality, which makes conversions pretty poor in a lot of cases.  Here’s an example – the chart below shows the results from two different types of traffic – using organic traffic on a site controlled by us, and using traffic bought on admob.   The creative, landing page and offer was exactly the same in both cases however the conversion rate was hugely different.

Comparison of organic and admob traffic performance

As you can see from the data the organic traffic performed over 25 times better in terms of conversions.  Despite having 3.5 times as many clicks the traffic from admob only delivered less than 25% of the revenue of the organic traffic.  We have had a lot of success using admob for various things and it is a fantastic tool but you need to be very clever about how you test and target by geography, handset and platform to get the most out of it.

So – what should affiliate marketers take from this?  No you should not totally rule out using PPC on mobile, but it is very hard to make it work – just like on the PC web.  Let us know any questions in the comments or on our forum and we’ll try and answer them.



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Carnival of the Mobilists over at Mobsessed

Posted on April 6th, 2010 by admin

Carl Martin over at Mobsessed is hosting this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists and included a mobyaffiliates post on mobile app affiliate marketing.   Carl’s done a great job of reviewing all the various post and there’s plenty of good stuff in there so head on over for the best of mobile blogging!

Affiliate marketing for mobile apps

Posted on April 5th, 2010 by admin

If you are an app developer then cutting through the noise is becoming increasingly difficult, with 100,000s of apps out there and increasingly well organized competition from some big emerging players with multiple apps in the store.  There are a range of different ways you can promote your application including PR, getting on review sites, appstore SEO, viral, link exchanges, buying space on mobile ad networks and so on.

An emerging way of app promotion is on a pay per download or affiliate basis.  App developers only pay for each download – so you don’t waste money on clicks which don’t convert into users.  Developers can target by geography, handset and so on.  There are a range of different options for going down this route and here’s a few of them.  Let us know in the comments if you know any more.

Getjar – getjar is the biggest “open appstore” in the world with massive traffic.  As well as listing your app for free, developers can pay for additional downloads on a CPA starting at $0.01 per download.  Getjar have so much traffic that they can deliver MILLIONS of downloads on this basis to all types of handsets.

Mobango – Mobango operate a similar open appstore to Getjar although on a smaller scale.  However, Mobango do have very strong traffic and can also guarantee millions of downloads on a pay per download basis.  Mobango support all kinds of platforms from J2ME to Symbian to Android.

Sponsormob – our friends over at sponsormob operate a mobile affiliate network based out of Germany.  They recently developed an affiliate based tracking system for the iphone.  Developers can now use the sponsormob affiliate network to promote mobile apps on a CPA basis.

Apprupt – hosts a range of “appstores” on various partner sites including big media brands mobile portals in addition to a network of developer apps.  These appstores and apps are used to pump out downloads on an affiliate basis.  Apprupt allow developers to use credits they get from delivering downloads for others to spend on themselves.  A great performance based network for apps and well worth checking out.

Burstly – a new mobile ad optimizer and analytics tools which is also promoting a CPA based app download / link exchange service focused on the iphone.  Not many details as yet but this looks like one to watch.

Let us know if you are using other ways of promoting apps on an affiliate or CPA basis and we’ll add them into this post.

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Offerpal pushing CPA-based network

Posted on April 1st, 2010 by admin

This just hit the mobile monday mailing list

For all you developers / marketeers who’ve traditionally promoted iPhone apps by ad networks on a CPC basis Offerpal bring to the UK a new way to distribute (and monetise) your app.

Offerpal Media is the leader in distribution services for applications on the iPhone operating exclusively on a cost per install basis.

Only when a user has downloaded and opened an app promoted on our network of 1,700 apps does the advertiser pay. We’ve helped dozens of apps break into the top 25 in the App Store including Google Mobile app, Shazam and Flixster.

Integration is quick and easy either using our SDK or server 2 server.

Email me to find out more paul.bowen@offerpal.com

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Carnival of the Mobilists #217

Posted on March 31st, 2010 by admin

The Carnival of the Mobilists 217 is out at Indigo120 featuring a Mobyaffilliates post on iphone and affilate marketing. There’s a lot of other good posts this week so go check it out.

Mobile commerce taking off – will mobile affiliate marketing be next?

Posted on March 30th, 2010 by admin

Techcrunch has a story about eBay’s growing revenues from mobile commerce.  eBay has just announced the launch of two new iphone apps and released some stats on its sales through mobile devices:

- $1.5 billion worth of goods sold via mobile phones in 2010

– over a 100% increase on sales in  in 2009 ($600 million)

- iphone app downloaded 8 m times and 1 item is bought on ebay using a mobile every 2 seconds

It is clear that mobile commerce is really starting to reach lift off.  Clearly as the money moves onto mobile, affiliate marketing won’t be far behind.

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Platinum Play

Posted on March 24th, 2010 by admin

Make money with the Platinum Play mobile affiliate program

Platinum play is available for iphone, blackberry and all types of mobiles.  Players get great bonuses with their first deposit and high quality customer support.  Games include fruit machines, blackjack, poker, roulette and more.

Network – Fortune Affiliates

Join the Platinum Play mobile affiliate program

Fortune Affiliates

Posted on March 24th, 2010 by admin

Make money with the fortune affiliates mobile affiliate network

For the last 7 years, Fortune Affiliates has represented the Fortune Lounge Group of online brands. Fortune Lounge has eight online casino brands, an online poker room, one online bingo room and two mobile casino brands. With a constant stream of media and marketing resources at our disposal, we are well-equipped to represent this industry giant, and churn out a lifetime’s worth of income for you!

Fortune affiliates gives you:

  • Lifetime income and a choice of how you earn that income
  • 2-tier earnings from all Affiliates you refer
  • All the resources, tools and content you need to be successful
  • Innovative concepts to ensure you always offer cutting-edge promotions
  • Detailed reports and advanced tracking to keep you up-to-date with opportunity
  • World-class support and service

mobile affiliate programs

Royal Vegas

Platinum Play

Join the fortune affiliates mobile affiliate network

Royal Vegas

Posted on March 24th, 2010 by admin

Make money with the Royal Vegas mobile casino affiliate program

The world of Online gaming awaits you at Royal Vegas Mobile, where the intrigue and excitement is present throughout your gaming experience.

Being one of the most popular sites, Royal Vegas Online Casino, has gone mobile and presents gamers with the same royal rewards and action in a mobile setting, with even more thrilling live entertainment and captivating graphic from anywhere you have mobile uses and access, anytime of the day.

Network – Fortune Affiliates

Join the Royal Vegas mobile casino affiliate program

777Mobile

Posted on March 24th, 2010 by admin

Make money with the 777 mobile cash affiliate program

Turn your traffic into cash with the 777Mobile affiliate program.  777Mobile offers special bonuses such as a 50% revenue share for the first two months.

777Mobile Revenue Shares

Revenue / Month in $ % of the NGR*
From $1 to $15.000 25%
From $15.001 to $30.000 30%
From $30.001 35%

777Mobile is one of the leading mobile gaming operators worldwide. Founded in late 2005, 777 takes pride in delivering friendly and helpful customer service, including special VIP programs. Since launching, thousands of players have experienced 777Mobile exciting games, making us one of the leading Mobile gambling operators.

Join the 777 mobile cash affiliate program

Affiliate marketing – the new business model for mobile app developers?

Posted on March 23rd, 2010 by admin

The dominant business models for app developers at present are user payments or display advertising, however, affiliate marketing could be a new and potentially much more lucrative way of monetising many apps.

User-payment driven models can be very lucrative for hit applications, especially games.  Howevever, there is increasing that application prices are suffering from downward pressure towards free.  New types of payment models such as subscriptions or in-app payments are promising although not all application types are suited to these approaches.

Display advertising can pay the bills on free apps if there is sufficient scale of usage.  Using ad networks like admob or potentially integrating mutliple ad networks using a mobile ad optimizer such as smaato or mobclix can deliver significant revenues for some apps.  However, the growth in mobile inventory, and falling click-through rates mean that it is becoming harder to make this model work.

Affiliate marketing is an alternative revenue stream to user payments and display advertising that is just opening up on mobile and is creating a big opportunity for mobile app developers.  Affiliate marketing is already a major category in the online advertising world and its now moving onto mobile.  Unlike current mobile advertising which is typically sold on a CPM (cost per thousand) or more usually a CPC (cost per click) basis, mobile affiliate programs payout based on a CPA (cost per action) basis in a single payment or a revenue share.  In some cases the payments for particular actions (e.g. in the mobile casino space) can be very high – up to $50 in some cases.  As a result, with the right approach affiliate marketing can be more lucrative for mobile application developers than traditional mobile advertising or mobile payments from users.

A number of players are now offering affiliate programs for iphone apps including William Hill, Offerpal and  Allslots/ Brightshare.  In addition, the iphone appstore affiliate program run by linkshare has also been extended to work on mobile.  Android-compatible affiliate programs are also emerging, taking advantage of the more open nature of the android appstore ecosystem .  Developers on other platforms such as Java, Symbian, Blackberry and mobile web can typically choose from an even greater range of different mobile affiliate programs and networks.

There are also opportunities for application developers to use APIs from online shopping services to build affiliate-revenue driven apps.  For example, apps could be developed for specific dietary requirements around online grocery APIs or to aggregate affiliate feeds from a range of retailers into a single app.

Another approach is to link mobile applications to the massive growth in vouchercodes.  For example, the UK-based vouchercloud iphone app is a mobile-focused way of grabbing a slide of the discount voucher market.  Whereas there is little room for new players on the web, vouchercloud has been able to build significant traction by being the first to market with a high quality voucher-driven iphone app.

Finally, the ability for mobile applications to interact with real world retail stores presents another affiliate marketing opportunity.  Services like the shopsavvy iphone app allow users to scan a product barcode in a store and get pricing information from online suppliers.  The affiliate potential of such applications is potentially enormous.

So – application developers need to look seriously at the opportunities presented by affiliate marketing, and consider this business model right from the intial concept stage in the design process.

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Zero76 casino

Posted on March 22nd, 2010 by admin

Zero36 Logo

Join the Zero76 mobile casino affiliate program

Founded in January 2005 as the affiliate program for Zero36 Casino, Zero36 Affiliate Program established as a cross platform in the Online and Mobile casino gaming affiliate programs. Our success is the result of treating our affiliates as real partners, and offering them higher commissions than other programs.

Zero36 Affiliate Program products has reaching millions of players via leading affiliates and media partners like Orange, T-mobile 3, O2 and more.

With Zero36 Affiliate Program you can get the highest conversion on the Online and Mobile gaming products. Our affiliate program earns you maximum commissions, provides timely payouts and personal account management.

You start to earn commission on a monthly basis as soon as you refer new active players to one of our games. We offer affiliates a wide range of constantly updated and innovative marketing tools to advertise these games. Each marketing item you use (e.g. banner or text link) will have your unique Affiliate ID embedded within it so we can track the players you send us, plus additional information such as Visits, Downloads, Guest Accounts etc.

Affiliates earn commission on a revenue share basis. This means that you earn 35% flat rate of your players’ net revenue for the lifetime of the player and your commission tier is calculated by the total net revenue of all your players on a monthly basis. All new affiliates will earn 60% commission for the two months that they register in.

Joint the Zero76 mobile casino affiliate program

Zero76 iphone & android

Posted on March 22nd, 2010 by admin

Zero36 Logo

Make money with the Zero 36 iphone and android affiliate program

The Zero36 iPhone and android Casino applications allow players o enjoy some of their favorite games for free such as Blackjack, Roulette, Tomb Raider and more on their iPhones.

* No download software is required
* High conversion rates
* 60% Rev Share for your First 60 days.
* 35% Flat Rate life time commission on your referred Zero36 Casino players.
* Cross Platform: Online and Mobile products.
* Fast, secure payment.
* Comprehensive, Detailed and Customizable Reporting Tools.
* A Whole Host of Marketing Tools to Suit Your Every Need.

Join the Zero 36 iphone and android affiliate program

Liquid Wireless

Posted on March 20th, 2010 by admin
liquidwireless

Make money with the liquid wireless affiliate program

Liquid Wireless work with advertisers on a cost per lead or cost per inquiry basis.  Affiliates can sign up to promote offers from direct response advertisers who want to reach consumers using the mobile internet or mobile applications.

Join the liquidwireless affiliate program

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Decktrade

Posted on March 19th, 2010 by admin
decktrade

http://decktrade.com

Decktrade is the US-focused self-service mobile ad network operated by Millenial Media.  The service works across the mobile web and also in iphone applications.

Millenial Media

Posted on March 19th, 2010 by admin
logo_millennial

http://www.millennialmedia.com

Millennialmedia has strong reach in the US market.  They run a self-service pay per click network – decktrade as well as offering rich media formats and higher cost CPM advertising.  They run the mmdev developer community for application developers.

Mojiva

Posted on March 19th, 2010 by admin
19346v7-max-250x250


http://mojiva.com

Mojiva is a mobile ad platform based in New York working across mobile web, iphone, android and other smartphone platforms.  They also offer self-service/ ad serving solutions e.g. to enable publishers to sell directly and manage their own inventory.

Mobile one of big ecommerce themes for 2010

Posted on March 19th, 2010 by admin

Rob Smith from blueleaf digital posted up on the excellent Carsonified blog a post on “5 Important E-Commerce Themes for 2010″.  The third theme was “Mobile” and Rob says:

“I know, it’s been coming for years. However it’s widely believed that smart-phone adoption will reach a critical mass in the next 12-18 months. What does that mean for us? Customers will have access to the internet or at least a much richer media experience via their phones. People generally always have their phones with them. On the train in the car, the office, at home on the sofa. Many more people have phones than laptops.

What does this mean for e-commerce? Will people really shop and look through entire catalogues to order? Maybe not. Will they bob on their phone to track their order? Maybe. It’s all about context and how they are using their phone to communicate with you and your service.

Some companies are already striving ahead. Pizza delivery companies like Dominoes and Pizza Hut are doing well in the space creating applications and mobile focused websites to help with ordering. It’s important to note that we don’t mean iPhone applications here. It’s a combination of applications and mobile focused websites that are the key. The iPhone is still not a massive % of the mobile space.

Other notable successes in this area are Amazon and Interflora. Some notable failures are Tesco (UK supermarket chain), Sainsburys (UK supermarket chain) and play.com (online entertainment retailer) – all without a whiff of a mobile site on my iPhone.”

Of course here at mobyaffiliates we completely agree and expect things to change rapidly this year as mobile commerce goes mainstream. For example, the success of Ocado in developing an iphone app means that Tesco is sure to follow soon.   One thing to note is that Amazon is not that mobilef-friendly – they have yet to open their affiliate program to mobile devices.   One thing is for certain – the more e-commerce there is on mobile, the bigger the opportunity for mobile affiliates!

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Mobile link exchange

Posted on March 18th, 2010 by admin

One of the most difficult issues in mobile is promoting your mobile site or application.  Mobile search is still not very effective and appstores are increasingly saturated.  So what’s an independent publisher or developer to do?  Well, historically a key traffic driver for independent sites and apps has been link exchanges but these can be time consuming to set up and it is hard to manage the relationship – how do you know the other party continues to send you sufficient traffic to keep up the link?

Simon Judge is an independent mobile developer and author of the very excellent Mobile Phone Development blog.  Here’s what he’s been working on:

In my spare time, as a hobby activity, I have been working on a mobile link exchange. It allows text links to be placed on mobile web sites or within applications. Each request for ads returns two ads. Showing someone else’s ad gets you a credit for displaying ads on yet someone else’s site or application. So, for every view by your end user, you get up to two ads shown on other sites or applications.

I am looking for a few people to try it out. It works on wml, xhtml, iPhone, Symbian, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. In fact, it’s possible to swap ads on one platform for ads on another. It’s also possible to target ads by country and network operator.

The system supports static mobile web pages, via javascript, where end users have javascript available. Alternatively, I have examples for use from php, cgi (perl), jsp, classic asp, c# (.NET) and vb (.NET). I also have tips how to integrate into the various mobile platforms or use the HTTP GET or POST API.

I’ll post another time on how it was built. I had to think carefully about supporting lots of requests per second as well as serving ads very quickly. I wasn’t able to use CGI (php or perl) nor conventional databases.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in being one of the first people to give it a try, free of charge (the final service will also be free), then please contact me at simon@simonjudge.com explaining who you are and a bit about your mobile site or application.

This sounds like a great project so please drop Simon a line and help to get it off the ground.


Mobclix

Posted on March 18th, 2010 by admin

http://mobclix.com

Mobclix is a mobile advertising optimizer for mobile applications.  The service integrates with multiple ad networks through a single account.  Admob is not supported by the service but a number of other ad networks are included including inmobi, quatrro wireless and Mojiva.  Mobclix uses deep analytics to help match the right ad network to the right user to maximise CPMs.

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Medialets

Posted on March 18th, 2010 by admin

http://medialets.com

Medialets is a mobile rich media and web analytics platform for mobile.  Medialets provides deep analytics for applications – going beyond simple metrics to help you understand in detail how your app or mobile media service is used.

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Mobango

Posted on March 18th, 2010 by admin

http://mobango.com

Mobango is a large community which hosts all types of mobile content including apps.  Developers can upload their app and pay on a per download/ CPA basis for additional users.  Mobango currently does not support iphone but is available on other platforms and has a very strong base of users in the Symbian platform.

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Flurry

Posted on March 18th, 2010 by admin

http://flurry.com

Flurry provides provides real time data to developers about how consumers use their mobile applications, as well as how applications are performing across different handsets. Application developers receive aggregated usage and performance data, as well as robust reporting and analysis tools. With this data, developers can identify issues and opportunities, create a more informed product roadmap, increase retention and grow their user base.  Flurry supports iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Java ME with additional platforms coming soon.

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