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Sep. 19, 2007

On any given day, companies doing advertising for the wireless and mobile industry may be interested in getting their ads on cell phones, but they also want to know that their ads are being seen by their true target markets.

In fact, this method of very personalized advertising is one of the biggest features attracting advertisers to a mobile phone, and more markets than one.

"On average, data about consumers' actual use of mobile Web sites is truly vital to many advertisers. That's why M:Metrics has developed specific technology to audit these websites, so that advertisers can place their ads more appropriately," says Mark Donovan, v.p. with research company M:Metrics.

Recently, M:Metrics utilized its various audit capabilities in researching mobile advertising agency AdMob.

Donovan said AdMob serves ads on about two-thousand Web sites. A report on the research shows that about 68 percent of users who view mobile ads are in the desirable 18 to 34 year age group.

M:Metrics' auditing process is done by surveying visitors to those WAP sites. It provides more granular information about those specific visitors, which includes ethnicity and sex.

"Audited information means mobile advertisers can reach their specific and intended target audience with much greater accuracy," said Omar Hamoui, CEO of AdMob.

Hamoui added "by working with M:Metrics and leveraging our vast network audience across Web sites, we are now enabling advertisers to target their ads in a way that they expect with traditional Internet advertising."

He added "most importantly, they can increasingly reach their target audience on the mobile Web, since the method used is easy and flexible to scale."

M:Metric's report reveals that Web sites targeting African-Americans have an audience composition of more than 50 percent of that ethnic group, even though the group makes up just a little over six percent of mobile users.

Very similar findings were discovered for sites aimed at women, Hispanics and other profiles, Donovan said.

He added "the M:Metrics' auditing technology will be offered to other mobile advertising companies, and could be a valuable tool to mobile content aggregators."

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Source: Wireless Week