As a mobile advertising pundit who lives and breathes the mobile advertising world including its demographics and growth stats, I remain confounded that more brands have not yet jumped fully into this unique opportunity to reach audiences.

Of course, there are the early adopter companies and forward thinking organizations playing in this space but I am surprised that brands have not yet leaped on board in a way that matches the audience adoption of the mobile platform.

Look at the audience stats. For example, by the end of 2011 it has been estimated that there are 1.2 billion active mobile-broadband subscriptions in the world. That’s 17 percent of the global population. What’s more, mobile-broadband subscriptions have grown 45 percent annually over the last four years and that mobile-broadband subscriptions outnumber fixed broadband subscriptions 2:1. (source ITU)

What does this mean? It means the world is going mobile and doing it fast. In a way this event is intuitively obvious. In developed countries (US, Europe) where disposable income is higher, the ‘internet anywhere’ heuristic of iPhone, iPad, android phone and tablets is so desired that these devices are now experiencing mass adoption . It’s similarly claimed that most email is now first read on a mobile device and even Facebook has ‘finally’ announced mobile is the next cornerstone of their company strategy.

In developing countries, mobile based access has again scored very highly over desktop access as wireless or tower based infrastructure is easier to install and maintain. Similarly actual users in developing countries are recognizing the obvious benefits and selecting a mobile platform with all it’s convenience as well.

So where do the brands fit? According to Gartner, (June 2011) mobile spending will reach 4% of global advertising budget by 2015. That’s going to be way behind the global population and their embracement of mobile smart phones.

When you factor in that mobile based advertising has better targeting, higher click through rates, measure-able call to action plus you can reach the right audience with a much higher degree of accuracy than other online and even offline sources, you like me will wonder what is going on.

I suspect that the mobile advertising opportunity and its brilliance are being kept a deliberate secret. It’s locked up in those archaic advertising agency vaults so they can continue to peddle methods they know such as print media or expensive and vaguely quantifiable TV ads.

Have no fear; adverting executives must go where the audience is. Print media ad spend is dramatically declining, TV is becoming segmented as more users watch on line while Apple and Google line up the next technological battleground or marvel for 2012.

One surety is that mobile adoption as the principle engagement technology of the mass market will continue to increase and brands will have to embrace the platform. Savvy brand marketers will already be doing so.  Organizations that don’t feature mobile in their strategy will be left without a voice.

If you are a mobile publisher or mobile advertiser reading the industry trends going into 2012 you are going to be overwhelmed by the plethora of opinions and predictions. There’s no doubt that there is a lot of good ‘intel’ in these blogs posts and analysis but as one analyst put it

“At this point, the mobile advertising market is so saturated that advertisers are faced with too many options for where and from who and how to buy ad space.”

That’s right on the money, but as I read this particular blog post further the mobile advertising options for an advertiser and publisher just got bigger and more confusing.

Add to this scenario, the ongoing technological inventiveness and new things from the range of organizations in this space. Consider that they will apply a suitable three letter branding to each of their thoughts and new innovations.

What do you get? Well you are likely to be facing a year of M&A, RTB and lots of joy from IAB and MMA (see footnote for translations).

At which point, I asked myself did this solve the initial problem? How does all this future thinking help some-one decide where to get or place their mobile advertising.

Thankfully we can turn to the ideas from cooler heads. Organizations have been wrestling with the task of separating fact from speculation and hype as long as there have been sales people and analysts.

And importantly, the finer minds in business management have well accepted that achieving success in an endeavor, getting to the heart of an issue is nearly always aligned with setting and measuring some sort of key performance indicator (KPI).

The problem is that in the rush to proclaim the new mobile advertising future in the worldwide blog-sphere, these fundamentals are overlooked. When the internet is our reference guide to all things new – what’s new is often mistaken for what’s right.

And so the winners? When the dust settles by the middle of 2012, the winners will no doubt be those advertisers and publishers who understand how to apply the fundamentals and proven KPIs (CTR, CPC, ECPM) and the ad networks that deliver high performance results to these standards.

Notes: M&A – mergers and acquisitions, RTB – real time bidding, IAB – Interactive Advertising Bureau, MMA – mobile marketing association, CPC – cost per click, ECPM – effective cost per mille (1000 impressions), CTR – click through rate.

We are proud to announce the release of our latest high performance ad format, the LeadBolt “App Icon”. This new mobile advertising format allows Android app developers to monetize their applications in a unique way outside of the app experience so they improve the consumer experience when the app is in use, and earn advertising revenue even when it is not.

With the release of App Icon, we provide end users with a great value offering wrapped in a non-intrusive user experience while at the same time delivering another very effective way for developers to monetize their apps.

App Icon is automatically installed on the home page of the end user and can be clicked at any time to access and install the latest and greatest apps. By putting the choice into the consumer’s hands, we have improved the customer experience while ensuring app developers effectively monetize their product. The App Icon ad format can be easily integrated into new and existing applications through a simple to implement SDK function call.

LeadBolt has built its reputation on providing app developers with the widest range of high performing ad types available in the industry. The addition of this leading edge format further reinforces our position as the leading mobile and web advertising company in the industry.

For more information and a short video of the new ad type, visit http://www.leadboltapps.com/appicon

We have made available a new SDK for Android (version 3.0) that includes a range of new features in response to publishers’ support requests plus our brand new ad type App icons that provides a completely new revenue generating opportunity for LeadBolt publishers.

The new SDK is available for download from the publisher portal including the pdf documentation (now v3.0) which has been updated.

Everyone does it so why fight the trend. Reviewing the previous year as the “The Year of something or some other,” is almost mandatory nowadays – so as 2012 begins we take a look at the last 12 months.

The year started out with predictions for the “Year of the App” or “The Year of the Smartphone”. Both are true, but in reality, 2010 was the year that both began to dominate the mobile market.

What really changed in 2011 was that app developers started to make money – and some serious money. The model changed from premium apps to “Freemium” with the rise of interactive advertising and in-app purchases. This shift was so strong, that according to IHS Screen Digest Mobile Media Intelligence Service, 96% of the billions of apps downloaded in 2011 were free. Additionally, 45% of the top-grossing apps in the iPhone App Store and 31% of the top-grossing Android Market apps were free.

And remember, these figures do not include advertising which would push the revenue of free apps even higher.

However, it’s the future potential of mobile advertising that is most exciting. Time spent on our mobile surpassed time spent reading print media in 2011 and is rapidly approaching radio. However, advertising spend on mobile only makes up 1% of total media spend compared to 10% of time spent. This contrasts with 25% of ad spend for print and 10% for radio. The potential growth for Mobile ad spend is huge as mainstream advertisers begin to realise mobile will eventually be the most pervasive form of media – maybe even passing TV in the future.

Already the percentage of ad spend on mobile doubled from 2010 while the others remained static or declined. Take-up of mobile advertising is tracking the early days of the internet in terms of the differential between time spent and spend, although adoption of mobile media is much more rapid than the internet was.

So we say, 2011 was definitely the “Year of App Monetization” but maybe we are jumping the gun because we suspect 2012 will be more so.

It was great meeting so many new faces at the Affiliate Summit last week. It was an amazing three days with reportedly over five thousand people attending the conference this time around! We had hundreds of people visiting our stand and chatting to the LeadBolt team.

We successfully established valuable new partnerships and alliances which are going to benefit our current publishers and advertisers. If you didn’t make it this time around or missed our stand, I am sure we will see you at the next Affiliate Summit venue very soon.

Many great innovations never really take off or are just too fiddly to ever gain consumer acceptance. A great idea is not always the next big thing. However, some lead industries and products into new areas that completely redefine the way we view the world. I have been wondering of late which one Augmented Reality (AR) falls into.

For those that have not come across it yet (and there are plenty), AR is considered the next phase of Virtual Reality (VR). Where VR is a completely virtual space not bound by physical reality, AR combines the real world with the virtual world. It is a live, view of a real-world environment with elements that are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics etc.

Still confused? Well, that might be part of the problem.

Tesco in the UK recently launched an Augmented Reality (AR) program on their website that allows you to view items in their catalogue in your real world. So if you want to see how a TV would look in your living room before you buy it – this can be done. The practical application of this sort of technology is endless.

However, the technology being in its infancy, it is still rather clunky. For the Tesco AR to work, you first need to print out a “marker” so the AR program knows where to place the product. You need to place the marker on your TV cabinet. You then need to position your webcam so it sees the marker within the environment you want to view. Then, you can only rotate the marker – which is great if you want to see the back of the TV, but not much good if you want to look at the whole environment from a different angle.

So, we are back to the question – is it great technology that is just too complicated, or is it the beginning of something incredible?

To be fair, those of us who have been frustrated with the user experience to date, realise it is probably because we can see the real potential.

Imagine staring down 5^th Avenue in NY or Covent Garden in London and wondering where to start. You grab your phone, aim your mobile camera at the street and as you walk down, signs on your mobile screen let you know what is on special at which store and what the items look like. Maybe it will even be able to show what the clothes look like on. Pretty amazing.

Some of my generation might say “won’t your arm get tired?” or “wouldn’t it be easier to walk down the street and see the sign in the shop window that says 40% off or just search online for the cheapest TV?” But remember what the chairman of IBM said in 1943: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Sometimes we cannot even imaging where advances in technology will take us, but surely any step that enhances the consumer experience and makes relevant information more accessible is a positive one.

It was great meeting some of you at Apps World last week. It was a great two days with hundreds of people visiting our stand and chatting to the LeadBolt team. Those who were there can attest that our excellent team stood out from the crowd of exhibitors and showcased what our company is all about and what we had to offer. We successfully established valuable new partnerships and alliances which are going to benefit our current publishers and advertisers.

I really enjoyed being part of a panel discussion on In-app advertising. The topic focused on how viable apps are for use by advertising and media industries, options for advertising within the apps ecosystem – including in-game advertising, understanding your users – how to successfully reach with app advertising, choosing a mobile platform and the role of multi-platform ad networks.

If you didn’t make it this year or missed our stand, don’t worry, I am sure we will be back in the UK soon or at least at next year’s conference.

Published on GoMo News, November 30

In a recent article that quoted research by Piper Jaffray, it said Android developers are getting just 7% of the revenue that Apple iOS developers are getting. The article’s premise was that developers will obviously go where the money is, so therefore, Android will continue to struggle from a development perspective. This got me really thinking … could this be right? Then who are all the developers on our network?

It really is amazing what you can do with statistics.

Firstly, this statistic is relating to revenue earned from the sale of apps – not including ad revenue. Secondly, it is using revenue numbers from the life of the App Store which has obviously been around a lot longer and is much further up the hockey stick growth than Android.

Some more stats to confuse the issue.

According to research by inneractive, click-through-rates (CTR) are more than double on iOS, but eCPM are only 30% higher. This would indicate that Android developers are getting more bang for each click. Now combine this with another recent statistic that Android generates twice the ad impressions of iOS and you have Android earning more in real $ terms from Ad revenue.

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

So, perhaps a more considered approach is required.

Apple has built a closed ecosystem. They heavily regulate the app store and do not look favourably on revenue generated outside of this environment. Ad revenue is the major hole in their “atmosphere”. They cannot, for obvious reasons, close the hole. They have tried to be part of the leakage through iAds. Given their current mindset, it is in their interest to control this outflow from their incredibly full bucket.

On the other side you have Android. Open source, open environment, open market. Added to the mix is that Google, the developers of the Android platform, are an Advertising company. Wouldn’t it be in their interest to ensure the ad revenue floodgates open as wide as possible?

The last piece in this puzzle is to look at monetization trends. Almost 90% of all apps that are downloaded are free and involve no in-app monetization. In fact, according to Distimo, growth in the top paid apps for the 12 months to July was only 7% compared to 34% for the top free apps. Apple’s recorded revenue comes from a slowing trend for paid apps, while 72% of their revenue is from the 4% of apps with in-app purchase models (nb. in-app purchases where only introduced to Android Market in March).

While Apple continues to limit revenue outside of their eco-system, the continuing proliferation of smartphones (at increasingly lower prices) and therefore the increasing number of app users who will not pay for that usage, means that Apple apps will be forgoing a growing monetization segment. In contrast, Android’s open environment, and the ability for developers to utilise premium ad methods may mean that Android developers are in fact following the money!

Is iPhone a technology that’s past is use-by date? Or perhaps they have just blown their opportunities to market in recent months? These are big statements and maybe controversial but should be put on the record.

Why?

I have read many times that iPhone is the phone that desired by most consumers yet every time I read the statistics I become further convinced that life for Apple is just getting harder and that the mobile explosion that’s underway is already way bigger than iPhone.

Lets looks at some facts,

• In most countries you can get an android phone or iphone on a plan at about the same price, so price is not a factor and most carriers can offer both devices.
• Month on month browsing trends show Android’s market share of global mobile web stats are growing. From 11% a year ago to 22% now, where iPhone has been nominally steady in the 17-19% band.
• The Samsung Galaxy S2 is making big dents into the desirability preferences (47% for Samsung Galaxy S2 vs 23% for iphone) of new user mindsets directly taking market share from Apple.

Where are Apple’s new users?

Have they stopped listening to the marketing overtures from Apple? We all know that the iPhone 5 is imminent, yet where is the real excitement for their latest phone product.

With current iPhone’s at hardware version 4/ OS version 5, there is little hardware wise that will not already be anticipated by competitors – more and better of the same. What’s worse, it’s now possible to reasonably claim that the iPhone product is becoming too common-place. Desire-ability is an ephemeral thing but driven by the lust for the new and the status it conveys. Owning an iPhone doesn’t bring the social status it once did and in some ways its almost a commodity item.

At the same time Android is building a huge buzz. The carriers are delighted to have many models to entice users and budgets. Android support by carriers for prepaid options are helping to reach other areas on the consumer spectrum that Apple isn’t. Meanwhile, Google’s have purchased Motorola Mobility, Microsoft’s new partnership with Nokia has pushed Windows7 phones clear to #3, and the industry is alive with media for all things non Apple.

Perhaps Apple have simply moved on and are now focused on the iPad. Here is a virgin market with few competitors, strong opportunity for growth and a desire-ability that’s allowed Apple to delay the next product version. Ahh … to have that luxury!

As for phones? iPhone 5 will have to be out of this world to reverse these trends.

Watch this space, either way it will be amazing.