The Challenge of Monetizing the Mobile Audience through Advertising
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2024 4:51 am
There are no surprises when it comes to communication mobility. It was one of the main trends in the world of technology during 2012 and it is repeating itself for this year that has just begun. Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM and technological gurus agree on this point.
While it is clear that there has been a radical change in carrying a "mini-computer in your pocket" when we talk about smartphones , which allow people to always be in touch in real time, the big topic of discussion is no longer the volume of audience that is added every day to this attractive market segment, which is undoubtedly being capitalized on by device, software and application manufacturers, but rather how companies of the stature of Google and Facebook can monetize a growing audience with behavior patterns that are not so similar to traditional computer use.
Globally, and according to StatCounter figures , the mobile search market share in the period from January 2012 to January 2013 is 11.09 % versus 88.91% for PC/Laptop. Special mention should be made of the fact that the great goldmine of online revenue is searches via ig database computer. You might think that in the case of mobile the volume is low, but what is really happening is that it has been growing progressively in the last five years, where in 2008 it barely touched 1%.
In the fight to monetize audiences, and considering that Google accounts for more than 90% of the search volume worldwide through computers, and almost 97% in the case of mobile, it seems that its dominant position allows them to skim the market segment faster. Below is data from StatCounter again, showing the top 3 most important competitors worldwide:
However, the reality for Google is not so simple. While it is estimated to have almost 100% of the mobile advertising market today, investors are unsure whether it will be able to capitalize on mobile revenue as the market grows. In its most recent financial results release , there is one very interesting and crucial piece of data: the amount of money its advertisers pay to drive traffic to their websites for an effective click on an ad, known as Cost per Click (CPC) , fell by 6%. This is explained by the fact that its desktop search business is gradually migrating to the mobile arena, where advertisers pay a lower CPC on the latter. In the United States, the Mobile and Tablet Click Share for Google is estimated at 25%. The challenge that Google faces is how to be more relevant on a much smaller screen, where users have less time and use more email than search engines.
As for Facebook, it is under much more pressure to boost its share price, with investors largely expecting it to diversify its revenue streams further and capitalize on the nearly 500 million users who access the social network via their cell phones. The good news for Facebook, according to data from a global study by Kenshoo Social , is that 20% of the advertising investment it receives is via mobile. The bad news is that its mobile users are not as likely to click because they are looking for “entertainment,” which affects the conversion rates of its advertisers and for which it has recently launched tools to measure the ROI of campaigns run on its platforms. It remains to be seen how effective this could be.
The ground is set for a long-term battle. In times of increasingly fragmented audiences, the task does not seem easy. What is clear is that the fight is worth it in a mobile advertising market valued this year globally at US$ 9.715 billion according to figures from eMarketer. As Larry Page, one of the founders of Google and current CEO, recently stated: "The opportunities in a multi-screen world are enormous.
While it is clear that there has been a radical change in carrying a "mini-computer in your pocket" when we talk about smartphones , which allow people to always be in touch in real time, the big topic of discussion is no longer the volume of audience that is added every day to this attractive market segment, which is undoubtedly being capitalized on by device, software and application manufacturers, but rather how companies of the stature of Google and Facebook can monetize a growing audience with behavior patterns that are not so similar to traditional computer use.
Globally, and according to StatCounter figures , the mobile search market share in the period from January 2012 to January 2013 is 11.09 % versus 88.91% for PC/Laptop. Special mention should be made of the fact that the great goldmine of online revenue is searches via ig database computer. You might think that in the case of mobile the volume is low, but what is really happening is that it has been growing progressively in the last five years, where in 2008 it barely touched 1%.
In the fight to monetize audiences, and considering that Google accounts for more than 90% of the search volume worldwide through computers, and almost 97% in the case of mobile, it seems that its dominant position allows them to skim the market segment faster. Below is data from StatCounter again, showing the top 3 most important competitors worldwide:
However, the reality for Google is not so simple. While it is estimated to have almost 100% of the mobile advertising market today, investors are unsure whether it will be able to capitalize on mobile revenue as the market grows. In its most recent financial results release , there is one very interesting and crucial piece of data: the amount of money its advertisers pay to drive traffic to their websites for an effective click on an ad, known as Cost per Click (CPC) , fell by 6%. This is explained by the fact that its desktop search business is gradually migrating to the mobile arena, where advertisers pay a lower CPC on the latter. In the United States, the Mobile and Tablet Click Share for Google is estimated at 25%. The challenge that Google faces is how to be more relevant on a much smaller screen, where users have less time and use more email than search engines.
As for Facebook, it is under much more pressure to boost its share price, with investors largely expecting it to diversify its revenue streams further and capitalize on the nearly 500 million users who access the social network via their cell phones. The good news for Facebook, according to data from a global study by Kenshoo Social , is that 20% of the advertising investment it receives is via mobile. The bad news is that its mobile users are not as likely to click because they are looking for “entertainment,” which affects the conversion rates of its advertisers and for which it has recently launched tools to measure the ROI of campaigns run on its platforms. It remains to be seen how effective this could be.
The ground is set for a long-term battle. In times of increasingly fragmented audiences, the task does not seem easy. What is clear is that the fight is worth it in a mobile advertising market valued this year globally at US$ 9.715 billion according to figures from eMarketer. As Larry Page, one of the founders of Google and current CEO, recently stated: "The opportunities in a multi-screen world are enormous.