The shift to the Mobile Internet will require the support of advertising funding to make it affordable for the masses. Advertisers will shift to mobile media as they:
- See the number of users increase, and
- Discover the impact of targeted and interactive advertising models (see Building A Successful Mobile Web Content Strategy).
One leading indicator is for advertisers to move away from the standard pay-for-impressions model, measured as CPM (cost per thousand), for interactive advertising.
A recent blog entry by Andy Plesser for AlwaysOn describes how VideoEgg is taking the first step to price their online ads by the number of viewers rather than the number of impressions. The interview with Troy Young nicely describes how this is a move along a continuum of pricing models.
This is a good early move. Once advertisers embrace this (which could take some time given the inertia in that industry) it will make online media more valuable, attract more funding, and lay the ground work for further extension to the mobile world. While the mobile extension will have to accommodate smaller screens, slower speeds, and shorter viewer attention spans, it offers the advantages of knowing the location and the activity (sometimes referred to as "presence awareness") of the user. This, in and of itself, may be worth the price.
How do you see the mobile internet changing the way advertisers do business?
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