Interactive Marketing Blog

I’ve always been fascinated with metrics – blame it on my education background or my dad who put more stress on numbers while taking rational decision. Similarly, I’ve more or less covered quite a few topics on the same like measurement of visitor engagement to a particular website or be it metricizing online video measurement. But mobile advertising has been something I’ve thought quite often. But since I wasn’t comfortable with due diligence that can I or should I write about this topic. But today I read this piece from Chetan Sharma in GigaOM which makes ample sense if you’re just looking for hard facts backed by logic and numbers to rationalize mobile advertising spend.

From the time when mobile erupted into the corridors of neo-marketers who thought that now this medium can be exploited to reach its consumers, due stress has been put in measurement and metrics. While most of the common ways we measure such mediums is like nuts & bolts methods of applying online principle into mobile circuitry i.e. same old CPC or CPM  or new CPA models are being fleshed out which definitely doesn’t fulfill the breadth and depth of user engagement on mobile.

But what the article says is quite interesting for me as such since it splits wide open the medium into more granular pieces which makes measurement more composite and wholesome.

Some of the real metrics can be:

1. Reach: With mobile we can measure unique users much more accurately than with any other medium. Mobile offers the opportunity for the advertiser to the reach the consumer at the right time and the right place using the right medium with the right message.

2. Targeting: Mobile thrives on targeting. Ad networks that can provide targeting beyond country, carrier and handsets to offer more granular location, demographic and contextual options will be the ones offering more value to both advertisers and publishers.

3. Engagement: In order to differentiate and be effective, mobile has to measure and report on how users are engaging with the campaign, from first impression to the last so-called “moment of sight.” It should take into account the time spent during the visit as well as the actions and reactions.

4. Viral: Mobile’s key features is its ability to offer users one-click sharing. If something is “good,” it will catch on fast. One has only to target power users, who represent just 1 percent of mobile users, to reach 20-50 percent of the subscriber base. Such capability should be built into every campaign and measured accurately to determine its true effectiveness.

5. Transactions: Mobile enables a closed loop functionality like no other medium. Transactions are essentially a measure of the “true” ROA i.e. “Return on Advertising”.

So far so good. But we have to really hive-off the old online measurement principle for another mass medium like mobile and track it innate effectiveness more clearly and aptly.

What do you think?