Mobile advertising has been a long time coming and advocates of its power have always been touting its ability to drive high level click through rates (CTRs) for advertisers. We saw a few of examples of these high CTRs in 2009, but Mobile Posse a mobile advertising firm based out of Virginia just posted some interested statistics that cannot be ignored. Mobile Posse has partnered with 5 of the major carriers in the United States to create opt-in (users have to agree to see the advertising) idle-screen advertisements. This means that when users phones are idle they are displayed an advertisement on their screen that they can then click on. If the user choses to click on the ad they are pushed to a mobile website with more information from the relevant advertiser. Over 1 million mobile users have opted into Mobile Posse’s service which allows them to view these ads.
In January Mobile Posse launched an ad campaign with Ford Motors, promoting the new Ford Taurus. The campaign displayed information about the new car on user’s idle screens and when they clicked on the advertisement they were taken to Ford’s mobile website which let them locate their closest dealer. This campaign saw a staggering 20% CTR. This means that 20% of people who saw this ad actually clicked on it and interacted with Ford’s mobile website. Typical web based ad campaigns see an average CTR of just under 1%, so a 20% campaign is not something to ignore. It is important to note that the numbers are slightly skewed because all of these users had initially opted in to see advertising on their phones, however these stats suggest that the power of mobile advertising is very real.
In an earlier post (here) we spoke about the future of mobile advertising and suggested where Apple and Spreed want to take the industry. If we can match motivated users with the type of actionable advertising capabilities that Spreed is building into our platform, it is not insane to think that by the end of 2010 we will see CTRs going well above this 20% benchmark. This is very exciting news and I would like to congratulate Mobile Posse on what appears to be a fantastic service. I know that we will be keeping an eye on them.
