Posts Tagged ‘Internet Space’

What Performance Should You Expect from In App Ads?

Mobile is on everyone’s minds these days. Whether you are talking about iOS v. Android devices or wondering just how many people have smartphones these days, there is plenty to discuss.

As marketers we are most interested in who has them and if they respond well to advertising. eMarketer points out some data around the performance of in app ads that is, well, not exactly awe-inspiring. First, there is a look at some data from a Lab42 study about just how many in app ads users click on.

Of course, I can only speak from a personal perspective but I don’t know if I have clicked on more than 10 ads anywhere in my life so to see that even some 30% have clicked on 6 or more in app ads is interesting to me. Of course, the other 70 percent is at 5 or less clicks with 20% of those surveyed never clicking on an in app ad.

The article then looks at another angle of the mobile advertising space which is the in app ad that asks the user to get another app so they can receive an incentive. People like incentives but the apps they download to get them don’t get the same love as this chart from a Pontiflex study shows.

With only 3% of the respondents using the new app often and 37% uninstalling the app and the rest of the respondents being pretty indifferent to the app this makes for an interesting discussion. If someone has downloaded your app for an incentive, received the incentive then ditched the app is that a success? What we need to know is if those incentives are redeemed and turn into business. The staying power of this method of advertising is questionable, though, at least based on these findings.

Part of the problem is that there is simply too much noise. The winners in anything in the Internet space will be those that are able to keep it simple while cutting through the excess crap that clutters up the Internet like a side street bazaar.

In 2012 how do you plan to fight the noise in the online space? Is there a way to get it done consistently or is this simply an exercise in hoping you can do enough that some messages rise above the din to be a success?

Google Recognizes Top Help Forum Contributors

Just about everyone in the Internet space is likely to have spent at least some time in a Google help forum. Whether that time was helpful or aggravating depends on the time of day, the user’s need for information in a timely fashion and, most importantly what brave non-Google soul is monitoring that forum to help someone out.

It’s the way that Google has provided ‘support’ for quite some time. Under the guise of “the best situation is when users help other users” the folks at Mountain View have been able to keep their exposure to the outside world limited and they seem to like it that way. Unless they are selling (did you know there are now 1,000 Adword phone reps supporting that platform?) Google treats the general population with the same attitude that the pope treats his followers. You can look,listen and worship but let’s not get too close.

Google, however, is doing an interesting outreach program which rewards many of these top contributors to forums and also puts a carrot out in front of others to get more involved because maybe they too, one day, could visit Mecca, which is the Googleplex, to be given some special treatment. Think of it as a spa retreat for geeks.

The Google Webmaster Central blog reports

We decided to give the online world a break for a moment and meet in real life to celebrate our past success and work on future endeavours. Google Forum Guides, Googlers that participate in the forums, and Top Contributors will convene for the first global Top Contributor Summit on September 13th and 14th in Santa Clara and Mountain View, California. During the Google-organized two-day event, Top Contributors will meet guides, engineers and product managers in order to get to know each other, provide feedback and share new ideas. We’ll be sharing some of the insights and takeaways after the event too, so stay tuned. And if you would like to follow the events online, look out for the #TCsummit tag on Twitter and our updates on Google+.

It looks like Google is getting smarter and shortening the distance between them and their end users. At least they are doing it in a way that provides a nice PR play and doesn’t commit them to doing anymore than they really have in the past.

Are you a forums contributor? What has been your experience in that space? Has it been worth the invested time?

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Last FM Mobile Switches from Ad-Supported to Subscriber Based

Starting on February 15, mobile Last FM listeners will have to pay $3.00 a month to continue their service. That’s less than most people spend on coffee or soda in a day so no big deal, right? Wrong. As expected, the response to the company’s blog post announcement has been mostly about people ready to jump to a competitor rather than pony up the bucks.

The refusal to pay for what they once got free is pretty common in the internet space and it’s becoming more and more of an issue as news outlets and video sites switch over to the paid subscription model. But what’s really interesting here is a line from Last FM’s post:

“On emerging mobile and home entertainment devices, it is not practical for us to deliver an ad supported radio experience, but instead, we will migrate to what we believe is the highest quality, lowest cost ad-free music service in the world.”

The subscription fee is only being required for those who use Last FM on Android, iPhone, or home receivers. X-Box users will still get it free as part of their monthly X-Box Live subscription and Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 users will also get a free pass. Why? Because according to a response to comments in the forum, “Windows is subsidizing that feature for the WinMob7 launch.”

When asked to clarify “not practical,” the same spokesperson noted:

Essentially because some of the devices that are part of this change just can’t support advertising, and streaming isn’t without cost.

Can’t support advertising? iPhone can’t support advertising? Granted, I’m not a Last FM user, so maybe I’m missing some fine detail here. Perhaps it’s not so much “can’t support” in the technical sense, but “can’t support” in the “there’s not enough return on investment way.” That, I understand. Mobile advertising may be growing but that doesn’t mean it’s a slam dunk. Still, $3 per person hardly seems like it will pay the bill even if all of their current users choose to pay up, which they won’t.

Oh, and if you do pay, don’t think that buys you a completely ad free experience. According to the FAQ, Last FM has a deal with video supplier VEVO that allows them to place ads on their content and they can’t be removed without removing the content, too.

It’s hard to say if Last FM can survive as a subscription service. At a quick glance, it doesn’t seem that they have anything special enough or a loyal enough audience to make it so. But is this the trend of the future? Certainly a subscription model is easier to manage than an ad-supported model but can it be just as, or even more effective?