Web-Browsing Cell Phones Have Marketers Seeking New Strategies

On the average Web page, Google can fit 10 of its Ad Sense marketing messages. But mobile Internet users may see only two of the sidebar ads at the most. “Imagine the horror that would befall your business if a large slice of what you sell suddenly disappeared,” writes Business Week.

That limited ad space is driving online advertising toward targeted optimization.Consider the fact that Google writes on its Official Mobile Blog, “Contextual targeting keeps ads relevant … you can uninhibitedly browse mobile websites while clicking only on the ads that interest you.”

This is not to say that the same personalization strategies do not apply to online media as a whole. FindingDulcinea’s Web Guide to Internet Marketing says, “Targeted advertisements generate more revenue than untargeted advertisements. Because the vast majority of Web content is advertising-supported, Web site owners argue that targeted advertising increases the resources that can be devoted to creating Web site content.”

Indeed, MySpace predicted in October 2007 that its recent tailored advertising would see an 80 percent increase in clickthroughs.

Business Week writes that mobile versions of some social networking sites may have to revert to paid subscriptions. Facebook, Twitter and Digg are “free” content models operated by third-party advertisers that may prefer to stick to bigger pages that can carry more ads.

Online marketers have long been savvy to their newfound precedence in the advertising sector. In a CNBC clip from two years ago, the head of Internet ad firm RGA, Robert Greenberg, said that the targeting afforded by online media had left TV commercials “antiquated and expensive.”