Measurability will drive mobile marketing

At the recent CTIA show in San Francisco, a conference panel discussed the value of metrics in driving mobile marketing. The industry at large believes its important to establish key performance indicators to overcome a lack of trust among advertisers in the mobile channel.

The consensus the panel reached was that the mobile advertising market on the whole has not kept pace with the rapid growth of mobile media consumption, and that improved metrics and measurability would jumpstart the rapid growth of the industry.

Unique visitors for a mobile site

“A successful metrics for mobile marketing campaigns would include unique visits, conversion rates, handset types, screen sizes, etc.,” said Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango. “Most people I’ve talked to can’t even measure unique users yet.”

“The metrics clients are asking for are unique visitors, the targeted reach unique visitors and their demographics, stickiness, duration and frequency,” said Will Hodgman, president of ComScore/M:Metrics. “We have to encourage, solicit and corral carriers to make their mobile Web data available.”

Mobile analytics tools such as Bango’s do enable mobile marketers to measure success and adjust campaigns based on traffic or goal conversions. They get an independent view across all mobile marketing campaigns – from banner advertisements and search keywords to text campaigns and desktop to mobile promotions.

Despite addressing these challenges, there was palpable optimism that mobile marketing as an industry is approaching a tipping point.