In-Brief: Part 1 of an in-depth post with special emphasis on new trends and old frustrations related to mobile search & advertising.

I’m back with my impressions of yesterday’s Mobile Search & Advertising Forum 2008. The Wireless World Forum, which chose not to actively promote the event, had no trouble attracting a sizable (and exciting) crowd of professionals, practitioners and senior execs. I was privileged to be invited and have placed W2Forum events at the top of my must-attend list from here on …

Reams of reports and statistics may claim there is plenty of money to be made in mobile advertising, but the reality is quite different. This became painfully evident when Bena Roberts, an analyst and blogger who chaired the event, asked the audience who was really making money in mobile advertising. Not many raised their hands. In response to a later question, she was the only one who could offer some solid numbers on keyword prices and pay-offs. Indeed, the industry has a way to go before mobile advertising is a business…

This frustration came through loud and clear at my table, where I was fortunate to be seated with a lively mix of mobile advertising enthusiasts and cynics including Tom Horsey, Director, Froggie; Carl Costa, Director UK, Mobile Advertising Solution; Christopher Spearpoint, Mobile Marketing Manager, Sharpcards; and Trevor Goldberg, VP Strategic Partners, Bango. Our discussion topic in a breakout round table session was the challenges to mobile advertising & search. Their answers were refreshing, frank – and a bit frightening.

Leading the discussion at my table, I was sure we would dwell on the usual laundry list of obstacles: high data tariffs, low mobile search usage and mediocre mobile content/inventory. But the real problem with search & advertising is the search companies themselves. (BTW: AdMob got high marks at my table for a robust platform and a no-brainer self-service system, but advertisers still aren’t getting the reporting that will allow them to establish what’s hot and what’s not.)

The overall consensus: search engines provide poor analytics/reporting and even worse accountability. As Tom from Froggie put it: Google & Co have patently different ways of registering what a click is or even what counts as a page-view. “On mobile, it [the problem] is far more exaggerated than it is on Web. That’s what our clients tell us anyway.”

Another thorn in the side of advertisers is Google’s Internet-centric approach to campaign management. It makes advertisers jump through quite a few hoops. For one, advertisers are forced to make changes and tweaks in the Web version of their campaign and then activate it separately for mobile. This was read as a clear indication that Google doesn’t have its head around mobile. As one disgruntled exec (who preferred to remain anonymous) pointed out: “I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that every ad network [presenting at the forum], other than Google, said that lack of inventory was a problem . Google has the tool that’s the most complicated, so it’s no surprise they have more inventory than the others.”

This jives with some other gripes I’m hearing in the industry. In fact, Mobile Commerce, which literally sees the hits and the misses, has remarked several times that Google’s performance is dire compared with Yahoo, for example. Check back next week for an exclusive look at Mobile Commerce’s stats and an in-depth Q&A with Steve Page, Mobile Commerce CEO, that I hope will go a long way toward explaining this disconnect.

Of course, I will reserve judgment until I test it on the MSG WAP site. A special thanks to Tomas Zeman and his very capable team at Wirenode. The Prague-based startup – a company I can highly recommend – has begun work on our mobile site for precisely this purpose.

Is search advertising broken? Let’s just say it’s flawed. Ironically, a success story case study offered by Andy Smith, AdMob’s head of Business Development Europe, identified the problem and the solution. He revealed that a recent campaign with MTV Europe to promote the MTV Europe Music Awards, delivered a 300 percent increase in traffic and a 400 percent increase in downloads. What made this jump possible? MTV changed the text ads and offers “daily, almost hourly.”

The example proves ads must rotate frequently, and managers must have the tools to do this at their finger tips. “You have to be able to change them almost on the fly,” Tom from Froggie told me later. A perfect world would be one in which a mechanism – such as an RSS feed – would simply automate this process. “Updating the message is key to making a successful campaign.” In fact, Tom’s clients are “dying to see this.” If only Google & Co. would sit up and take notice…

(Perhaps someone should organize a conference where search engine companies have to sit down at the same time with seasoned practitioners like Tom. I’m sure the exchange would be worthwhile and might even produce a few solutions…)

Speaking of solutions, I wanted to test general interest in MCN’s new allwords mobile content advertising network. Execs had told me they are frustrated that Google doesn’t make it possible for managers to seamlessly look up the keywords users on mobile are searching for and/or the typos that occur in the process. Would a solution such as allwords, which allows advertisers to buy a complete category of keywords, help? Their answer: Most definitely!

The takeaway: Mobile search and ad network companies would do well to listen more closely to what mobile advertising execs and consultants have to say. Mid-size managers and their clients can have a huge impact and do much more than a few big brands to jumpstart the industry.

Check back tomorrow for more conference highlights and a few local-search/mobile social networking business models that push the envelope.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Mobile Advertising, Mobile Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.