The valuable primer walks us through the opportunities and challenges for mobile operators, marketers and portals/publishers. The document takes a balanced view, reminding mobile operators that they are “ideally positioned to provide their customers with search tools” and outlining the options they can chose from to offer mobile search services. However, I miss a discussion of the pivotal importance of brand (for mobile operators) and reasons why mobile operators should employ all mobile search tools/services at their disposal – as long as they brand the most valuable piece of real estate: The mobile search results page. (I believe this control is a critical component of an effective mobile search strategy, a topic I address in my analysis of what’s really at stake in the Verizon-Google deal in another post later today.)

The section of the white paper on mobile search business cases is particularly valuable. A case study from JumpTap, for example, tells us how intelligent search increased ROI for Sega Mobile. In the first month of the campaign (no details on where/when etc…), Sega reported a 9 percent CTR, and 7 percent of these clicks resulted in a sale. The bottom line: Sega tallied up its sales and divided that by the total amount spent on buying keywords to calculate a 320 percent ROI. After re-running the campaign with new keywords, Sega saw a 530 percent ROI in the second month and 11 percent of clicks resulted in a sale. Not so much stellar figures – but a confirmation that success in mobile  should be measured in quality and quantity.

The case study from Medio Systems stresses the importance of keyword advertising, and illustrates how the right choices can generate high-quality leads and high conversion.

By way of background, 4INFO, a mobile search and advertising company that operates a mobile alert service delivering up-to-date information on sports, news, movies, etc… purchased advertising on Medio’s MobileNow search network targeting keywords and keyword categories. The outcome: “Initial results were extremely good; a 29 percent CTR and a 5 percent conversion rate. Simple but direct creatives such as NBA Score Alerts and NHL Live Updates compelled 29 percent of users to click on the ad, with 5 percent of these converting to subscribers.” 4INFO continues to advertise with Medio MobileNow.

My take: A helpful document for beginners – but not a roadmap. A bit thin on methodology. Nonetheless, it is a welcome primer and precisely what we need to get everyone on the same page and move this industry forward. You can download the white paper here.

Disclaimer: JumpTap is an MSG supporter.