Google Mobile Image ads: Foray in mobile advertising market

Mobile phones have been proved a great tool for web advertising. Keeping in view the ever expanding range of mobile users and the mobile advertising business, Google has forayed into a new domain i.e. graphical ads on mobile devices. Recently Google announced the launch of mobile image ads. The image ads will be automatically displayed on the screen as soon as you will open the mobile phone browser. They look similar to the standard image ads for desktop web pages but their sizes have been modified to fit on mobile screens. The mobile image ads are linked to a mobile web page, keyword-targeted, and are priced on a cost-per-click basis.

Advantage for all

The mobile image ads will serve as a branding tool for advertisers and have shown good clickthrough rates. Only one image ad per page will be displayed that will also benefit advertisers.They are also beneficial for the publishers, providing added flexibility. Publishers can now select to show image ads, text ads, or a mix of both. Those publishers who are already taking the service of AdSense for mobile content, just require to update their AdSense code for activating mobile ads on their site.

Mobile image ads provide the mobile web surfers a new way to interact with mobile content. The contextual targeting will keep the ads relevant. Only one image ad per mobile page will ensure the uncluttering of ads and better readability of content.

Service of mobile image ads are currently available to advertisers in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Mobile advertising market

The number of mobile phone users worldwide is estimated to be 3 billion as of 2007, and will touch the 4 billion mark in 2008. To be noted that total number of computers, including desktops and laptops, are currently estimated at 800 million globally. The figures itself explains the ever expanding reach of mobile users and so the mobile advertising. How much the mobile ads are beneficial can be estimated from the statement by Google CEO Eric Schmidt "they are twice as profitable or more than the non-mobile phone ads because they’re more personal." According to the forecast of Strategy Analytics, advertisers are expected to spend $14.4 billion by 2011 on mobile media compared to $1.4 billion spend in last year.

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