InMobi is a fast growing global mobile advertisement network. InMobi has been a sponsor to Telecompk.net for a while and we had the chance to sit with InMobi CEO and ask a few questions about the future of mobile advertising and opportunities in this exciting space.
How is InMobi different from its competitors?
Some of the key elements that have helped forge strong relationships with our partners are;
- Our intelligent ad serving capabilities deliver strong advertiser results
- Our self-service web application enables advertisers to kick-start their campaigns in a very easy way
- Publishers signing up on our network can start earning money from their sites in just a few minutes
- We have significant anti-fraud checks in place that help enhance advertiser ROI
- We provide excellent campaign management services for our advertisers & publisher clients
- We have executed successful, localized campaigns for top-tier brands & their agencies that have leveraged the strength of our ad network, and the viral power of the medium.
- Our reporting and analytics enable advertisers to manage their campaigns in real time, and publishers to understand their site performances better
- The global data infrastructure set up in India and USA ensures that all our publishers benefit from the phenomenal ad response times
- how can small businesses take advantage of advertising on mobiles, especially in this tough economy? is there a clear ROI for them?
The beauty of the mobile medium is that is can cater effectively to the small as well as large advertisers. Small businesses are especially sensitive to the ROI and the reach of the medium and Mobile advertising is a sector of the advertising industry which scores very high on both those fronts. The measurability of the medium validates the statement. In mobile advertising, advertisers can track every penny and see the performance gained by investing their money. Advertisers will know exactly how many times the ads were served and how many users clicked on it as well as the amount of time spent on the advertiser pages. This sort of detailed analytics is not possible with traditional media. Hence, in the current tough economic times, it makes even more sense to invest in methods that can show the value for money so that advertisers do not waste an extra penny.
How do you see social media playing in your field?
Social networking is exploding on mobile phones. In fact social networking sites are consistently some of the highest traffic destinations on the mobile internet and have naturally become a big and important part of the eco system. These sites also provide demographic parameters which further help serve even more relevant ads and deliver high ROI to the advertisers as well as the publishers. Social media has a big impact in our line of business. There is the straight forward impact in terms of social networking sites and the number of users visiting those sites. Also, the users of such sites fall into the youth audience who form the majority of the mobile browsing traffic. Other than that, social elements are viral in nature, that play an important role in our field. For example, if we consider our latest Reebok campaign, we had a feature where users could send wallpapers as gifts to their friends. This feature attracted the largest share of audience showing that such social elements when embedded into a campaign can prove to be one of the success drivers of the campaign
What’s the biggest challenge for your growth?
The biggest challenge lies in the diversities of the markets. To be truly successful in mobile advertising, it is mandatory to understand the nuances of every market. Growth, for us, does not stop at just entering the market, but has a lot to do with what and how much value we can provide to our partners. Hence, the launch in a geography needs a lot of our dedicated effort to understand the working of the market so that we can provide our partners the insights that no one else can give. That takes time and effort but, it is well worth that investment if our partners are satisfied.
There has been a lot of abuse of ads via SMS. What can be done to change the negative perception of ads on mobiles?
We regularly face the challenge of beating back the skepticism of people when it comes to mobile advertising because mobile advertising is usually connected with SMS advertising. Education is the first step. We focus on highlighting non-intrusive nature of mobile internet advertising and the value it can offer to the users. Over time, as this form advertising becomes familiar, not only advertisers but users will also begin to appreciate it since the user experience they face will tend to improve. Till then, the key lies in educating the advertisers about the differences of mobile internet advertising as well as its benefits when compared to SMS ads.
Privacy laws vary widely over the world, what is the trend in emerging markets and what is the impact on your business?
User privacy concerns are a very important aspect in all geographies, be it the developed nations or the emerging markets. Just because a certain geography is still developing and there are no stringent privacy laws, it is not acceptable to misuse this gap. We believe that by taking advantage of relaxed privacy laws of certain markets, the ecosystem is being harmed. If this continues, the user experience will diminish and in the end it is the industry that will be negatively impacted.. In places where there no/ lax privacy laws the industry should self regulate. At InMobi we treat user privacy with utmost respect.
Tell us the top 3 lessons that you have learned through your work on inMobi?
While it is a common perception that most successful internet companies have emerged from the Silicon Valley and then grown global, InMobi taught me as well as the world, that this is a false assumption. InMobi has managed to grow from an emerging market to the rest of the world. Though I did believe in this initially, InMobi just restored my belief.
InMobi teaches me on a daily basis of how important the people of the company are in the success or failure a company. We all believe in free thinking and this has shown us some amazing results. The innovation, that our young team brings out, has been impressive. InMobi is what it is today only because of the team and I am proud to be a part of this team.
Most importantly, I realized the difference between treating your clients as customers and considering them your partners. When that bridge is crossed, the partnerships made are built on a much stronger foundation. This has brought InMobi a long way. Some of our partners have been with us for a long time now and we work in tandem rather than share a customer-client relationship.
SOURCE : telecompk.net
