Google has announced a new advertising program, AdSense for Mobile, a contextually targeted ad platform for mobile website content.
AdSense for Mobile gives the ability to AdSense publishing partners to earn revenue from their mobile websites through the targeted placement of mobile text ads.
According to Google, “advertisers can connect with the growing number of mobile publishers, ultimately providing users with an enhanced mobile experience that helps them find what they are looking for more quickly and efficiently on the go.”
AdSense for Mobile is focused on AdSense users who have websites that are specifically for mobile browsers, and who want to monetize their mobile content via contextual advertising.
Adsense Mobile text ads run on an auction model, in the same fashion to regular Adsense/ Adwords ads are offered.
AdSense for Mobile will be available in the following countries: US, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan (shortly).
I sure as hell would not want to piss off mobile users by putting ads on a mobile site. For those of us on pay-by-the-byte services, it’s expensive enough to download a regular page, even with images turned off.
You’re absolutely right, Kat.
The flat rate and gigabytes of included montly traffic are not ubiquitously offered everywhere where mobile networks are present. Customers in Germany, for example, have to pay at least 10 Euros for each megabyte. It’s not gonna be funny if you will pay extra for advertisments.
Another issue is that screens of mobile devices have very small resolution, so small that many users immediately abandon the idea of using these devices for more or less practical things. Imagine what would happen if a part of this originally insufficient space is eaten by ads?
It’s possible that also mobile anti-advertisement tools may appear, like AdBlock Plus for Firefox and AdMuncher for general users.
I wasn’t sure how this would work technically. After all, regular AdSense ads are inserted client-side using Javascript, and Javascript isn’t supported by your average mobile browser.
It turns out they do mobile ad integration server side, using PHP, Perl, ASP or JSP. The only snag is that this (presumably) requires your web server to be able to make outgoing HTTP requests…. which ours doesn’t for security.
I don’t believe in mobile advertising at all!
I use mobile internet rarely, and when I do, I just want to reach a very specific information quickly. I don’t care of ads, especially product ads, because I am not “surfing” that time.
Maybe the only case if I can’t find that information on one site, then a cleverly targeted ad can take me to an other mobile site. So that’s the only meaningful case, as I see, to drive traffic between mobile-enabled sites. However why would one spend money to drive traffic to his mobile site, if he hardly can sell ads on his site?
I still think, mobile internet will die, since it began to develop too late & too slowly. It’s place will be taken over by mobile internet terminals or small laptops equipped with full-featured browser.
I’ve been using the feedm8 version for some time now. They have a great affiliate program… it would be interesting to see how the 2 compare.
The problem with Google adsense. Publisher like Microsoft, Yahoo… They was do anything to hurt your startup.
The demand for cell phones will definitely cause Google to reap the benefits($$$) of mobile ads.
I wonder what type of mobile site Google will approve of ?
Even if people do click through the ads, I wonder what kind of conversion rates you’re going to get on the landing pages. Your best hope is to motivate a telephone call and them somehow track that in a useful way.
If you put the phone number in the ad body copy then you can get a conversion without a click-through, which Google can’t love.
… It was interesting to see the list of countries they’re piloting with:
US, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan (shortly).
Yes, England! So the Scots, Welsh and Irish (northern or otherwise) and I presume the Channel Islanders as well, won’t be getting mobile ads from Google, but the English will….
Is it just me, or am I the only guy that now thinks it makes sense to port their application into a mobile friendly version?
None of the large Q&A sites work well on mobile – not us, not Yahoo Answers, not Answerbag, Yedda, Askville or live QnA.
However, while not a q&a site, 43things.com has a very slick mobile app, which I’m a HUGE fan of….I wonder if & when they’ll be adding the adsense for mobile?
If they do, it’d be very telling, imho, about how “good” or not this service is for a US mobile social play.
I never even access the web through my phone, although if I was interested in getting ads and web access through my mobile device, I wouldn’t exactly “click” on the AdSense, for there’s always the web accessed via computer. We aren’t accessing TechCrunch through our phones after all…At least I’m not, at this moment. The main fact is that with mobile web usage, don’t people want geographically correct information rather than just websites catering to their interests? People usually access geo-content, not interest content from my experience
I’m struggling to see this getitng anywhere in the next few years. Too often I hear mobile phones being trumpetted as the next big leap. Yet it still not materialised. Maybe I’m just being a pessimist though.
This is an appluadable gesture by Google. They constantly show their flexibility in their new products. This would increase their profits certainly and those of it’s publishers. Although it could make mobile pages slower.
Its Nice to hear that .. but not work in pakistan
Have a nice day
http://www.therealfun.com
@Mark Hopwood
haha! I came here to make that exact comment
I don’t think data cost will be much of an issue. They have to be small ads to fit on the screen and not overwhelm the page so I’m guessing less than 200B per ad. Of course there will be resistance to it but in the end mobile advertising is inevitable isn’t it?