Each year Mediacom produce a factbook, this is a really useful update on all media which a whole raft load of great content. This year I have produced the ‘Three things’ article below for mobile. To my mind these are the three most important things mobile has to offer us which will lead to a growth in mobile investment and better results for our clients.

1. Location

Location is perhaps the most exciting development for mobile. Every modern smartphone has built in GPS which means, as advertisers, we will know exactly where our audience is. This will make mobile advertising even more targeted.

Foursquare, Voucher Cloud and Facebook Places are the most high profile brands which take advantage of your location right now, however now we can do it with standard display. Google can deliver location targeted search as well as display to its network. For even greater targeting, technology company Rippll can put ads into a wide variety of mobile sites and apps from Sky to the Guardian. So that you can deliver ads not just to the right location but surrounded by the right content, ideal for a brand like Audi or Staples. These opportunities offer great ways to drive footfall or deliver location relevant offers.

By 2014 1.5 billion mobile users will have used location-based services, Vouchercloud has now been downloaded half a million times since its launch 5 months ago.

2. Data

Mobile data offers us unique ways to target consumers that online data simply can’t, whilst it isn’t as accountable (yet) the targeting options put digital display to shame. Comscore Mobile Media Metrics now offers us data on how consumers use the mobile web, and Comscores MobiLens data will soon be plugged into TGI. All of which will allow us to better understand how when and where our target audiences uses their phones.

A great example of clever data usage is iAds, which will allow us to target iTunes customers based on what and how much they have bought on iTunes.

All of the major mobile providers are working with Comscore to offer a one stop buying point for targeted mobile media, complete with demographic and behavioural targeting.

3. M-Commerce

Mobile commerce or M-Commerce has been quietly increasing year-on-year with brands like Amazon, Tesco, Ocado and Ebay releasing apps to date. In 2009 Amazon sold over $1 Billion dollars of products via its mobile platforms and the rest of the industry is following suit with 41% of E-Commerce sites planning to have a mobile optimised site by next year.

It is essential now for websites to be optimised for mobile, as consumers are unlikely to revisit a site that gives them a poor experience on their handset and phone based browsing is expected to exceed desktop browsing by 2013.

Currently Between 8 – 12% of the top 30 retail stores website traffic is through mobile internet, yet only two have a Mobile optimised site.

Let me know what you think and what would make your top 3?

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