The Value of Mobile Internet Traffic

"What is a click-through on a mobile phone worth?"

http://domainnamewire.com/2007/10/24/mobile-ads-are-worthless/

***FS*** Andrew says not very much, in his experience.  I've always suspected as much.. Picture yourself browsing on your phone..  you have limited battery life..  you're hurried..  The desktop browsing experience is lean-forward marketing..  You're sitting upright in front of your computer..  you're engaged..  you have a workspace and the ability to reach for your credit card.  :)  Not so in the mobile experience,  with the exception of passengers in an automobile.

Comments

[JP]

Andrew's main example is the Sedo parking page for dot mobi domains which links to sites not compatible with a mobile device. This is pointless and obviously a paid click in that scenario is wasted money. I run several mobile websites and advertise with Google Mobile Adwords. These paid clicks are very valuable to me, and well worth the cost. The cpc is very low at the moment which helps, but it has room to increase significantly and still offer value.
I agree that the PC experience cannot be beaten for some processes such as a mortgage application, but when you need a taxi or a hotel room in a hurry, the relevant geo mobile website with a 'click to call' feature can come in very handy. It all comes back to building mobile sites with the mobile context in mind.

[Ari Shohat]

Hi Frank,

What if it's audio ads on mobile devices? Not exactly lean forward for affiliate stuff, but good for branding campaigns. Unfortunately I can't elaborate on my hint.

[James]

Last 3 months figures;
.com - CTR of 14.73% - CPC of $0.10
.mobi - CTR of 26.14% - CPC of $0.15
All names at Namedrive.

My thoughts are, people searching on a mobile are paying for the privilege, hence want to find what they want quickly - will click through more readily (less time to browse).

[Jamie]

I think it is a good time to be building and buying up mobile ad infrastructure. It's not here yet but it will be. Remember what PPC was like in 2001&2? Take a look at Europe and Japan and that's a decent proxy for here in a few years.