But what even the “Mad Men” of yore struggled to better understand were their customers’ preferences, lifestyles, needs, and motivations. They wanted to know how often and where they bought soap, soup, or socks — and why.

Today, there are answers. They reside in the vast universe of information known as the web and they have united advertisers and the firms that serve them in a serious quest: getting to the bottom of big data.

That’s something companies like Mozenda instinctively understand. A U.S. company that created its name from the words “More Zenful Data,” its mission has been to develop web scraping and data extraction technologies that allow marketers to do what they do best.

“It’s all about knowing your targets,” explains Brett Haskins, CEO of Mozenda. “Big data has become a buzzword, but what it means is more understanding, more knowledge. It’s like Zen, which is derived from a Sanskrit word that means ‘absorption.’ If we can help absorb more data — meaningful information — we can help marketers be the masters of their art.”

Big data — the bits and bytes of information that can be collected when one knows how to aggregate what the web makes available — would have allowed those mad men to forego the many mid-day martinis they hoped would lead to insight. We’re talking big data insight — the massive amounts of real time data that would have allowed them to test their ideas before they hit the papers and the airwaves.

Marketers — both then and now — “look into this vat of data bug-eyed and frothing at the mouth,” notes Jean Spencer at Salesforce. “Why? Because Big Data holds the potential to describe target customers with an accuracy and level of detail unfathomable only a decade ago. While old-school marketing efforts were limited to things like tracking returns on direct mail campaigns, or number of subscribers to newsletters, modern marketers can have data on people’s exercise habits, digital clicking behavior, time spent on various sites, purchasing history, personal preferences based on social media postings, time awake, time spent in the car, caloric intake, and almost anything else you can imagine.”

In a word, that data means marketers can reach prospects based on the kind of knowledge that leads to better engagement, better response, and a better bottom line for businesses.

The companies that build products and sell them are in the marketing business, but not the big data business. That’s why Haskins and his team at Mozenda wanted to solve the problem of creating a software tool that gives non-programmers the ability to quickly and easily extract information from the web. And — no surprise here — the concept of creating a productivity tool rather than another application for the IT department resonated well with Mozenda’s customers.

Today, Mozenda’s “first of its kind” Software as a Service (SaaS) application for performing comprehensive web data gathering (a.k.a web data extraction, screen scraping, web crawling, web harvesting, etc.), and data management helps marketers throughout the world.

According to Spencer, knowing things like how successful a singular blog or social post was at generating revenue are amazing developments.

“Before Big Data that was an unanswerable question,” Spencer explains. “Now, marketers can distill the effectiveness of a marketing push down to a tweet.”

That’s something that Haskins understands. In Zen, there’s a koan about focusing on a single point of light. He and other explorers in the big data business know how to focus.

“At Mozenda, our work involves unearthing a whole lot of information,” Haskins says. “What we do is turn a mountain of data into a moment of clarity. That, more than anything, is what marketers need.”

The post The Zen of Big Data: How the Details Help Marketers Promote the Big Idea appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

While marketers of all industries understand the need to expand their mobile marketing efforts, a shocking 73% of marketers are still unable to successfully profile their mobile consumer base. This is not because the desire is lacking, but because technology is still lacking.

The recent survey in question was conducted by Forrester and polled more than 400 marketing leaders. The vast majority found issues with modern mobile analytics capabilities. Without comprehensive and accurate analytics, it is not possible for marketers to make informed decisions regarding mobile marketing.

“Mobile data will power all marketing initiatives, across all channels, so smart marketers must get on board with the mobile data gold mine today,” Forrester analyst Thomas Hudson is quoted by The Drum.  “For those brands that cannot get consent for access to customers’ sensor-generated data, they must turn to vendors that are integrating mobile data, or consider working with telecom players anonymizing mobile data.”

An interesting twist when speaking of the success of mobile is that only 59 percent of marketers who have mobile marketing apps feel that they have the consumer data and analytics they desire from their apps.

The post New Study by Forrester Shows Drastic Room for Improvement in Profiling Mobile Consumers appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

On Monday, Yahoo announced that the two companies will merge with Yahoo acquiring the analytics giant for an estimated $200 million.

“Analytics are critical for all mobile developers to understand and optimize their applications,” a statement from Yahoo reads. “Yahoo and Flurry are reinvesting in developers and continuing to build great analytics products. The combined scale of the two companies will accelerate revenue growth for thousands of developers and publishers across the mobile ecosystem.”

In addition, the statement continues, the joined offerings of Yahoo and Flurry will enable more effective mobile advertising solutions for brands seeking to reach their audiences and gain unique insights across desktop and mobile, and users will benefit from more personalized app experiences.

Although rumors have swirled over the years that Apple was most likely going to be the company that ultimately acquires Flurry, Yahoo surprised the tech world at large with Monday’s news.

All told, the acquisition couldn’t come at a better time for Yahoo, which is striving to ramp up its mobile advertising offerings and related revenue.

Yahoo’s mobile display and search revenue each grew more than 100% year-over-year, the company announced on its recent earnings call. In fact, more than half Yahoo’s total monthly audience visits on a mobile device, and in Q2, over 450 million mobile monthly active users came to Yahoo, a 36% increase year-over-year.

The post Yahoo Earns 'Flurry' of Headlines After Latest Acquisition appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Celtra professes to be the first to provide viewability metrics on both in-app and mobile web environments.

“The cutting-edge technology found in AdCreator analytics allows agencies, media suppliers and brand leaders to reliably track viewable impressions and intentional ad expansions, as well as other common metrics, via a comprehensive and easy-to-use dashboard,” a provided statement reads.

Celtra notes that AdCreator 4 fully supports all nine Media Ratings Council (MRC) required viewability metrics which are exposed on the analytics dashboard, and through the AdCreator analytics API.

“It also adheres to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines for both metrics and tracking techniques used for both browser and in-app,” Celtra explains.

For now, the new tools will be tested by launch partner MediaCom, along with “selected media suppliers.”

The post Celtra Advocating New AdCreator Analytics appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

According to the latest industry data presented, time spent on a mobile device by the average U.S. consumer has climbed to 2 hours and 42 minutes per day from 2 hours and 38 minutes per day in March of 2013.

“Apps continued to cement their lead, and commanded 86% of the average US mobile consumer’s time, or 2 hours and 19 minutes per day,” Flurry revealed on Tuesday. “Time spent on the mobile web continued to decline and averaged just 14% of the US mobile consumer’s time, or 22 minutes per day.”

Notwithstanding the fact that most mobile device users spend the lion-share of their time engaging with apps, the mobile browser isn’t altogether forgotten. 14% of “mobile time” is now spent on a mobile browser, with Safari being the most popular by a mile.

Flurry says that that time has proven that mobile apps are more than just a fad. In fact, apps are now “completely dominating mobile,” and the mobile browser has become all but a single application swimming in a sea of apps.

The post The Mobile Browser is Lost at Sea? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Once again, the freemium model remains the optimal way for app developers to make the most money off of their creations (with the implentation of in-app ads, of course).

As the app market matures, app publishers continue to look for the monetization models that will work best for them. However, there is no “one size fits all” strategy, and so it’s critical for developers to think about which markets they plan to enter before deciding on how to generate revenues.

We are already aware that freemium is the best way to monetize an app today, but the report shows in-app advertising outpacing both mobile and PC browser-based ads in revenue growth, making it the next important growth model, but not in every market.

“Unsurprisingly, the United States and Japan lead the way in mobile app monetization, with revenue growth occurring across several countries,” observes Karsten Weide, Program Vice President of Digital Media and Entertainment at IDC.

“However,” Weide concludes, “most device growth will come from emerging markets moving forward, which significantly influences the app monetization profile in aggregate. India is a prime example with 8.7x revenue growth from 2013 to 2017, which appears to be largely driven by rapid smartphone adoption.”

To learn more about the new report and its findings, check out the full report from App Annie here.

The post New Report Probes The Future of App Monetization appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

To that end, MMW was recently briefed by Taggpoint on the commercial availability of its new Taggpoint Connected Experience Enterprise Platform designed to give marketers “enterprise-class tools” for understanding the performance of their mobile device marketing campaigns.

“As the digital experience that your customers have with your brand moves increasingly away from the PC or laptop toward mobile devices, the need to know user context increases,” Taggpont said in a written statement. “Knowing the location and interests of your customers and tailoring their experience accordingly are critical steps on the road to delivering a Connected Experience.”

Taggpoint says its endpoint management tools allow users to create and manage their mobile device touchpoints with ease in an open and scalable way.

Additionally, advanced reporting tools make it easy to measure, monitor and understand the engagement across one’s mobile device marketing campaign.

“Retailers, marketers and even enterprises are increasingly moving their brands forward with multi-channel engagement solutions, including strategies that embrace mobile devices,” says David Gross of Taggpoint Product Management. “Taggpoint’s unique solution enables companies to meet the mobility challenge head on in media, retail, information transfer and more, and also gain unique insight into their deployments.”

The post Marketers Gaining More Enterprise-Class Tools for Mobile appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Just this week, Integral Ad Science, a  provider of advertising intelligence for buyers and sellers of digital media, acquired UK-based mobile ad serving and analytics company Simplytics.

MMW was briefed on the deal and told that this strategic acquisition “allows Integral to add mobile verification for both in-app and mobile web campaigns to its suite of solutions, now providing media quality coverage and viewable ad measurement across all screens.”

Both companies confirmed that all employees of Simplytics will join Integral at its London-based European headquarters.

Following the expansion of its video solution, this acquisition positions Integral as the only company to offer ad verification across all digital channels: display, mobile, and video.

“Mobile, especially in-app, has been a black box to marketers,” explains Scott Knoll, CEO of Integral Ad Science. “At Integral we’re committed to providing a truly comprehensive and integrated solution set for our clients across the advertising ecosystem. We are going to bring the same level of transparency that our customers have come to expect from display and video to mobile. We believe that by providing these tools to everyone in the marketplace, we will increase the overall value of the digital advertising industry.”

The post Acquisitions of Mobile Analytics Companies Accelerating appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

The Big Game is history and the winner was clear: mobile advertising.

Before the Seahawks pummeled the Bronco’s last Sunday, we talked about how this year’s Super Bowl would be a mobile-driven, advertising powerhouse. WithLocals, the peer-to-peer travel experiences startup, took the plunge and decided that a mobile ad campaign would be a better bet than a Super Bowl television ad given their marketing budget. Well, the stats are in and should you need additional convincing about the importance of mobile and real time bidding (RTB), I invite you to consider the following data from the mobile Withlocals ad campaign during this year’s Super Bowl.

• For a mobile display ad, a flat bid of $35 cost only $2.95 CPM on average*
• Before the game, the average CPM on mobile RTB inventory was $3.48; during the game it dropped to $2.39

*Remember, in RTB multiple buyers bid for specific impressions. The highest bidder wins the auction and can then serve a display ad. However, here’s the important part, the highest bidder will only pay the second-highest price (as a second-price auction is the default model in RTB). For example, a bid price of $35 CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) does not mean that an advertiser has to actually pay $35. In many cases, the second-highest price (a.k.a. the clear price) is considerably lower.

Average CPMs for mobile ads for Super Bowl XLVIII were incredibly affordable this year:

• The winning team’s homepage: Seahawks.com = $1.15
• The NFL homepage: NFL.com = $2.19
• The biggest newspaper sites in Seattle: The Seattle Times = $3.42 and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer = $4.10
• The biggest newspaper sites in Denver: The Denver Post = $6.14 and The Denver Westword = $4.79
• Prominent sports domains: 247sports.com, cbssports.com, and foxsports.com = $1.84

According to AT&T’s blog, total data usage in the stadium was more than 624GB; the highest number AT&T has ever seen from a one-day sporting event. For context, 624GB is the equivalent of 1.8 million social media posts that include photos.

Verizon also won big time. According to Verizon’s News Center, the company handled more than 800% more data connections during the game than the busiest hour from last year’s Super Bowl—and used more data in MetLife stadium in one hour than was the case in any previous Super Bowl.

This data from the Seattle versus Denver faceoff fully supports the premise that mobile advertisers can enjoy extremely relevant audience targeting despite a limited budget. What are you waiting for?

The post MMW Op-Ed: Super Bowl XLVIII Changes the Mobile Ad Space appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Despite the massive growth of the mobile app ecosystem this year, Apple retained its leadership position as the industry’s top revenue generator.

During 2013, Google Play’s revenue share has been growing at Apple’s expense, Distimo reports. But as of November 2013, the Apple App Store was still leading with 63 percent relative to 37 percent for Google Play.

Today, the top iOS applications generate $90,000 on average every day.

Not surprisingly, a majority (63 percent) of the revenue on iOS is now generated from apps in the Games category.

“In the Apple App Store, King.com Limited took the number one position of the year for the most downloaded free app with Candy Crush Saga,” Distimo reports. “The app has been around since October 2012, and has since then consistently been ranked high in both free and grossing charts of the Apple App Store.”

To download the full report from Distimo, click here.

The post Distimo Publishes 2013 Global App Stores Year in Review appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.