One of the biggest complaints coming from those involved in mobile marketing and advertising — and those sitting on the sidelines — is the lack of tools to properly measure the effectiveness of mobile ads. It’s one of the largest inhibitors for brands leery of the concept, and a primary roadblock that has to be overcome…but how?
In yet another study, it was found that more than half of executives would inject more money into mobile marketing if there was a better way of measuring its effectiveness – 58% to be exact, who simply want greater accountability in the segment. “As our research shows, there is a clear appetite for an industry-wide measurement platform,” said O2 Media Managing Director Sean Gregory. “The launch of Mobile Media Metrics will more than meet this need.” While an industry-wide measurement platform would be ideal, it’s simply not viable in the current state of mobile marketing.
The problem is fragmentation of information. Running a mobile campaign relies on multiple platforms, varying technologies and fragmented metrics from various sources, leaving many holes in its path. You’re most likely faced with overlapping reports from ad-networks and agencies, duplication of conversion tracking to your site/mobile app and the daunting task of bringing everything together into something that’s actually usable.
While there’s no clear cut answer, and standardization and centralization of mobile metrics is a pipe dream at best, we’re left at the mercy of existing analytics providers and ad-networks to come up with an industry-wide solution. The only answer in my opinion is for every ad-network and metrics-provider to liberate the data they accrue, and make it available via APIs. Developers could devise a solution or create a mashup of sorts to centralize and make sense of all the fragmented information that plagues mobile marketers and advertisers.
With APIs, marketers could access only the data that matters most to them, and utilize it to their advantage without all the extra noise of metrics that aren’t needed. Startups have already recognized the industry-wide need of accurate and viable mobile measurement, but until some standardization is accomplished, it will likely remain a fragmented pipe dream.
