Top Mobile Ad Networks

February 26, 2009

Companies Monetizing the Mobile Web

February 26th, 2009
by Paul Dalanche

These companies help monetize mobile content through mobile advertising.

Admob (http://www.admob.com) - Admob focuses primarily on the long-tail of mobile WAP sites. It has by far the largest reach of any mobile ad network. Much of its inventory is performance-based, cost per click (CPC) or low CPM owing to the fact that the publisher network is not at the premium end of the scale. Starting in late 2007 Admob began to see dramatic growth in its impression count and this continues to today.

Quattro Wireless (http://www.quattrowireless.com) - Whereas Admob has a long reach into a broad network of publishers, Quattro has a more focused group of premium publishers, many of which are leading website and media property operators. Because Quattro works with the high-end of the publisher spectrum it tends to command higher CPMs. Quattro can provide a variety of media types (WAP, TXT, video, etc.) but is mostly focused on WAP today.

4INFO (http://www.4info.net) - 4INFO is focused on the TXT message advertising portion of the market. The company, however, is not a mobile marketing company - that is, they are not in the business of sending TXT messages from companies to prospective customers. Rather, 4INFO appends advertisements to TXT messages containing content (thereby turning txt's into media) so that the content can be ad-suppoprted and made available free of charge to the consumer. 4INFO does this for a variety of web and print publishers to help them transition to mobile.

Transpera (http://www.transpera.com) - Transpera provides advertising solutions related to mobile video content. It works with both traditional media companies and web video companies to monetize their mobile video traffic.

Millenial Media (http://www.millennialmedia.com) - Millenial is very similar to Quattro in that it focuses on WAP traffic and works with a list of web publishers that have migrated to mobile. Whereas Quattro has a technology platform for aiding in this transition, Millenial is more focused on the ad rep side of this business.

Greystripe (http://www.greystripe.com) - Greystripe provides ad monetization and distribution of ad-supported mobile applications, especially mobile games. The company has an "Ad Wrap" technology that allows for the advertisements to be added to games without the need to re-engineer the games, thereby making it more cost-effective to take back catalog games and re-launch them as ad-supported titles.