Yahoo Launches Mobile Sponsored Ad Test
October 5th, 2006 by pamela
Yahoo has today launched a service which will see sponsored adverts appear beside natural results on mobile phones, both in the US and UK. Operating in the same way as normal PPC advertising, each of the mobile sponsored ads will offer each of the current 100 advertisers the opportunity to attract mobile users to their products and services.
Although the service is currently only at the test stage, according to Steve Boom, Senior VP of Broadband and Mobile at Yahoo!, “Enough users are doing queries that it’s beginning to turn into a business big enough for Yahoo! to find interesting. We’ve done the same thing in the UK on a single operator for the last nine or ten months and the same trend appears to be happening.”
While only a small number of advertisers are able to use the service at present, Yahoo! intends to iron out any problems before rolling the service out to take advantage of the huge rise in mobile search usage in recent months.
A recent US survey conducted by the Mobile Marketing Association indicated that 31% of respondents used mobile search in the previous month, with users conducting an average nine searches per month.
Concerns about consumer backlash when advertising is added seem to be unfounded as the Mobile Marketing Association’s research indicated no complaints, echoing Yahoo!’s test period which has seen no complaints. Indeed it may be that consumers are now so used to advertising being shown during a PC search, that mobile search is assumed to be exactly the same.
Google seems to be a step behind it’s rival on this one, with the company currently conducting pilot tests for mobile ads in the U.S., U.K. and Germany similar to one Yahoo! conducted in Japan late last year. Integrated with the AdWords system, text ads will appear when a user searches using Google from a mobile device.
Goggle’s entry into this space could make it a whole lot easier for smaller advertisers to get involved in mobile search, but with Yahoo! jumping in first, Google may have to play catch up.
Posted in Yahoo!, Paid Search, Mobile Search |
