This is a summary of Peggy Ann Salz white paper "Mobile Advertisign for newbies" a "how to" guide about how to set up mobile advertisign campaigns and how to measure the results.

1. “ Mobile advertising for newbies” White paper, volume 1

3. Why mobile is different Analytics on a PC revolves around the existence of embedded JavaScript code in the pages of a website. That works a treat on PCs because the majority of browsers support JavaScript. Mobile devices fail to support JavaScript sufficiently, so it’s not a reliable tracking mechanism. The same goes for cookies. They do work on some mobile browsers, but in the majority of cases they get lost, jumbled or removed when the user moves from one site to another. Again, not a reliable mechanism. Referral information, information that can indicate where the user has come from and recount the journey from Page A to Page B and so on, is also not reliable. Sure, smartphones are starting to pass information, but it’s not enough to understand precisely who is visiting a site and how they got there. Finally, the last resort, looking up the IP address, doesn’t work either as the process identifies the IP address of the mobile operator’s mobile gateway, and not the individual devices running on it.

5. The great experiment We set up three campaigns advertising a free download (a chart of daily activities and the amount of calories they burn). (See image right.) Each campaign had a daily budget of $15 (GBP10) and a bid per click of $0.15 (GBP0.10). Each campaign targeted the U.S. and the U.K. – no limitation on handset types, screen sizes or mobile operator network. (There is an option across the ad networks I tested that allows you to target ads to specific handsets or networks, but I'll reserve that for future campaigns. Keep in mind Google allows you to target specific operators but not handsets; Decktrade allows you to do both, as does Mo'Jiva.) Methodology: Mobislim campaigns landing page Google – Synonymous with paid search advertising Decktrade from Millennial Media – A display ad network that served close to 3 billion impressions per month in August. Mo’Jiva – A smaller ad network that opened for business in May 2008. Since then the company claims (in a June press release) to have reached a "milestone of serving more than 70 million ads and holding over 120 million in advertising inventory in the sixty days after launching its services." Ad networks: Chosen at random to provide an even spread of size and scope.

6. Mobile analytics I chose Bango and AdMob as two best examples of analytics packages on the market today. In the campaigns below, I also show the procedure for inserting the campaign tracking code. Bango – Pretty straightforward. Sign up for a mobile analytics account, and get your individual tracking number. This unique tracking link - which points to the URL of your choice – essentially follows and records user interaction with a particular landing page, event, campaign or conversion. It's your call, and the procedure doesn't change – no matter what. AdMob – Slightly more involved. Mobile analytics allows you to track a specific page and features step-by-step instructions you can follow to obtain a tracking link. But it can be tricky.

7. Where to go to find out the results For a full analysis of the three campaigns please visit www.mobislim.wordpress.com and http:// msearchgroove.com / For a full review of the mobile analytics solutions, download the white paper at http://bango.com/whitepaper To follow the ongoing experiments and different campaigns visit www.mobislim.wordpress.com and http:// msearchgroove.com /