Mojiva recently wrote a piece for MediaPost entitled ‘The seven myths of mobile advertising’.  Some I agree with.  Some I don’t.  So here’s my take on each:

Myth # 1: Smaller screen, smaller effect. Many marketers assume that because mobile phones have a smaller screen, advertisements will look more cluttered, and be less effective. In fact, CTRs have been found to be higher on small mobile screens than traditional PCs, and ads on mobile devices often look cleaner than on the Web. Content clarity overall is more vivid.

If you’ve watched a movie on a 320×240 mobile screen, you’ll understand that it is actually very watchable and engaging.  The real constraint of a mobile device is the size and readability of text.  The best ads that work on mobile are visually appealing (not very difficult to do) and have simple, clearly thought out calls to action (difficult to do).  Some mobile publishers cannot even serve graphical ads, so you’ve then only got a text link to work with.  But an effective call to action can generate surprisingly large click-through rates.  Click-through rates are not just higher on mobile because of simpler, clearer ads.  They are also higher because:

• Ads are more noticable and take up more real estate on a small screen, and rather than being in a sidebar that can be ignored, they are in the flow of the content.
  
• There are fewer competing ads on the same page
• People are not (yet) as desensitized to ads on mobile as on PC
• Because of slower speeds and higher costs, mobile surfers are more purposeful in seeking out specific content or content types, therefore a well-targeted ad will be more relevant to what a user is looking for at a particular time.

Myth #2: Low CPMs. Publishers often assume lower CPMs on mobile versus the traditional Web, and in turn, lower revenue opportunities. The reality is, CPMs can go up to $15-$20 for premium mobile Web sites, and as the mobile advertising industry grows, so will these rates.

About 10 months ago, it was still possible to sign up as a small publisher to the Nokia Interactive mobile advertising program and get $10 gross eCPMs (e = earning) in Europe and the US.  Shortly after, they stopped the program and decided to focus only on big brand publishers.  Over the last 10 months, eCPMs for most publishers have plummeted around the world.  If you have a good site and you work with a good ad network, you may be able to $1-2 gross eCPMs in the US, but you’d be hard pressed to do better than that.  As a big brand, you may be able to get better eCPMs, but frankly, mobile advertising is not part of your business model unless you’re a newspaper.  I do not think that average eCPMs will go up over time.  There is way more supply of mobile sites than demand to publish on them, and this is keeping prices low.  I expect that to continue in the foreseeable future.  There are two exceptions to this right now:

• Ads on the iPhone.  The highest CPMs in the industry will go to developers who create a top 10 app into which brands can insert highly engaging, animated, exciting ads as part of a broader multi-channel ad campaign.
• User targeting through profiling and geo-localisation.  Those publishers who are able to target ads based on user information and location will be able to charge much higher rates.  Mobile operators, and large mobile social networks will be in a good position to do this.

Myth #3: Mobile ads are harder to design. I have found that a large percentage of advertisers believe it’s harder to create campaigns for the mobile medium. However, the only real difference is that banner sizes are smaller. Any good designer can build them, and the Mobile Marketing Association offers standards http://www.mmaglobal.com/mobileadvertising.pdf to help guide you through it.

I don’t know where this myth comes from.  Certainly there is less space to play with when designing an ad, and that actually reduces the amount of graphics and text that needs to be designed.  What is more difficult is coming up with the clear, concise, very short call to action message, tailored for your specific target audience.  And of course you’ll have to try lots of different copy to discover the ones that work best.

Myth #4: No unique user detection and targeting. On the Web, cookies enable advertisers and search engines to track unique visitors and who clicks on what link. It’s just as simple on in mobile. By using multiple identity parameters in the ad requests, like the device, WAP IP, or session info, it’s easy to detect unique users on mobile. And with that ability, concepts like frequency capping, demographic targeting and enhanced user targeting options prove mobile advertising a useful new marketing tool.

Actually it is more difficult to detect unique users on mobile.  At least a third of mobiles do not store cookies, and this does make it difficult to detect repeat visits from the same user.  Multiple users have the same mobile gateway IP address, so they cannot be distinguished using IP address alone.  It is possible to detect a unique user if you have an agreement with a mobile operator – but you’d need a lot of agreements!  So ad networks resort to statistical methods comparing multiple parameters to second guess whether someone with exactly the same parameters passed in their http requests is likely to be the same person or not.

Myth #5: Creating a mobile Web site is difficult and expensive. Building a mobile content page is the first necessary step before launching a mobile ad campaign, and there are many free tools available to make it easy and painless. Mofuse, DotMobi and Ubik, for example, can help you build a mobile site, or simply translate your regular Web content into a mobile format. Then you can set it up to automatically extract your online content through RSS and feed it into your mobile site. Don’t get overwhelmed — if you have content already on the Internet, this can be done very quickly. The more automated, the easier it will be for you.

Creating a mobile website is not expensive.  But it is difficult to do it right.  Automated solutions can create a mobile presence in seconds.  But the user experience will probably suck.  Have you browsed a ‘google mobilized’ web site on your mobile?  It gets the job done, but you wouldn’t want that as the flagship mobile presence for your brand.  If you pump RSS feeds at it, you’ll more than likely fill it with made-for-web content that is too long winded for mobile consumption.  You need to think about why people would visit your mobile site, under what circumstances, and tailor it to respond as simply and effectively as possible to that need.  However, you don’t need a fully-fledged site in order to advertise on mobile.  You can create a landing page specific to a campaign, where the goal is to get someone to sign up for something or find the nearest store for example.

Myth #6: A perceived lack of ROI. The nature of mobile advertising allows you to capture conversions in a much more innovative way than the Web. The power of click2call actions, lead generation forms, and click2pay make it simple for advertisers to run mobile campaigns, determine effective conversions, and calculate ROI for their spend much faster and easier.

I don’t know where the perceived lack of ROI comes from.  In the majority of cases I am aware of, advertisers have seen excellent returns from their mobile ad campaigns.  However, although there are certainly new ways of generating and measuring conversions, they don’t work for everyone.  Some digital ad agencies no longer run click 2 call campaigns because of poor effectiveness.

Myth #7: SMS is the only type of mobile advertising. Many assume mobile advertising is just SMS, which lacks user interaction and dynamic content, and offers limited ad text. Advances in mobile technologies have made it possible to expand advertising into interactive text and banners, and embed ads in mobile games and smartphone applications. The enhanced support for rich media on the iPhone, Android, Nokia and other smartphones has made it possible for advertising to take a step forward and offer more streamlined brand exposure.

This is the biggest myth but it’s being dispelled quickly by the industry.  In my opinion it should be reserved for people without mobile internet access, and for advertisers who don’t mind looking like spammers.