Category: Featured News

Accidental ad clicks seen throughout mobile marketing

Mobile marketing has become a very important aspect of the business world. With smart phone penetration so high among consumers, companies interested in reaching out to a broad audience must find ways to engage mobile consumers. Thus, mobile marketing initiatives are quickly being formulated by companies that realize the potential benefits of appealing to mobile consumers. Google is one of these companies, but the technology giant has been seeing complaints regarding in-application advertisements that could be causing consumers some problems.

In-app ads are common in the mobile space

In-app advertisements are a common way for app developers to generate revenue, especially those that specialize in developing free applications. Developers often sell empty space in applications to advertisers. Most of these ads are designed to be somewhat discreet, or at least out of the way of an application’s primary content. Google suggests, however, that a growing number of people are accidentally clicking these advertisements. While unintentional clicking may be a small problem for some people, mobile advertisements, especially those found in applications, often collect information from a mobile device upon consumer engagement.

Google takes steps to cut down on misclicks

Google is taking steps to curb accidental clicking in mobile marketing through the introduction of a new service for all Android smart phones. This service is meant to confirm all clicks that are made on in-app advertisements. With the new service, when a consumer click on an advertisement, their smart phone will ask if they truly want to follow the ad. If confirmed, the advertisement will play out as designed. Google does not expect that the new service will have any negative impact on mobile marketing campaigns.

New Google service may help mobile marketing

Mobile marketing is a popular way to get in touch with a new generation of consumer, but consumers are often agitated by accidental clicks. Curbing consumer frustration may actually help improve the acceptance of mobile marketing among consumers and help advertisers achieve more accurate analytic data that could help them craft better campaigns in the future.

The marketplace is rocked by the shocking news that a major player has dropped out.

The CEO of VeriFone, Doug Bergeron, has stunned the direct-to-micromerchant mobile payments world with the announcement that it is stepping out of that marketplace following unprofitable results from its Sail service.

The point-of sale provider’s mcommerce news came as a surprise to the majority of the industry.

As VeriFone had dedicated a great deal of last year and much of this year on the promotion of the growth of mobile payments services, the decision that the company has now made to remove itself from that direct-to-micromerchant space has caused many heads to spin. The announcement was made during the most recent quarterly conference call.

The CEO released the mobile payments news that the company is stepping down.

During the call, Bergeron stated that Sail, its own mobile payments service, has been unprofitable. This program had been giving small businesses the ability to use smartphones and tablets to accept transactions through debit and credit cards. He said that “Customer acquisition costs, either through search engines or TV advertising, cannot and will never justify the razor thin margins produced by merchants with infrequent volumes and extremely high attrition.”

The NFC technology community has also been left blinking in surprise, as it had been looking toward that company to propel forward its adoption, particularly after the iPhone 5 was released without its capabilities.

Bergeron described the mobile payments program at VeriFone as a failure and is now causing many of the other players in the industry to take a second look at their own potential for profitability. This is particularly the case after the CEO questioned the ability of the environment to be profitable at all. The company has announced that all of its assets from that space will now be sold off.

He explained that he felt it is possible to see similar thoughts among the competition as their businesses models are shifted toward wallets services. It is his belief that the only mobile payments players who will be able to survive “this fundamentally challenging business model” will be those who are capable of offering micro merchants other services, as well.