Tag: mobile advertising

ZipDial has now become the social network’s first acquisition from that country, in a sizeable purchase.

Twitter has now made its first acquisition of an Indian company, in the form of a mobile marketing firm called ZipDial, which was purchased for what was reported to be in the area of $30 to $40 million.

This considerably boosts the investment that Twitter has made in India, which has massive growth potential.

ZipDial is a mobile marketing and analytics startup that is based in Bangalore. A the time that this article was written, no terms for this acquisition had been released. However, TechCrunch, the technology website, had been displaying a report that had suggested that anonymous sources had quoted the aforementioned amount for the purchase. The acquisition greatly enhances the investment that Twitter has in India, which is one of the nations in which the social network is currently experiencing sizeable growth.

The mobile marketing acquisition also establishes a new engineering office for Twitter, in Bangalore.

ZipDial was originally founded in 2010. It provides its customers with phone numbers that can be incorporated into marketing campaigns. It works when consumers phone these numbers, but hang up (as a missed call) before they are actually connected, thereby avoiding any charges or minutes usage. In return, they receive a mobile ads via text message, which contain promotions from which they can benefit.

This type of mobile advertising communication functions especially well in areas where cell phone connections aren’t all that reliable, or where they don’t necessarily have access to data connections.

According to the Twitter VP of product, Christian Oestlien, it won’t be long before there will be billions of additional internet users who have come online for their very first time, in countries such as India, Indonesia, and Brazil. He added that “For many, their first online experience will be on a mobile device – but the cost of data may prevent them from experiencing the true power of the Internet. Twitter, in partnership with ZipDial, can make great content more accessible to everyone.”

ZipDial’s mobile marketing platform has engaged almost 60 million users, to date, and boasts hundreds of marketer and brand clients.

A recent study has shown that shoppers think that the idea of offers over smartphones is attractive.

The results of a recent survey that was conducted by Vista Retail Support, a retail tech firm, has shown that 81 percent of consumers would be willing to accept a mobile marketing offer that was sent to them from a retailer, while an individual was shopping in that store.

Four out of every five consumers would be willing to take advantage of the opportunity those deals could present.

That same study determined that 40 percent of participants would be interested in receiving price comparisons that a retailer would send to their smartphones while they were shopping within that store. This shows that there is a certain willingness among smartphone owners to embrace the type of opportunity that location based mobile marketing has to offer them.

Still, retailers have not yet adopted this type of mobile marketing technology, despite the appeal to consumers.

According to the Vista Retail Support sales and marketing director, Richard Cottrell, “Retailers are not utilizing technology to make personalized offers to their customers, yet the survey shows shoppers are open to this form of interaction, giving retailers a wealth of new opportunities.”

The survey also determined that, on an increasing basis, consumers are looking to chances to be able to buy over their smartphones and then simply pick up their purchases at the store. Among the respondents to the survey, 30 percent – nearly one third – said that they used a service of that nature in order to be able to avoid the Christmas shopping crowds within the stores themselves.

There are clearly many opportunities presented over m-commerce and mobile marketing that are becoming very popular to consumers. It is now up to retailers to identify the technologies that will work best for their offerings, and to make sure that they are keeping up with the expectations of their customers, as they become increasingly reliant on mobile devices for various parts of their daily activities. Those that fail to keep up could end up losing customers to competition with more convenient smartphone based shopping features.