Tag: mobile advertising

Alibaba invests in mobile marketing and m-commerce as its own profits tumble

| November 7, 2014

The Chinese company is using a new strategy that involves the use of investments to boost profits.

The financial results from Alibaba’s first publicly traded quarter have now been announced and, along with those drooping figures, the company has also revealed its new strategy to inject some life back into its profits by backing investments into mobile marketing and m-commerce.

From July through September, Alibaba saw its net income drop by a dramatic 39 percent.

This occurred despite the fact that the company saw a massive surge of 54 percent in the company’s revenues, based on a powerful user demand. The results that were recently released showed that the company is using a strategy that is not entirely unlike one of its rivals, Amazon, the American e-commerce giant. This strategy involves using investments into mobile marketing, m-commerce, and other areas within itself in order to be able to boost its own growth over the long term.

In October, Amazon.com Inc. had reported experiencing a considerable third quarter loss and is also investing in mobile marketing.

Alibaba - Mobile MarketingThis was the case, even though it had also seen a growth in revenue by 20 percent. It has been pouring its money into itself, hoping to build itself up in order to achieve greater profits over the long term. In this, it has been looking to advertise over smartphones, tablets, and even streaming television, as it promotes and encourages its m-commerce side.

That said, outside of that specific part of the strategy, the two companies have a very different way of operating. Amazon directly sells and distributes products and also works with third party sellers. Alibaba, on the other hand, is not in competition with merchants, nor does it carry any inventory.

Investments into mobile marketing and commerce are set to become an important opportunity for earning potential by the company that is continuing its rapid growth at the same time that all of this is happening around it and within it. It will be very interesting to watch the direction that the company takes throughout the current quarter, which is considered to be a critical one within the American marketplace.

Despite lack of tools mobile marketing budgets spike in 2014

| October 30, 2014

Even though the solutions currently available aren’t meeting expectations, marketers and brands are still spending.

Recent studies and reports are showing that while brands and companies aren’t yet entirely impressed with the tools that mobile marketing vendors have to offer, they are still raising the size of their budgets for this channel.

The B2B budgets geared toward mobile advertising and promotions will rise 11 percent in the next 6 months.

Moreover, when it comes to the mobile marketing budgets for the next full year, it is expected that there will be an increase of 17.5 percent, according to a VentureBeat Insight Report. That said, while this represents an exceptionally healthy growth in terms of budget size and predicted spending, the reports are still showing that companies are not yet sold on the types of tools that they have available to them through vendors in this category.

This recent mobile marketing data shows that there are considerable problems holding this channel back.

Mobile Marketing Budgets up in 2014The solutions that companies are actually seeking simply are not yet available. Among the largest struggles that are holding B2B mobile advertising back have to do with a lack of integration and support in the overall marketing technology tools that they are already using on a regular basis. The report showed that nearly 40 percent of the respondents said that the primary problem had to do specifically with the marketing software tool makers.

The second most important problem was identified as being the lack of complete understanding of marketing professionals of the mobile sphere and how to best take advantage of what it has to offer. This is not a new discovery, as the channel has been evolving exceptionally rapidly despite the fact that it is still in a very young phase of its life.

Other struggles that are faced by those attempting to use mobile marketing include a lack of budget to dedicate to this channel. Surprisingly, there remained a group representing 15 percent of businesses that still don’t even believe that the channel is effective at all. This, despite the fact that the vast majority of brands are now either already using it or are planning to use it within the not too distant future.