Preventing Click Fraud

By Delynn Ho, Vice President, Sales

If you're an advertiser, you've probably heard about 'click fraud,' which occurs when a person or automated programme imitates a consumer by clicking on banner ads with the intent of generating bogus ad charges, which in turn can affect your advertising campaign and cost you money.

Late last year, for example, the US FBI busted a cyber-ring that had infected 4 million computers in 100 countries and netted more than US$14 million by manipulating online ads.

But as a mobile advertiser, to what extent is this an issue you need to be concerned about?

And what are companies like BuzzCity doing to protect you?

The Conversation Publishers Must Have With Advertisers

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales 

You're a digital media player with a great mobisite and significant traffic. You've built it and they were supposed to come. But where are the premium advertisers, the ones who value your content like you do, as it should be valued?

The advertisers who sign up to your sites don't pay enough. Or maybe you're not attracting any premium advertisers at all.

What should you be doing differently?

As Kok Fung wrote last week, there's a disconnect between publishers and advertisers. It's like they speak different languages. Publishers talk about CPCs, CPDs, CPMs, etc. Media planners want information about age, gender, income, readers' hobbies, shopping habits and more.

As a content publisher, you need to meet the media planners half-way by knowing your audience better and presenting this information clearly in a language that media buyers understand.

Here's how . . .

BuzzCity's Premium Channel

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

Successfully building a brand requires that you put your brand in good company. Yet advertising only on premium sites is expensive and unlikely to meet the targets of a well-balanced media plan. So, BuzzCity has launched a cost-effective solution: The BuzzCity Premium Channel, which offers advertisers the 'long tail' of quality sites.

Frequency and Reach

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

We hear two common complaints from ad agencies, brand planners and media buyers who say they do not want to advertise on a 'blind network' like BuzzCity:

1. “We only place media on premium sites, like CNN or MTV, where we know exactly where the banner will appear.”

2. “We only place ads on sites where we can use precise demographic targeting to reach our exact audience.”

Best Practices and Tips for BuzzCity Publishers

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

BuzzCity has passed an important milestone: our advertising network now averages over 10 billion impressions every month, thanks in part to a growing number of small individual publishers.

Take Indonesia, for example.  As in all our markets, the average cost per click is a function of advertiser demand and publisher supply. At the moment, the average CPC in Indonesia is about 4 US cents. So if you figure a site gets 5000 clicks -- a decent amount for an entrepreneur or hobbyist -- that's US $200.

So, how do YOU cash in? Well, in my last article, I wrote about the mechanics of how to become a publisher. This week, I'd like to share some tips that will help you make money and best practices that will keep your readers and visitors happy.

Earning Money as a BuzzCity Publisher

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

The BuzzCity Ad Network enables mobile website publishers and application developers to monetise their content with advertisements. Partners earn a share of the revenue for each ad clicked while retaining complete control over how and where the ads appear.

So if you've created a mobile site - whether it's to talk about sports, music or share your views on everyday life -- and you'd like to make some money, this blog entry is for you.  Today, we're going to walk you through the basics of becoming a BuzzCity Publisher and answer some commonly asked questions about payments.

Ringback Tones

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

Ever find yourself snapping your fingers, bouncing your head or even singing along as you listen to a friend's mobile ring a familiar tune? Or perhaps you find your colleague's ringback tone to be especially annoying? (No offense, Hisham!)

What's a ringback tone, you ask?

Telecoms Go Off-Portal

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

A shift has taken place in the world of telecom companies.

Not long ago, carriers saw themselves as gateways, creating walled gardens making it difficult and more expensive for mobile users to surf beyond the telco portals. Mobile users wouldn't have it, though. And as data charges in most markets have become increasingly affordable, telcos have had to adjust.

Nowhere has this shift been more pronounced than in the carriers' sales and marketing departments. Under the old plans, telcos were content to market to their consumer base, particularly via SMS blasts. Today, though, carriers are moving beyond their own properties. They're taking out mobile ads and running mobile campaigns, just like brands in other industries, to engage surfers and promote unique services like ringback tones.

The new campaigns are paying off.

Agencies tell us that mobile internet usage during the period of the campaigns has increased by more than 40%.

Let's take a look at examples from three countries . . .

M-Ads: Advertising Inside an App

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

Our partners spoke and we listened. In this case, mobile application publishers said they don't like losing eyeballs. Unless, Je tells me, it's part of a really rad game like Inferi Dii. But when it comes to users exiting an app because they've clicked on a banner ad, that's not so cool.

So, please allow me to introduce m-Ads . . . banner ads that open inside an application.

HOTELS.COM

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

Here at BuzCity, we've noticed that travel and hospitality providers are increasingly turning to mobile to market services and interact with customers. In previous entries, we've already looked at how carriers – like SriLankan Airlines and Malaysia Airlines – have been using mobile to sell tickets, track bags and more.

But what about after the flight?

This week, we look at a mobile campaign run by Hotels.com, which – as the name probably tells you – is a platform for travelers to find a place to stay.

Medical Tourism - Promoting Thai Hospitals to the Middle East

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

Time for your annual checkup? Need a root canal? Heart surgery? Or even a sex change operation? More and more people are traveling overseas to seek medical treatment. For some, the quality of medical care is simply better outside their own country; for others, the cost savings are significant.

The growing size of the medical tourism industry – estimated by some analysts to be worth US$40 billion annually – is leading hospitals to more aggressively promote their services to overseas patients.

Today, I'd like to take a look at one such effort – a mobile portal and ad campaign by one of Thailand's leading private hospital groups, Samitivej Hospital.

The BuzzCity Campaign Planner

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

This week, I'd like to walk you through the BuzzCity Campaign Planner, an easy-to-use online tool that can help you target your mobile advertising campaign, estimate the amount of traffic it will receive and maximise the return on investment.

The Campaign Planner – which can be found at planner.buzzcity.com – provides statistics on over 230 markets as well as a list of our top markets.

Calculating Ad Traffic Using The BuzzCity Campaign Planner

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

The BuzzCity Campaign Planner provides a host of demographic and publisher site data for markets across the BuzzCity Ad Network. You can use this to estimate the size of your viewing audience and the required budget.

Let's say for example that my company is running a promotion for a female spa in Jakarta. Our research shows that women aged 30-34 are the most likely to take up the service. And these women enjoy Entertainment and Lifestyle content. If we run a campaign on the BuzzCity Ad Network targeting this market segment, how many pageviews should we expect?

MALAYSIA AIRLINES GOES MOBILE

By Delynn Ho, VP Sales

MALAYSIA is quickly becoming one of the most important mobile markets in southeast Asia . . . and some of its companies are on the cutting edge of the industry.

With a population of about 30 million people and mobile penetration of more than 100%, perhaps it's not surprising that there is strong growth in mobile traffic.

The BuzzCity Mobile Advertising Network registered more than 53 million page views in Malaysia during the month of May, making it one of our top fifteen markets. Quarterly traffic increased 14% from January to March as compared with the last quarter of 2009.

Mobile ad growth is occurring in tandem with the creation of interesting mobile applications, content and properties.

In this blog entry, I'd like to highlight an example from the country's national flag carrier, Malaysia Airlines. It's launched a customised mobile site where passengers can book tickets, make payments, check-in and even track the status of delayed baggage.

ARTHUR'S DAY

By Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

In an integrated multi-media campaign that ran across television, in newspapers and online, Guinness recently raised a toast to its founder. From Ireland – where it all began – to New York, Nigeria and Malaysia, cries of “To Arthur!” could be heard: “To Arthur Guinness, 250 remarkable years!”


Two hundred and fifty years ago – in 1759 -- Arthur Guinness signed a lease on St. James Gate in Dublin, the site of Guinness' first brewery. The stout is still brewed there today.

To celebrate, Guinness put on concerts in four continents. And to drive people to the event in Kuala Lumpur, where the Black Eyed Peas would perform, the brewery ran mobile ads on the BuzzCity Network.
The campaign objectives were clear:

REACHING BEYOND MARKET SHARE

Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

BuzzCity champions an open mobile internet. Over the past couple years, we've written several times about how mobile carriers should not build barriers that restrict users to the carrier's portal or make it difficult or prohibitively expensive to surf other sites. User preferences are clear. In countries where carrier “wall gardens” have been lifted, mobile surfers access a wide range of content, both on- and off-portal.

So what's a telecom carrier to do, particularly if it wants to be a content provider as well as a communications pipe?

THE FORTUNE TELLER SAYS . . .

By Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

Nichaphat Rojratanasap , a mother of three in her 50s, used to run a restaurant . . . before she found her calling in the fortune-telling business. While she's not famous, Khun Nichaphat is quite popular in her local community and with her clientele – all of whom consult her over the phone.

MOBILE AS PART OF THE AD MIX ( AND FIGHTING DRUGS)

By Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia 

One of the most common misperceptions about mobile advertising -- among ad agencies and brands -- is that you need to craft an entirely new campaign to fit the mobile medium and properly target mobile consumers.

But the truth is it's not hard at all to tweak your existing collateral for viewing on mobile devices. The Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) is running ads across the BuzzCity Advertising Network to increase the agency's profile, raise awareness of drug trafficking and engage the Thai public in a campaign to help protect their own communities. The mobile ads are part of an integrated campaign that includes outdoor billboards, radio, TV and the internet.

FINE-TUNING A CAMPAIGN

By Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

An advertiser on the BuzzCity Mobile Network recently launched a campaign to promote a free music service. “Free MP3 Downloads” read the banner, which attracted 150,000 views a day and a 1.89 percent click-through rate. At first glance, these are great numbers. But the campaign experienced only a 5 – 7 percent conversion rate. Out of 20 people clicking on the FREE MUSIC! banner, up to 19 were walking away without closing the deal.

What went wrong?

FAIR & HANDSOME

By Delynn Ho, Regional Director, Southeast Asia

Hi. My name is Delynn (“De – Lynn”) and I head up BuzzCity's Asia sales team. In my contributions to the GammaLife blog, I plan to share examples of how companies conduct branding and marketing exercises on the mobile internet. By the very nature of our business, these cases often extend beyond one particular geographic region and this week's story is no exception.

Emami – an Indian company that specialises in personal care products – aimed to increase brand recognition of a facial cream for men called “Fair and Handsome”. The fast-moving consumer goods business also wanted to survey consumer perceptions. So, Emami turned to a Singapore-based company called Mobiquest that partners with clients to provide mobile application services. Together, Emami and Mobiquest produced a contest-driven mobile campaign in two countries, India and Kenya.

I'm going to dive into a fair bit of detail now, but I think this will be useful for advertisers and publishers alike.