Yahoo Mobile: Pinpoint Advertising and Search Marketing

I am a huge fan of browsing the web on my mobile device (a Blackberry 8830 World Edition from Verizon Wireless). In addition to great telephone reception and a speakerphone, the browser helps to load web pages quickly. It downloads full images and HTML pages really well and it browses mobile versions of sites with great speed and efficiency. The roller-ball mouse is a really sweet feature that makes navigation a breeze.

One of my favorite mobile Web Sites to go to is Yahoo! Mobile. I love checking Yahoo Finance, Sports and my Yahoo E-Mail (Yahoo! Mail Beta is FANTASTIC) But since I spend so much time on this site with this device, I explored a bit further into Yahoo! and the Yahoo Mobile Privacy Policy. They have a table of contents for this which includes:

1. Introduction Mobile Device 2. Unique Identifier Physical Information 3. Use of Information 4. Legal Process 5. Your Ability to Edit and Delete Your Account Information and Preferences

So how does this situation relate to marketing? It was interesting to browse through this because there are some facts about browsing Yahoo Mobile that I did not know:

Under #2: Mobile Device Unique Identifier: “…if the mobile device service provider uniquely identifies the device, Yahoo will receive this information. Yahoo may use this unique mobile device identification information to offer extended service and/or functionality. Certain Yahoo service may require our collection of the phone number for you device. We may associate that phone number to the mobile device identification information; however we will not use that number for telemarketing”

This is interesting because Yahoo is saying that they may look to show users services based on the type of phone that they have. I also find this interesting because it implies that Yahoo can change up the way it presents information based on the type of device and the service provider that you use.

Under #3: Physical Location: “Some mobile phone service providers in the US are required to operate a system that will pinpoint the physical location of devices that will use their service. Depending on the provider, Yahoo! may automatically receive this information. In the future if Yahoo! begins to offer service that use pinpointing technology, we will ensure that we have your consent (an opt0in) before using the information.

It goes on to say…THE INTERESTING PART: “Yahoo! may use and store this information to provide enhanced location-based service as well as to serve location targeted-advertising.”

As a marketer, this last area of location targeted advertising gets me really exited. Basically Yahoo is saying, we will track and pinpoint exactly where you are with your mobile phone and serve up local ads that are both timely and relevant. One could use this tool as a marketer or advertiser: If a product or services retailer/outlet that is looking to move more products and services in a local area by a sale, one could buy advertising on mobile phones in VERY SPECIFIC geographic locations and networks. Here’s how one will take advantage of this advertising. Say Hertz Car Rental had a surplus of cars sitting on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and they wanted to move these cars out quickly with a sale.

_____________________

Renting a car Downtown?
Hertz 14^th Street & 1^st Ave Saves You $10/day on car.
www.hertz.com/lesnyc

_____________________

What’s great about this is that it is so targeted and relevant. I’m sitting in Union Square on a hot day, looking to get out of town on the weekend, I search for rentals and see this advertisement. I think that is extremely effective and promising.

I am also excited as a marketer because I am sure that Yahoo will find a way to make the opt-in option for this really easy to find and most people will end up opting in. People will not mind opting in because it’s an improvement in targeting and relevancy. End users will not be tele-marketed to, and they will also not be spammed as a result of an opt-in. Yahoo is basically saying, we are going to serve relevant, mobile phone advertising, that will work for you, the end user. And I am sure it will be presented to users like, “would you rather see relevant advertising, than irrelevant ads?” So I believe that more people will opt for relevancy rather than junk.

There are two very simple equations for marketers and advertisers to know and they are:

1. Marketing and Advertising Efforts + Disregard mobile advertising = long term struggles
2. Marketing and Advertising Efforts + Pay attention to mobile advertising = long term success

We could go a lot deeper into conversion rates and such…

The subject of mobile search ads is NOT news per se and others have spoken about relevant, local, mobile advertising, but it was interesting to see how Yahoo!’s Privacy Policy yields information directly on this subject and with regard to pinpointing users locations, I found this really intriguing. Also, it seems that there is real push on now for Google and Yahoo to refine the mobile platform for their advertising programs. It’s really critical at this juncture.

Other Web Sites and blogs covering the Yahoo and Google Mobile subjects:

Search Engine Land – Danny Sullivan and his Team comment on mobile search.

Marketing Pilgrim – Andy Beal and Paul Bennet on Google AdSense

I’m sure there are others, so please chime in anyone and let us know where you are covering this.

Yahoo! information and resources addressing mobile advertising and publishing:

Yahoo! Mobile Search Options for Advertisers

Yahoo! Press Release on oneSearch for Mobile Publishers

As a side note, I’ve downloaded Google’s Mobile Pack right on my phone (it took about 5 minutes), and while it installed a bunch of icons for maps and mail and other things, I really don’t use it at all. For now, I prefer Yahoo!’s Go. Although, I will say, the Google Mobile Maps is pretty good.

Yahoo!’s complete privacy policy

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