AdMob Raises $15 Million for Mobile Advertising

AdMob operates a mobile advertising network, bringing advertisers and publishers or mobile content together.

AdMob is a mobile advertising marketplace as they call it, similar to a banner or other advertising network. AdMob is able to match advertisers who are looking to advertise with contextual or banner advertisements on mobile phones.

AdMob states they have the ability to target and personalize advertising to their customers in 150 countries….[and have] served more than 1.6 billion ads in less than a year..

Mobile publishers can sell mobile advertisements, either text links of banners to appear on the service they provide on a phone. As a publisher you can approve or decline each potential ad before it runs.

The publisher receives a share of the revenue received by AdMob, it is a 60/40 split with the publisher receiving 60% and AdMob receiving 40%. This is a typical revenue split received in other advertising networks. Usually, as other competitors join the market they differentiate themselves by providing a larger revenue split. However, the revenue split percentage is not the only factor, a publisher needs to choose a network that has relevant advertisements for them, and can attract the better advertisers willing to pay the market rates.

Realize that the text model is based on the advertiser paying on a PPC (pay per click) model. Therefore the publisher earns revenue only when an advertiser’s ad is clicked on. The CPM (cost per thousand) model, in this case banners, allows the publisher to receive revenue for every advertisement regardless of whether it was clicked.

Advertisers can choose a PPC for text or CPM for banner purchasing model. Advertisements may be targeted by geographic region, device manufacturer, platform, and more. From the AdMob site you will see that minimum bids start at 5 cents per click for the PPC advertising.

An interesting service they provide is that they call ‘MobPages’ which allows an advertiser to create the necessary mobile pages with AdMobs tool, include a “click-to-call” link which will initiate a voice call on most mobile devices, and even collect email addresses to follow up with potential customers.