Why Metrics In Mobile Need To Be Improved; Publicis Report Positive Number For Third Quarter

» As the European mobile display market gets some traction with media buyers, there is concern in the industry that metrics and infrastructure is still hampering the mobile display. What can be done? Paul Childs, CMO at Adfonic, discusses the issues at length in a recent blog post on Technology Weekly. The biggest problem for mobile metrics, according to Childs, is that most devices don't support cookies (I wonder if there is workaround).

He believes the adoption of smartphones - as most support cookies - will make it easier to buy and target specific audiences:

One issue impacting pre-campaign planning is the fact that the majority of mobile devices do not currently support cookies. Increasing Smartphone adoption will go a long way to addressing this with improved capacity to target relevant audiences. Advertisers need to be able to select their audiences with greater accuracy and there is an increasing requirement for access to data to determine unique audience reach. Post–campaign events must also be implemented as standard at this stage to facilitate the tracking of overall campaign objectives.

It's a great overview of where the mobile space is sitting at the minute and how it might evolve over the coming two years. I am particularly fascinated by the evolution of the cookie in mobile advertising - and whether the adoption will increase media spend in the space. Will Mobile DFA and the all-powerful DoubleClick cookie really kick things off? I'm hoping the Mobile Squared session in New York on Tuesday, October 2, will give me a better idea. Looking forward to it.

» Publicis posted some healthy numbers in its Q3 results this week. All regions were up in revenue on last year Q3 results. Europe seems to have recovered from its wobble last year - with a 5.5% increase. These numbers were helped along by growth in France (+12.6%) and the UK (+9.3%). Germany and southern Europe are still doing poorly - with the German market still sluggish and southern Europe still in decline. Still these numbers are encouraging in terms of health for the rest of the space. I found it particularly interesting that 44% of the North American revenue is now being generated by digital. Wonder what the break down is in Europe? You can get the full details here.