The mobile market is still relatively wild. With an underdeveloped infrastructure advertisers and media buyers have been reluctant to put significant budget into the mobile channel. StrikeAd is now looking to address the deficiencies on the buy-side with its mobile DSP (read, next generation ad server). ExchangeWire spoke to Alex Rahaman, CEO of StikeAd, earlier this week about the StrikeAd offering in more detail, the emergence of RTB in the space, and what trends we are likely to see in the mobile display market over the coming twelve months.

Can you give an overview of the StirkeAd proposition?

AR: Running multiple mobile campaigns across an array of ad networks has proven to be inefficient for many media planning and buying agencies. This applies to specialist mobile agencies as much as it does to generalist agencies. These networks all have their own systems which makes it difficult to keep track of available media or monitor the best available pricing. Information is fragmented making it very difficult to form a true overview of mobile campaigns, hindering true optimisation.

At StrikeAd, we help agencies and advertisers to plan, execute, evaluate and optimise all their mobile advertising campaigns whilst significantly increasing return on investment. Our StrikeAd Fusion platform overcomes the complexities of mobile advertising and puts clients in complete control of every aspect of their mobile campaigns. A single console through which they can deliver and monitor hundreds of global mobile campaigns, minute-by-minute, on a global basis.

With sophisticated optimisation, tracking, insight and analytics, StrikeAd Fusion offers agencies unparalleled levels of efficiency and visibility over their mobile advertising campaigns.

How is StrikeAd looking to help advertisers and agencies achieve better results from their mobile ad spend?

AR: This is ultimately about efficiency and return on investment. As previously mentioned, the StrikeAd Fusion platform is the very first dedicated mobile DSP that provides clients with a single point through which to run all mobile campaigns. One of the major problems with mobile is being able to track individual users. We have enabled this tracking which means that we offer our clients a true view of individual customer behaviour over multiple networks which has previously been unavailable.

An Agency can therefore work with us to build a proprietary database of what type of consumers respond to their advertiser’s message and adapt their plan accordingly.

Will StrikeAd offer a managed service as well as its self-service tech?

AR: We understand the fact that mobile is completely new to many agencies and so as they are taking time to build up their understanding and learning of mobile advertising then they’ll invariably need a helping hand to run their mobile campaigns. We established StrikeAd Engage to provide such a managed service. It’s important to emphasise that we’re not looking to compete with any of the planning and buying agencies or to become one ourselves, which is why we exclusively work with agencies, not advertisers direct. We simply want to give agencies an extra helping hand if they need it

You say you are a mobile DSP. Do you think it’s too early to have a DSP in the mobile channel given that there is no established buy-side or sell-side ad server for the mobile display channel?

AR: You are technically correct in so far as that the real time bidding that we have seen on the internet is only really just showing some green shoots on mobile. We have notice some companies announcing real time bidding which is taking things to the next stage for mobile but it is by and large not quite there yet. From a conceptual perspective, it is much easier for many agencies to understand that we are a mobile DSP.

Given the relative success of iAds, is the sweet spot for mobile display advertising likely to be brand going forward? Is success in DR more difficult given the absence of cookie tracking in mobile display?

AR: Apple has a very successful business with strong advocates who interact across multiple channels with their brand. They will be successful building a Brand advertising business on mobile I’m sure. Apple is quite a one-off, however, and we believe that the growth in mobile advertising will come from its power as a performance medium. Mobile advertising combines powerfully user intent (e.g. shopping) with location, which is very attractive to advertisers. We have developed a technique for tracking unique users which will facilitate the growth of performance advertising around key metrics such as CPA/CPL, but more importantly on mobile, Click to call and click to locate.

How do you differentiate yourself form other mobile ad servers in the market like Mobile DFA? Better analytics? Integration with a wider supply of mobile ad inventory?

AR: We hold mobile at the very core of what we do. Whilst many other companies have a solution that includes mobile, we have built or system from the ground up solely with mobile in mind. This includes many mobile specific features such as unique user tracking. We’re also integrating with a wide range of mobile networks and supply side aggregators.

There’s been a lot of industry chatter about mobile RTB of late. Is this possible without a universal cookie? If RTB is possible, what variables is this impression-level buying being based on?

AR: We will see a RTB market appearing in mobile advertising but on a more general level, as the unique user tracking is not as accurate as for web. For example, we might work with internet DSPs to target gender and ecommerce interest variables that work for an advertiser on web, on mobile.
How has the European mobile display market developed in 2010 – and what are the opportunities going forward in 2011?

We’ve seen a huge amount of confidence in the mobile display sector in the past year and recent reports indicate a very bright future for mobile display moving forwards. The latest research from Informa says that revenues from mobile advertising in 2010 will be worth $3.5 billion globally. It’s also really important to note that mobile advertising will go a long way beyond just the display market with paid search potentially becoming a huge growth area. A recent report by Tamar Mobile showed more evidence of the growth of mobile, with the use of search on mobiles growing by 247% over the last 12 months. In the same period, desktop search fell by 15%. You then couple this mobile search with location and also things such as voucher offers and mobile advertising becomes even more targeted and relevant to the consumer