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Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

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Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#21

Post by gizmo686 »

manigandham wrote: post #15

This is a weird comparison though since they're separate issues. When you go to a theater, the cost of driving/gas can be more than the movie ticket. It's up to the user to weigh the costs. I think this really highlights the mobile data ripoff that currently exists more than ads/cruft but both are real problems, just orthogonal. Then again the majority of mobile data is over wifi anyway so it's not as bad as it seems…

I think this is slightly different, in that mobile ads demonstrate an explicit market inefficiency (it is in the interest of both the user and the publisher for the user to pay directly for content, instead of being served ads).

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#22

Post by Jedd »

Scoundreller wrote: post #16
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #5

Things are going to come to a head sooner rather than later. People are more and more talking about how bloated and slow web pages have become. Now we have ad blocking thrown into the mix. Consumers are tired of big, slow web sites with intrusive ads (non-intrusive, people seem to be more ok with). Web pages need to go on a diet. Lighten the size of the frameworks. Don't use so many hi-res images (and heck, what ever…

It's tough for publishers. I run a directory-type website. Most visitors probably spent 30s on the site, getting the information they need right away. I decided to change from 2 to 3 ads per page, make them bigger, and more in-line with the content, rather than just beside and below it. The ad network was a major search engine. I managed to 3-4x CPMs. Traffic went down by 25%. Effectively, users encouraged this type…

Could you please clarify this one?

Your CPM went up by a factor of 3 to 4, yes?

But / and your traffic went down by 25%.

Are you saying that the number of unique visitors to your site went down by 25%, or are you speaking to the suggestions behind this article, and when you put the new ads on the site you also optimised the data you were sending and consequently were pushing 25% less volume of traffic onto the wire?

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#23

Post by rimantas »

kps wrote: post #17
IBM wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1990s Apple didn't have leverage over the web like they do now and not being an internet company that makes money from ads, their incentives are aligned with combating this more than ever.

> their incentives are aligned They sure are. Apple sells native ads which, naturally, they do not allow users to block. http://advertising.apple.com/

And how does that apply to the web?

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#24

Post by fieryeagle »

mattzito wrote: post #14
thehal84 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is no different then cable TV. You pay to watch all those commercials. In Canada the largest Carriers also happen to be Cable providers.

It's a little different - in effect, the amount of TV I watch has no impact on the cost to me from my cable provider. In this case, the more ads you consume, potentially the more you pay from your wireless carrier.

A way to look at cable TV is like a buffet. Everything is paid for in advanced. In a buffet, you can eat until you bust and the restaurant would still break even with the food cost at worst. Most cases, profit. The rest of users always make up for the revenue 'losses' caused by a small set of anomalies. This double income from ads and data only happened because your carriers were allowed to get away with placing data caps on wireless. In some distance past, we used to get limits on broadbands too, remember?

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#25

Post by J_Darnley »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #5

Things are going to come to a head sooner rather than later. People are more and more talking about how bloated and slow web pages have become. Now we have ad blocking thrown into the mix. Consumers are tired of big, slow web sites with intrusive ads (non-intrusive, people seem to be more ok with). Web pages need to go on a diet. Lighten the size of the frameworks. Don't use so many hi-res images (and heck, what ever…

Am I the only one who wants to see it all burned to the ground? Or at least I wouldn't care if it was.

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#26

Post by greatthanks »

> That’s an average of $22.92/Gb or $0.0224 per megabyte

That is surprisingly expensive:

I live in Germany and pay monthly 10 Euro per 1.5GB - that's 6.7 Euro per GB or about 7.5 USD per GB ...

And that's not even a contract but prepaid on monthly basis.

Actually I could get 5 GB for 15 Euro thats 3 Euro or 3.4 USD per GB.

Is mobile traffic really about 5 to 6 times more expensive in the US?

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#27

Post by Eridrus »

greatthanks wrote: post #26

> That’s an average of $22.92/Gb or $0.0224 per megabyte That is surprisingly expensive: I live in Germany and pay monthly 10 Euro per 1.5GB - that's 6.7 Euro per GB or about 7.5 USD per GB ... And that's not even a contract but prepaid on monthly basis. Actually I could get 5 GB for 15 Euro thats 3 Euro or 3.4 USD per GB. Is mobile traffic really about 5 to 6 times more expensive in the US?

Depends how you count it. The pricing structure of cell phones is pretty unfriendly in the US.

You can get a 1GB plan from T-Mobile for $50; or a $3GB plan for $60 or 5GB for $70 or unlimited for $80. [1]

So, the average cost is close to that $22/GB number, but the marginal cost is closer to $5.

You can find some prepaid voice+data plans, but their prices are not particularly competitive in the 2GB range.

I did find some cheaper data-only plans from T-Mobile at $10/GB[2], but that's not really what people are buying.

[1] http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/individual.html

[2] https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-internet

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#28

Post by ori_b »

rimantas wrote: post #23
kps wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their incentives are aligned They sure are. Apple sells native ads which, naturally, they do not allow users to block. http://advertising.apple.com/

And how does that apply to the web?

Well, if advertisers can't reach customers via web ads, where do they turn?

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#29

Post by maxerickson »

Eridrus wrote: post #27
greatthanks wrote: post #26

> That’s an average of $22.92/Gb or $0.0224 per megabyte That is surprisingly expensive: I live in Germany and pay monthly 10 Euro per 1.5GB - that's 6.7 Euro per GB or about 7.5 USD per GB ... And that's not even a contract but prepaid on monthly basis. Actually I could get 5 GB for 15 Euro thats 3 Euro or 3.4 USD per GB. Is mobile traffic really about 5 to 6 times more expensive in the US?

Depends how you count it. The pricing structure of cell phones is pretty unfriendly in the US. You can get a 1GB plan from T-Mobile for $50; or a $3GB plan for $60 or 5GB for $70 or unlimited for $80. [1] So, the average cost is close to that $22/GB number, but the marginal cost is closer to $5. You can find some prepaid voice+data plans, but their prices are not particularly competitive in the 2GB range. I did find…

The so called Walmart plan is cheaper:

https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/other-prepaid-plans

(And fairly popular as prepaid goes)

Re: Carriers Are Making More from Mobile Ads Than Publishers Are

#30

Post by rizwank »

Big miss in the methodology here. (CTO of a MVNO, watching data usage and pricing trends is a huge part of my day)

Those plans and costs ignore that at least a third of the US is on far lower cost plans from MVNOs, CSEs (Carrier-Sponsored Entities), various prepaid plans, as well as T-Mobile and Sprint.

They also absolutely ignore the fact that there is an additional talk and text price embedded in those. It's very techie to assume that the cost per MB for a plan is just total cost/Mb; the reality is that you easily have to figure $20-30 for the actual phone part of the plan.

Personally, I'd prefer to give subscribers far more value from their plan; advertising isn't the only problem. Many video apps default to greedy mode; pulling as high quality video as possible; without consulting or making it easy for users to requests lower bandwidth streams. Add that to FB video auto stream which just eats up bandwidth by scrolling through your news feed (and has had at least two separate places to turn it off- making harder to educate users) - and you have a trend of content and app designers assuming wireless connectivity is a commodity and unlimited for all.

Many, many people have smartphone plans with less than a gig of data because that's what they can afford - and the ecosystem devalues the actual experience of that gig more and more.

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