Hanging Loose to Jump on the Mobile Money Wave

Jay Lauf

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 For many publishers, revenue from mobile advertising and subscriptions has not started to flow in just yet. But the stats show that the wave is starting to form, and we should prepare ourselves.

Though adult users spend 8.1% of their time consuming content on their mobile devices, its ad spending share is a mere 0.5%. These percentages are bound to meet for two reasons. Advertisers will follow the eyeballs, while mobile advertising also is emerging as a compelling and effective platform.

Research from Chetan Sharma Consulting, a strategic mobile and voice communications firm, shows that mobile advertising’s efficacy on reach, targeting viral and transaction beats both the Internet and television. In addition, it has a high click-through rate. For instance, about 60% of mobile users click on mobile ads about once a week.

With its growing reach and effectiveness, it is no surprise that there are predictions that mobile ad dollars are expected to increase from about $600 million to $1.1 billion this year, and these numbers are as promising as is the future of mobile subscriptions, specifically tablet subscriptions.

According to Lynne Brennen, senior vice president of circulation of Dow Jones, tablets will lead the way for paid content. She finds the key to gaining paid readers is to provide users with reliable, timely, and social trustworthy content. Tablets can do just that.

The lingering question is how do we monetize this?

At The Atlantic, we just released a new and completely revamped free iPad app that incorporates all of Brennen’s “requirements” It intertwines Web, print and social media content seamlessly. We go one step beyond and offer our users flexibility on what type of access they want. For instance, all magazine content is free to our print subscribers, while we offer non-print subscribers the chance to buy a digital-only subscription. With these options and new features our app provides, we expect to see a significant increase in the total number of users.

While we are investing in mobile products, such as our new app and other projects, we also have a conviction similar to Google’s when it first launched. If you prepare yourself for the wave, put out a superior product, and have faith in it, the users will come followed by the money, and you will be riding the wave to shore.

Jay Lauf is the publisher of The Atlantic.

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