Recent Read: Mobile monetization

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/30/how-facebook-went-from-sucking-at-mobile-to-killing-in-mobile-in-12-short-months/

A little over a year ago, Facebook was so bad at monetizing mobile that the company tried to hide that fact in its legally required pre-IPO documentation, adding it only days before the company went public. The whole mess contributed to what ended up almost being the worst IPO in a decade and a share price that still hasn’t recovered its IPO heights.
Then a week ago, Facebook announced record earnings and a massive 41 percent of revenue from … mobile.
How did the company turn it around that quick?

“Every single year we’ve heard people say ‘This is the year of mobile,” Nanigans SVP Dan Slagen told me, laughing. “But this is the first time we’ve seen someone come forward and put forward the kind of number that Facebook did.”

Nanigans might be the single biggest conduit of Facebook ads on the planet, managing “nine figures” of annual ad spend. So Slagen knows a little about Facebook and revenue. And he says that Facebook targeting has gotten so good in the last year that “there’s really no excuse for someone seeing your ad who doesn’t want your product.” That’s had a massive impact on Facebook profitability, especially on mobile.
Mobile ad exec Krishna Subramanian agrees.
He’s the CMO of mobile advertising company Velti, and he says the massive shift is due to Facebook’s data-centric approach to products and decisions.
“I don’t think it was luck,” Subramanian told me yesterday. “Facebook executed flawlessly after spending the second half of last year experimenting and looking at all the possibilities of making money in mobile.”
Perhaps most interesting is that Facebook’s mobile revenue has gone through the roof this year at the same time that Google’s mobile earnings have tapered off — in spite of layering in mobile into AdWords, which was supposed to increase click prices but actually did not.
For Slagen, it’s all about creative, targeting, and optimization, which have never been better on Facebook.
“Mobile ad units used to be tiny little banners, but Facebook completely broke through that model,” he said. “Facebook’s mobile ad spot is a massively large ad unit, which has given advertisers a whole new opportunity on mobile.”

“Never seen clickthrough rates this high”

Because Facebook’s mobile ad unit is large, brands can be creative again. Aesthetics and visuals are the first things that grab attention, and there’s plenty of room to add a title and some copy — perhaps a call to action. Add in Facebook’s unparalleled targeting capability, and you’ve got a winner, advertisers say — and profitable winner.
“We’ve never seen clickthrough rates this high outside of Google Adwords,” Slagen says.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/30/how-facebook-went-from-sucking-at-mobile-to-killing-in-mobile-in-12-short-months/#qOHulv9FPTyVRTdk.99