MTS claims its mobile advertising is 10 times more efficient than conventional ads
MTS, the biggest Russian and CIS mobile network operator, reports that its mobile advertising projects turned out to be a real success with click-through rate (CTR) in several advertising campaigns reaching up to 11%. Five per cent of those who received a message eventually bought the advertised product or sign up to the advertised service.
Currently advertising messages are delivered to more than 260,000 MTS subscribers. About 200,000 of those who opted-in for receiving the ads are using MTS-Sponsor service, and more than 60,000 have signed up for the advertising messages delivery. Eighty per cent of these subscribers have responded to the operator's offer of signing up to this advertising service. The rest 20% of those who signed up for the service, found out about it from other sources.
Now the service is offered in four regions of Russia – Moscow, North-West and South federal regions, and Siberia. In the second quarter 2009, MTS plans to expand mobile advertising delivery service to other country regions where MTS networks operate. During 2008, the company conducted about 40 advertising campaigns using MMS delivery service for big brands, such as Sberbank, Nokia, BMW, Toyota, Procter&Gamble, and Unilever (Lipton).
MTS launched mobile advertising program in November 2007. The first stage of the project was the launch of MMS delivery service. MTS estimates that in 2008 mobile advertising market comprised about 0.1 percent (that's $7,9 mln) of the total advertising market in Russia, volume of which, according to AKAR (Russian Association of Communication Agencies), was 267 billion rubles (approximately $7,9 bln.). MTS predicts that mobile advertising revenue in 2009 will grow by 1-2% of the total market, and reach 10-15% growth by 2012.
MTS mobile advertising projects:
MMS delivery
Subscribers to the service receive free MMS with useful and entertaining information (weather, currency exchange rate, news, horoscope, and jokes). The message contains five advertising blocks – each of them has a graphic banner, short text description, telephone number and a link to the advertiser's website.
SMS Sponsor
MTS also encourages its subscribers to participate in SMS-Sponsor program, which allows users get payment bonuses to their bills for each incoming advertising SMS.
Banner ads on WAP portal
Since November 2008, MTS posts text and graphic advertising banners on its WAP portal that has about 85 thousand unique visitors a day.
В© Oxana Vassilyeva
