European Study: SMS Ads Can Be Too Much of a Good Thing

The M:Metrics survey also highlights the problem of unsolicited advertisements; 17.5 percent of subscribers said they had received an ad from a company they’d not given permission to hear from.

Evan Neufield, senior analyst M:Metrics, cautioned that SMS could lose its impact if overused. “The early days of SMS advertising are similar to the advent of e-mail, which was initially a very effective, high conversion advertising platform,” he said in a news release. “However, e-mail’s value decreased over time because of over-messaging and spam.”

Whether SMS ads are an unwelcome replacement for spam or a powerful marketing utility, M:Metrics reported nearly 148 million such ads were been sent out across these six countries.

“Certainly the level of interaction is impressive compared to almost any advertising vehicle available today” Neufeld said. “It is undeniable that text-based mobile advertising is both a highly prevalent and an extremely effective medium for engaging customers.”

Separately, M:Metrics released a report Wednesday that examined the U.S. mobile advertising network AdMob. Data, collected from 2,000 sites during the third quarter of 2007, reveals that 18 to 34-year-olds comprise the lion’s share of AdMob’s audience, with 65.5 percent of respondents in this age range.

The findings also suggest that the AdMob network offers a broad demographic reach. While African-Americans comprise 6.3 percent of mobile subscribers, some sites that targeted this demographic had an African-American audience of more than 50 percent. M:Metrics cited similar results for females, (with 60% of females against 42% of mobile browser population) and Hispanics, among other demographic profiles.

Omar Hamoui, AdMob CEO, said the study’s findings show that brand advertisers can reach their target audience on mobile phones using sophisticated demographic targeting.