Medio Takes Mobile Search Ad Network to U.K. and Europe

Medio Systems has announced the availability of its performance-based mobile ad network to advertisers and publishers in the U.K. and Europe. In addition to the MobileNow network’s current offerings of pay-per-click text and display ads, the company will introduce search-based mobile ad services in early 2008.

Having launched in the U.S. in March, Medio is now looking to tap a potentially lucrative U.K. and European market, according to the company’s Head of Advertising Sales EMEA, Ben Tatton-Brown.

“The U.K. is the most advanced mobile advertising market in Europe and probably even more advanced than in the U.S.” he said. “Brands in the U.K. are finally taking mobile seriously, and along with media agencies are starting to look towards mobile as being an integral part of their marketing strategy.”

The aim is to create additional revenue streams for operators, publishers and off-deck mobile properties, and to offer advertisers the chance to send targeted ads based on consumers’ search queries.

Medio will provide white label search and advertising solutions for mobile network operators including T-Mobile international, Verizon and Tellus, in the U.K., Germany, Holland, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Current European publisher sites making up Medio’s mobile network include Jamba, Gameloft and Yell.com. Tatton-Brown added that the service would be aimed at all advertisers.

Mobile applications company Reporo is one of Medio’s current advertiser clients in the U.K. Reporo Marketing and Sales Director Kieran O’Keefe added, “We have been looking into the possibility of including search boxes in our products, and would definitely look to Medio to provide this service.”

Tatton-Brown also outlined some interesting differences between the current mobile landscape in the U.K. and the U.S., most notably the difference in cost of mobile campaigns.

“In my experience, the average CPC in the U.K. is higher than in the U.S.,” he said. “Brands are willing to pay more per click which means they are getting a higher click through rate, and therefore higher returns on their campaigns.”

He went on to liken mobile search to the early days of online search. While admitting the mobile search landscape has “yet to be drawn,” he suggested operators would perhaps be reluctant to share their customers’ information with brands like Google or Yahoo, and would attempt instead to build strategic relationships with providers such as Medio.

Tatton-Brown also believes there is a long term market for mobile search, as advances in mobile technology now make it possible to view the full Internet on mobile devices. “Mobile search is very different [from] Internet search. It is all about providing the user with answers to questions, and not pages and pages of results.”

Medio currently employs eight European staffers, and is based in Soho, central London.