The Sigma Mobile Advertising Blog

For a long time I struggled to find good examples of how behavioral targeting could be used effectively in mobile advertising. It’s possible to measure mobile usage in many ways, but how can these measures be turned into something actionable, or at least more interesting to an advertiser than traditional ASL (Age, Sex, Location)? All examples were things like “if a mobile subscriber frequently requests sports content, then send him ads related to sports”. That’s fine, but wouldn’t you be better off simply delivering such ads alongside sports content? That’s contextual targeting, not behavioral targeting.

Then I had a chat with Tomi Ahonen, a mobile strategy author and consultant who writes on a variety of mobile-related topics at Communities Dominate Brands. Tomi reminded me of the concept of connectors, which I first read about in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. Connectors are the people with large social networks who “seem to know everybody”. They are also influencers.

Marketers love connectors because they set trends and influence others, and mobile networks provide a simple means to identify and reach them. How do identify connectors? Look for those subscribers who are making the largest number of calls to different destinations. Minutes of usage doesn’t help because it doesn’t differentiate someone who speaks to the same person every day for 30 minutes from the person who talks to ten different people for five minutes each day.

This also demonstrates the value that the mobile operator can bring to the table. It’s not easy working with operators and many mobile marketing/advertising technology companies avoid it. Demographic data can be gleaned from surveys or questionnaires and contextual data can be extracted from ad requests. But only the operator has general traffic data, and traffic is an incredibly rich source of information.

As a sidenote, you can also find connectors through social networks. Here’s a paper on that subject:
GuruMine: a Pattern Mining System for Discovering Leaders and Tribes by Goyal, On, Bonchi, and Lakshmanan.

Image: Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net