NEW YORK - Nonprofits might be tempted to apply the same rules to mobile ad campaigns that apply to online, but they should think twice before doing that, according to panelists at the DMA's Nonprofits Mobile Day.

The mobile device?s screen size versus the computer?s, or even a layout in print, means that the ad creative and call to action require special attention, and so does location. However, mobile banners do share with online units the ability to let consumers interact in a two-way manner to drive traffic to Web destinations either for donations or alert registrations.

?My advice to nonprofits that are new to mobile advertising is test and fail, then learn and scale,? said Alexandra Jorissen, New York-based director of advertising sales at Jumptap. ?I would recommend testing a little bit?get your feet wet, test the different mobile ad formats that are out there, and see what works.

?An interesting stat I found is that 95 percent of people are within three feet of their phone 24 hours a day,? she said. ?Mobile is so personal and it makes sense for you to be there as a brand.?

Mobile media types include on-deck advertising with wireless carriers such as AT&T and Sprint, ads across the mobile Web/WAP sites such as MSNBC, Fox Mobile, People and CBS, and ads within downloadable applications such as PageOnce, Shazam, WeatherBug and USA Today.

Mobile ad networks such as Jumptap and Millennial Media offer content channels, basically dividing the available inventory so advertising can target specific audiences.

?If you?re interested in reaching females ages 24-45, I?d say ?OK, why don?t we try the women?s lifestyle channel,? Ms. Jorissen said.

Nonprofits should keep in mind the various mobile media targeting options, with an eye toward the organization?s specific target audience.

?You can target them demographically by gender, age and income, geographically by DMA or ZIP code, by handset and by time period?day, week or month,? Ms. Jorissen said.

While banner ads are still the work horse of mobile advertising, as mobile devices become more sophisticated, so do the ad units that they can display.

For example, one rich-media expandable unit offered by Jumptap starts as a banner ad, but when the user clicks or taps on the banner, the ad expands to 300X250 and features animation.

?The ad unit performs extremely well because the user gets all the information they need without leaving the ad or going to a mobile site,? Ms. Jorissen said. ?It?s the perfect solution for getting people engaged with your brand in the right away.?

HTML5 is enabling a whole new array of interactive rich-media ad units, and mobile video advertising is another fast-growing area.

Mobile ad functionality can vary from click to Web site, click to video, click to App Store, click to map or store locator, click to buy or donate and click to calendar.

In addition to creative, nonprofits will also need to figure how to measure the performance of these campaigns on various media buys.

Tools for campaign analytics and measuring success of mobile campaigns include tracking of impressions delivered by site, creative and time of day.

Metrics include click-through rates, interaction rates, expansion rates, video play rates and conversions.
Advertisers should seek out third-party click and impression tracking.

JiWire
Brand advertisers such as UPS, Verizon and Cisco's WebEx are running location-based ad campaigns via Borders' in-store WiFi (see story).

Nonprofit organizations can also make their ad campaigns more effective using geolocation and location-based targeting.

?It?s our job to think about how do our clients and our brands reach a mobile audience, and banner ads are a nice starting point,? said David Staas, senior vice president of marketing, JiWire, San Francisco. ?Banners are the basics of mobile advertising, but they are evolving from text and graphics to animation and rich media.

?It?s very important to think about how you leverage this piece of creative to capture the audience?s mind set from the get-go,? he said.

Citing examples from Verizon Wireless, Jeep and Bank of America, Mr. Staas discussed the importance of reaching target consumers across a variety of touchpoints via wireless carrier networks and WiFi.

?When you think about your campaign objectives, it?s important to understand what role mobile is playing through the course of [consumers?] day,? Mr. Staas said. ?You are reaching a mobile audience, so why wouldn?t you reach them throughout the course of the day?

?You can also go beyond the click to another type of action, for example, click to download something like an app, which you can buy on a cost-per-download basis,? he said. ?Think a few further steps further down that path.?

Hopenhagen and Millennial Media
The International Advertising Association decided to run a mobile advertising campaign across Millennial Media? mobile ad network to drive awareness of climate change issues.

The goal of the Hopenhagen campaign was to drive support for efforts to reverse climate change at the December 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mobile ads were a key element of the integrated campaign led by Ogilvy & Mather on behalf of the International Advertising Association.

The mobile ad campaign leveraged Millennial Media?s reach to target a wide-ranging audience, with a heavy focus on young adults via connected devices and advocates of healthy living.

The campaign was action-oriented. Mobile ads drove users to Hopenhagen.org to sign a petition demanding leaders support the climate change initiative.

The campaign also shared messages of hope through social media.

?Hopenhagen did two things I would highly advise?they realized that it?s a big world and that their audience wasn?t necessarily on high-end smartphones,? Ms. Seifer said. ?We deployed ads on PlayStation portable devices, iPod touches and feature phones.

?The campaign was targeted by age, by device and by content, and it was effective at driving support for the climate change initiative,? she said. ?The campaign drove a lot of traffic to Hopenhagen.org and encouraged people to take action against an issue that they care about.?

Click here to view Millennial Media's presentation

Click here to view JiWire's presentation

Click here to view Jumptap's presentation

Picture this
Here is an image of the Nonprofit Mobile Day Panel:

JiWire's Mr. Staas discusses the importance of targeting mobile ad campaigns using location:

/>