Mobile ad network AdMob has extended its offerings to include a new mobile analytics suite for advertisers and publishers.

Called AdMob Mobile Analytics, the free service is designed to help marketers understand mobile consumer behavior and measure the activity on mobile Web sites and ad campaigns.

"The mobile Web has an enormous blind spot and the blind spot is the inability to understand behavior on mobile Web sites and the movement of users around the Web," said Jason Spero, vice president of marketing at AdMob, San Mateo, CA.

AdMob is the leading mobile ad network, serving more than 2.5 billion mobile banner and text ads each month on 4,500 mobile sites such as CBS, Maxim and Weather Underground. Customers include Coca-Cola Co., Reuters, MSN, MTV, adidas, Procter & Gamble Co. and Paramount Pictures.

The AdMob Analytics product will compete with Bango, Google and Mobilytics' analytics offerings.

Run independently of the firm's services, AdMob Mobile Analytics doesn't require ad spend or publishing activity with the AdMob mobile ad network.

The suite will let mobile site owners track site performance metrics including unique visitors, duration of visit, page performance and user details such as geography, wireless carrier and device specifics.

Suite users will also be able to see the site's sources of traffic, such as search engines, direct traffic and ads.

Such intelligence will help publishers fine-tune their mobile sites depending on user behavior. Advertisers can also track conversion to specific events and measure the success of campaigns.

Beta signups are possible at http://analytics.admob.com.

"When you're spending money to drive traffic, ROI calculations are critical," Mr. Spero said. "And to perform the ROI calculation you need to track conversion rates differently because you can measure sources of traffic.

"It's pretty granular to understand the efficacy of the different sources of the traffic as well as the conversion rates," he said. "So, part of the motivation for AdMob Analytics is to understand people and understand this ROI perspective."