By Matt Silk

Google?s planned $750 million acquisition of mobile ad network AdMob is further validation that mobile marketing is real, that the results are measurable and have considerable value and that mobile should be a factor, if not a central pillar, in any brand marketing strategy going forward.

Why? As Mobile Marketer readers are well aware, people in the industry have been saying that mobile is about to truly arrive for several years now. I am here to tell you: last Monday, Nov. 9 was that day.
 
Clearly, Google is the one of the most successful and forward-thinking technology companies in the world, and if its management and board believe that the right mobile ad network is worth almost three-quarters of a billion dollars ? well, money talks, doesn?t it? Especially when it comes from a company that redefined advertising for the 21st century. 

Google got to where it is by being the first to realize where customers are, and how to reach them. Since more of those customers are in the mobile space as well, mobile is a natural extension of Google?s core online ad-supported business. 

A bigger Internet, and specifically a bigger mobile Internet, creates more opportunities for Google to connect marketers to users ? and AdMob was the right platform at the right time for Google?s needs.

Here is how I see this acquisition affecting companies in the mobile space:

More major brands as clients. The mobile train has left the station, and this news will create an influx of major brands hopping onboard.

More mobile subscription list building. As mobile activity grows, brands and agencies will evolve their campaigns into mobile CRM strategies, as opposed to the simple mobile campaigns so prevalent today.

More multichannel campaigns. With the explosion of social media and mobile, gone will be the days of siloed campaigns. Customers have changed forever ? they demand to be spoken to in the channels where they are spending time. Brands that do not embrace this will be passed by quickly.

Major brands which embrace these changes, meanwhile, will reap the benefits. 

As Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, astutely noted in a column this week on Forbes.com, Google?s move is as much about data as it is anything else. 

With the purchase of AdMob, Google will have bought a massive amount of clickstream data, as well as the records of millions of transactions in and around iPhone applications ? which the company should be able to use to grow its own mobile platform, Android.

In other words, Google thinks that the intelligence provided by mobile will generate marketing insights to help advance the company?s interests.

The real ping
This trend of highly precise, real-time data collection is not just limited to mobile. In fact, it is being baked into the way some physical consumer products are sold.

A concrete example of this is Coca-Cola?s new Freestyle soda fountain.

This computerized wonder can dispense 100 different flavors of Coke products instantly. It beams those sales figures back to the mother ship in Atlanta, which then helps inform supply chain and marketing decisions. 

If an obscure flavor such as Apple Fanta is selling like crazy in San Antonio, TX, maybe it is time to invest in more shelf space and help grow the brand there.  Freestyle enables that type of decision-making. 

Not at all coincidentally, the My Coke Rewards program was an early use of SMS in a major consumer initiative ? and it is an established success. 

Coca-Cola does not make money from giving away free Coke gear or from hiring Ferrari designers to make the Freestyle look cool. Not directly, anyway. But when compared with the marketing insights these programs generate, such seemingly dramatic moves start to make a bit more sense. 

And in that context, $750 million starts to sound a lot more reasonable, too. 

I am delighted that Google has thrown down this gauntlet. The deal with AdMob should serve as a wake-up call to any brands and agencies that either have no mobile marketing strategy, are simply moving too cautiously or ? most scandalous of all ? hastily bolt an ill-considered mobile solution onto an existing marketing plan at the last minute.

The Google-AdMob marriage makes mobile real in the eyes of brand marketers and agency chiefs. The old political saying was ?As Maine goes, so goes the nation.? Well, as Google goes, so goes the business world.  

Matt Silk is senior vice president of Waterfall Mobile, a San Francisco-based mobile marketing technology services provider. Reach him at .