By Ray Anderson

As we look back at 2009 we can clearly see that mobile advertising has been a hot topic within the media and entertainment industry.

Despite its ups and downs in the past, mobile advertising is now one of the only areas that remain strong in the current economic climate, with an increasing number of businesses planning to boost their mobile advertising investment in 2010. According to Juniper Research, global spending on mobile Internet advertising in 2009 was $500 million.

Mobile advertising is now becoming an integral part of many businesses? digital marketing strategy, and is recognized by marketers as an effective platform to reach millions of customers worldwide.

But in this competitive market, as any marketer would know, it is not just about reaching customers anymore, but about engaging and building relationships with them. You can only do that through effective targeting, relevancy and personalization. But how do you achieve this? Well, the answer is measuring, hence mobile metrics.

Treasure measure
Up until recently mobile metrics provided general data to marketers, such as tracking the number of people who clicked on a text ad (CPC) or sponsored link (CPM). But this legacy metrics only offers marketers a general view about the performance of mobile campaigns.

Nowadays, good customer engagement is the real key indicator of the success of a mobile marketing campaign. So in 2010 it becomes even more essential for marketers to know what happens after the ?click.? Here is where mobile metrics come in.

Mobile metrics give marketers a deep insight into their customers? behavior and how they interact with their site or ad campaign. They give marketers the opportunity to capture the attention of customers through a well-targeted ad and get them to click through to a site and achieve a specific goal.

Goals can simply be visitors landing on a specific page or can be mobile-specific actions such as click-to-call or downloads ? free or purchased at a premium.

In mobile analytics terms, customer engament is measured by the number of conversions that happen as a result of the ad campaign ? how many customers or prospects take an action, buy something, or sign up to a service on their site.

In all cases, it is vital that marketers identify and record the visiting customer or prospect, not only across the current single visit but the entire lifetime of the relationship. Only this way they will get the true long term value to advertising.

To obtain this accuracy, it is crucial that marketers use a mobile-specific analytics tool which enables them to accurately measure the true ROI of their campaigns ?one which clearly shows them which ad placements are delivering the best conversions and which ones are not.

This way marketers can fine-tune their mobile advertising proposition, ad placement and the complete visitor experience. More importantly, they can build customer engagement and maximize their ROI.

Accuracy key for customer engagement
If marketers are to succeed in their efforts to build customer engagement in 2010, they need accurate mobile metrics.

However, marketers need to be aware that standard analytics tools are only able to provide them with general and basic information, and most fail to record key data such as the identify of every mobile visitor, repeat visits and Internet connection visitors are using ? all crucial information for customer engagement.

Legacy analytics companies such as Google have made many attempts at providing accurate mobile analytics information. But as with most PC analytics tools, they are still dependent on traditional PC identification methods, which prevents them from identifying unique visitors, undermining the accuracy of the information they record.

By using a mobile-specific analytics solution, marketers are able to accurately identify every mobile visitor, on all handsets and Internet connecions, including WiFi, and get an in deph insight into how mobile visitors are interacting with mobile marketing campaigns and Web sites. 

So when analysing the success of their mobile marketing campaigns, it is important that marketers choose a mobile analytics solution that guarantees accuracy.

Indeed, they must opt for a solution that has the ability to record all visitors and conversions against individuals so that they can build up the lifetime value of their customers. Only this way they will get the true value of the mobile marketing investment to improve targeting and ROI.

Ray Anderson is CEO of Bango, a Cambridge, England- and New York-based provider of mobile billing and mobile analytics services. Reach him at .