By Mark Wright

A  column posted recently on Mobile Marketer shared an industry perspective that 2011 would not be the year of mobile because the industry as a whole is not focused on growing the space by improving the ability to measure the success metrics of mobile marketing and ad campaigns.

Essentially, the column by Elizabeth Joy Zalman, "Why I think 2011 won't be the Year of Mobile," cited that if mobile can offer a better way to measure campaigns, brands and agencies will be able to justify bigger mobile marketing spends.

While I do agree that since the dawn of time businesses have always struggled with connecting marketing activity to business outcomes and demonstrating ROI, I do not see this as an intrinsically mobile problem and I do not agree with the perspective that companies in the industry have not been making progress on improving measurement over recent years. It does not need to be as difficult to justify mobile marketing or ad spend as some think.

Mobile as marketing solution
What some may not realize is that it is actually the mobile medium that has, for sometime now, enabled participating brands and agencies to achieve better marketing results overall.

InsightExpress research found that mobile ads are four to five times more effective than online ads.

Mobile marketing campaigns can now deliver superior targeting ability and measurement above and beyond what has been possible with marketing campaigns in the past.

These results are due to the unique features that mobile offers, including the ability to extend magazine and billboard campaigns and better engage audiences.

Many of the world?s biggest brands and Fortune 500 companies have already recognized that mobile?s direct response capabilities are the perfect complement to broadcast marketing tactics and have been for a couple of years now.

Improved targeting ability
The article also mentioned an industry perspective that mobile marketing and advertising is not ?bought [or] sold on anything other than clicks.?

But what is the value of copious amounts of click-throughs if you arre not reaching the right people who are going to buy what you are selling?

Historically, targeting ability through traditional advertising ? television, print and radio ? was limited to broad, static household demographics analytics. Desktop Internet, while enabling advertisers to more closely target consumers via an IP address, still has its limitations.

Today, the wide adoption of the mobile phone has overtaken the number of people who own TVs as well as the number of people who own computers worldwide.

Combine this with unique mobile features such as geo-locating and more detailed consumer information available through wireless carriers and, voila, we are able to deliver a marketing campaign that is more relevant and engaging to consumers, improving conversion rates and equating to a more justifiable marketing spend.

Improved reporting and measurement
The author of the article also shared industry perspectives that ?any forward movement with respect to [mobile campaign] measurement had been rejected.? False. And not just because Adenyo?s entire department of Ph.D statisticians and data modelers say so.

As I said before, the success of a campaign needs to be based on more than click-throughs alone.

Now with advancements in predictive analytics, it is possible to launch a laser-targeted mobile campaign that captures a smaller but 100 percent relevant audience, delivering a better ROI than the spray-and-pray approach that, for example, may generate billions of click-throughs, but from the wrong people who are maybe interested in watching a funny video, but are not going to buy your product.

Advancements in predictive analytics are also giving mobile marketers increased control while a campaign is in progress to quickly and easily understand consumer needs and preferences in real-time, with the ability to make on the fly campaign adjustments.

With more effective reporting now available, brands and agencies now also have instant access to reporting and measurement.

The lessons learned from decades of advertising are becoming increasingly less relevant to the mobile medium as new technology, strategies and ways of thinking are rewriting the rulebooks.

Tangible, measureable ROI is no longer a pipe-dream as the key industry-wide metrics required to plan such campaigns are now available, enabling brands, media planners, buyers and agencies the key information they need to deliver more successful mobile marketing campaigns. 

Mark Wright is marketing director at Adenyo, a Toronto-based global mobile marketing technology company. Reach him at .