I wrote an article recently for MediaPost’s Online Media Daily called Field of Dreams II: The Mobile Advertising Story that was seen by some as slamming mobile ad networks.  On the contrary, mobile ad networks play an important role in the mobile advertising ecosystem for remnant inventory.

The underlying point of this article was to call out premium publishers who are relegating their mobile sales strategy to ad networks instead of selling premium inventory to their own advertisers.  In our discussions with premium publishers, many have expressed their dissatisfaction with the way some ad networks transparently represent their inventory and they are expressing a desire to sell this inventory direct through their existing digital sales team.

So if you are a publisher with scale (>1 million page views per month), think twice before you hand over your inventory to mobile ad networks.  Don’t be satisfied with $1.00 CPMs.  Empower your ad sales team to sell mobile, in particular rich, beyond-the-banner ads.  These ad units generate excellent CTR and user engagement and sell for much higher CPMs.  

Still need a push? Crisp provides end-to-end services to make selling, buying, and tracking mobile advertising simple and easy.  We are industry leaders when it comes to mobile ad serving, rich media ad forms, reporting, robust advertiser sites and collaborative (not competitive) sales support.

What are your thoughts? Leave your comments here or on my article, looking forward to hearing what you have to say.