Mobile Sites and Vendors Scale Services to Marketer Skill Levels

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As content owners, brands and e-commerce players build presences on the mobile Web, mobile technology firms are increasingly scaling their offerings to address the competency levels of these clients.

Firms like Millenial Media, Bango and iLoop Mobile are offering a variety of tiered products, ranging from high-touch solutions to self-serve options for more experienced mobile marketers.

Millennial Media has added both premium and entry-level tiers to its mobile ad network. An offering called Millennial Motion handles rich media mobile campaigns over the company's mobile ad network. It's geared toward high-end media buys leveraging the advanced capabilities of mobile networks and handsets. Motion is capable of running animation, audio, video, and product experiences such as a virtual showroom for an auto manufacturer.

"Millennial Motion supports experiences brands are looking to have with consumers," said Paul Palmieri, CEO of Millennial Media. "The result of that is a complex user interaction... deep and experiential."

At the other end of Millennial's offerings is a performance-based self-serve system called Decktrade, which content owners and other marketers can use to promote offerings. Decktrade targets sellers of ringtones and personalization assets for phones, mobile games, and other content in the mobile space. It provides rapid deployment of campaigns and inventory.

Decktrade enables what Millennial Media calls registry targeting. Content owners and advertisers can cater to a specific ad or offer based on mobile carrier and handsets. Even if an advertiser wants to reach a broad mobile audience, it confirms content compatibility with the user's capabilities. "Mobile has been plagued by platform fragmentation, one of the things successful content providers have navigated around," Palmieri told ClickZ News.

Publishers in the Millennial Marketplace network, which encompasses both Motion and Decktrade inventory, include WeatherBug, Jumpbuck, 4INFO, Cellufun, and Zoovision. EA Mobile signed on as a premium publisher.

Marketers looking to build a mobile presence will also find tiered levels of support from companies like Bango and iLoop Mobile. Bango this week revealed details on Bango 2Go, a template-based solution for building mobile Web sites targeted to small businesses.

"Bango 2Go is designed to strip away complexity and make it a single-point and single step to get a site up and running," said Andy Bovingdon, VP of product marketing at Bango.

While some of the more complex deals Bango has implemented involve working with other mobile services firms, Bango 2Go appears more seamless. While other companies may help develop sites on the back end, Bango aims to remove the complexity by being the single point of contact for marketers.

The service costs $4,995 up front, with monthly fees starting at $1,395 for hosting and ongoing service, including billing, tracking, traffic and information.

Both Millennial Media and Bango announced their tiered offerings at CTIA Wireless this week. Prior to the mobile conference, iLoop Mobile announced a three-tiered offering allowing agencies and marketers to build and manage their own mobile Web sites and campaigns.

Bovingdon said deals with large brands like WWE, Hearst and MTV are more multi-pronged, with several partners involved. "Bango 2Go is providing a solution for small to medium-sized businesses. It's targeted at the mass market and looking to drive and enable mass market adoption for the mobile Web," he said.