If you ever subscribed with any website using your smartphone, most likely you are familiar with these mobile content offers.
But if you have a lesser knowledge or no idea about it at all, in this article we’re going to teach you about what exactly mobile content offers are, how to run them, and the reason why they are popular mobile CPA offers today.
Before we get deeper into the discussion, I want you to know that advertising networks use different names for mobile content offers.
They can be called Premium SMS, Pin Submits, Mobile Subscriptions, etc. But to make it simple, we will be calling them Mobile Content Offers.
What are Mobile Content Offers?
In short, Mobile Content Offers are mobile products that users can pay for or subscribe to.
One of the most popular examples of mobile content offers that we come across at one point or another in our life is a ringtones subscription. Usually, users subscribe to a special service and since that moment new ringtones are being sent to his mobile phone on a weekly basis.
Back then, when mobile content offers such as ringtones were being promoted through newspapers and magazines (Nokia guys, rise your hands!).
As for now, advertisers have widely expanded their mobile content offers out from ringtones services and offer several other products that utilize carrier billing such as antivirus, utility, wallpapers, games, astrology, sweepstakes, videos and the list goes on and on.
How Do These Mobile Content Offers Work?
Every user subscription to any mobile content offer will be directly charged on their phone bill. In some cases, the bill can also be deducted from the credits available on a user’s phone.
Usually user’s mobile carrier has a billing system and so users don’t need to make a payment for a preferred content, using a credit card or other form of a payment. It makes the conversion process simpler.
There are several ways in the industry for how users can subscribe to mobile content offers. We call the process of users subscribing to mobile content offers flows. Here I will explain every flow briefly so you can understand before picking mobile content offers to launch.
Direct Billing Flow
This one works only when a carrier is able to identify user’s mobile number to make a direct billing.
Most of the time a Direct Billing flow requires mobile users to be online via a 3G connection and the second requirement is that they need to be on their carrier data connection in order for a direct billing to take place. There are 2 types of a Direct Billing flow.
1-Click: 1-Click Flow is used when users only have to click on a confirmation button on the offer page once to be subscribed and get billed.
2-Click: 2-Click Flow is similar as 1-Click, except it requires an additional confirmation before the user gets subscribed and billed.
You might be wondering – why do they need a 2-Click one when a 1-Click is way easier to convert. Well, it’s due to certain countries regulations that need to be complied with, these ones restrict some advertisers to use only 1-click, mostly due to users accidentally getting subscribed for products that they do not have an intention to.
SMS Billing Flow
This flow requires mobile users to be online via a Wifi connection. It is only applicable for cases when mobile users need to enter their phone number on a landing page and later on they get a message from the carrier to reply for a confirmation (MO) or a pin code to fill in on a landing page (MT).
Now, what’s MO and MT?
MO (Mobile Originated): MO Flow is used when mobile users enter their phone number on a landing page and get SMS or a text message about mobile content offers they want to subscribe. Then, users need to confirm their subscription via replying an SMS message.
MT (Mobile Terminated): MT Flow is used when users enter their phone numbers on a landing page and get a PIN code that is sent to their mobile devices regarding a subscription they’ve just made. To confirm a subscription, the users need to revisit the network or page and submit a PIN code they were provided with.
Which Flow converts best?
After reviewing all these flow processes, perhaps we can say that a Direct Billing Flow (1Click & 2 Click) is the best of all, as its conversion flows require from users to take simple actions and it provides users with a seamless conversion process.
However, not all advertisers use Direct Billing for their offers because of certain legal restrictions that exist in some countries that regulate the use of these conversion flows.
Another reason why SMS billing flow is still being used, despite being counterintuitive, is that with flow advertisers aren’t restricted to promote products through a carrier connection, which Direct Billing flow requires. With SMS billing flow, advertisers are able to make conversions via Wifi or even desktop traffic.
1-Click & 2-Click offers convert the best for a targeted Carrier traffic. But there are also times when SMS Flows convert better because users are on WiFi traffic.
If you’re buying traffic in bulk, sometimes it makes sense to split it for a test – to use both Direct Billing Flows and SMS Billing Flows. As you might have already noticed, the latter may convert better in certain situations.
Why Should You Launch Mobile Content Offers?
There are several benefits in launching Mobile Content Offers:
- Newbie Affiliate friendly
- Cheaper traffic on tier 2 & 3 Geo
- Easy conversion flows
- High payouts
- Easiest to test out and acquire data
- Unlimited scalability as offers usually have no caps
How to Launch Mobile Content Offers?
There are no perfect ways for choosing types of traffic that will suit mobile content offers best. In general, mobile content offers could work with any type of traffic, including POP, display, etc.
Because there are various types of traffic to test, the safest practice is to ask for advice from your account manager. More than often account managers have a bird’s eye view on what kind of traffic do work the best for specific offers.
Based on the conversion flows mentioned above, although payouts will be higher and conversion is still possible with SMS Billing flow (MO & MT Flow), we have to keep in mind that conversion rates on SMS Billing Flow will be lousier than Direct Billing Flow (1-click & 2-click Flow).
If you are on a small test-budget, don’t target your campaign to WiFi traffic. It is cheap, but cheap traffic is useless when it doesn’t convert.
Something To Take a Note Before Wrapping It Up
It is crucial that while lunching mobile content offers you need to be very precise in targeting your campaign to the right traffic to be able to maximize conversions and not let any traffic get wasted.
Direct Billing Flow (1-click & 2-click Flow) defines Geo & Carrier to target.
SMS Billing Flow (MO & MT Flow) defines a Geo to target.
Still, with varying policies being implemented in each country and with different carriers, the best practice before running each offer is to clearly understand all conversion requirements and restrictions of every single offer.
Investing in a reliable tracker with a carrier detection feature is necessary for running an effective mobile content offers campaign. Reasons being that we want to be able to track that we are sending the right traffic for the offers to be able to convert.
Another reason is that, even though most traffic sources allow us to buy traffic by chosen carrier, but there will be times when delivered traffic could be from WiFi or another unchosen carrier. With tracker in place, we could block traffic from unwanted sources or have proof for a refund on getting unusable traffic.
Conclusion
Despite being one of the easiest vertical to convert, there are still big and growing opportunities for monetizing in mobile content offers.
Technavio’s market research analyst estimates the global mobile content market to exhibit an impressive market growth rate during the forecast period. An increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets is a critical factor that propels growth in this market and results in its striking value of more than USD $170 billion by 2019.
Wewe Media is one of the leading network that is laser-focused on building a huge database of Mobile Content Offers. Get started promoting our huge database of mobile content offers by Registering With Us Here.
