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Industry Trends

Attacking Google Mobile’s Achilles’ Heel – Analytics

By February 8, 2008July 30th, 20233 Comments

A recent news bite on AccuraCast Search Daily News highlighted the fact that Google AdWords does not provide reliable conversion tracking on mobile ad campaigns. In the wake of this announcement, a number of alternative solution providers, including the likes of Bango, have announced alternative products that supplement Google’s shortcomings in this area.

Mobile network operators, mobile search providers and associated mobile commerce solution providers have long known the problems Google faces with providing in-depth visitor information to advertisers on their AdWords mobile platform. The operators hold this user information dearly, since it is likely to be the single most important factor they can leverage in the race to prevent Google from dominating mobile search and the associated ad spend.

Bango Analytics is latest in the new breed of mobile analytics solutions that provide more in-depth information than Google Analytics or AdWords conversion tracking can. Mobile Analytics from Amethon is another such product.

Bango Analytics
Mobile Analytics from Amethon

Advanced mobile analytics systems from providers like Bango can provide advertisers extensive information about how visitors interact with their site. These systems use ‘off the wire’ capture technology and are integrated into the mobile operator or content provider/aggregator’s network and can therefore mine much more information than a JavaScript or cookie-based system like Google Analytics and AdWords. The information these advanced systems provide can include:

  • Number of unique visitors per day
  • What phones the visitors use to access the site
  • What networks in which countries the visitors come from
  • Most popular content
  • Referring search terms
  • Total return from a marketing campaign

Data from these systems is presented near real-time, unlike Google Analytics, which can take a few hours to update or Google AdWords conversion tracking, which takes as much as 24 hours to update.

As the race for dominance of the mobile platform heats up, the other players in the market are arming themselves with every possible weapon to fight Google.

While Google drives the majority share of mobile search traffic, very few advertisers will consider spending their ad budgets elsewhere. However, if the other providers liaise or a new dominant player arises with an ad platform that includes superior tracking and targeting capabilities, Google could end up losing favour with advertisers.

Screenshot of Bango Analytics

Above: Screenshot of Bango Analytics