Mobile traffic is seeing huge increases year over year, and more businesses are investing in advertising meant to secure conversions from users on-the-go. Marketers looking to manage their own traffic are finding success reaching these mobile users through buy-side platforms that allow for granular targeting and real-time bidding. Here are some of the basics you need to know before you begin testing your first campaigns.

Real-Time Bidding

The process of real-time bidding allows advertisers to reach users multiple times a day. It also impacts everything from costs to target and forecasts for future conversions. That’s the prime advantage to using a buy-side platform. You can micro-target by carrier and device in some exchanges. Demographic targeting might include age and gender, job, yearly salary and a host of other useful options to help narrow down your audience. With even a small set of data, you’ll be able to examine traffic patterns and formulate some ideas on which times of day are best for your ads.

Self-Service

One major advantage that a buy-side platform holds is a lower barrier for entry. When you purchase advertising, you typically have two options. One is a platform solution, the other is managed for you based on your goals. The second service has a higher barrier for entry, usually requiring a large budget or extended commitment from you. Newbies are often reluctant to do this, or do not have the budget to get started. A buy-side platform for mobile helps you reach the mobile segment at a budget you set.

Bio: Ted Dhanik is an expert in mobile, video and display advertising. As the co-founder of engage;BDR, Ted Dhanik helps businesses reach new market segments. Find out how to build successful campaigns with tips from Ted Dhanik.


Written by: Allied Time

As a business scales, time management becomes an even greater concern. At a certain point, employees will outnumber management so it’s important to have a system in place that helps track time with transparency. That’s where biometric time clocks can come in handy. The pseudo-science name doesn’t mean they will replace your management team anytime soon, but they can be useful for businesses looking to scale and worried about their ability to track employee time.

Accuracy

One of the major sources of loss for small businesses is time fraud. This practice is fairly subtle, but employees do it all the time. Time fraud occurs when an employee uses time clocks to clock in for work, and then leaves the site or reports elsewhere and does not do any of the work required of him. Time fraud can also occur when there is “buddy clocking” in place, where someone clocks in for someone else.

A biometric time machine virtually eliminates this problem. Employees must use some part of their person to clock in. Machines can read the contours of a face, or the imprint of a finger. Employees are also safe from potential privacy violations, as the machine does not record a detailed image of the employee or his face.

These systems use our bodies to record specific points. When an employee’s face or thumb passes over the scanner, the system matches what it sees to data points modeled after that employee’s input. In this way, specific employees are catalogued without their identities being at risk.

HR also benefits, as punches are accurate and time is recorded. Plus, biometrics are required to enter or leave an area. This means employees benefit from less time worked off the clock, and there is no need to remember a keycard or pass code.

Preparing for the Transition

If you plan to move your work place to biometric time clocks, here are some things to keep in mind. For one, employees will require training on the new technology. Inform them as soon as possible and train accordingly. Employees may also have concerns over their privacy, so it’s important to address these concerns and explain how the system works.

There are also people who claim religious or moral objections to this kind of technology. While these cases are rare, do have a contingency plan in place for dealing with these situations as they arise.


Keeping international growth and mobile marketing in mind, Twitter is making another acquisition. ZipDial, a startup in India, has focused on a mobile user case that is unique to its own country.

The case in question is the instance when people call numbers but hang up before the call is answered. This simple situation leads to the capability of tracking a number of commercial actions as well as analytics.

While there are rumors about the deal which is about to be complete, sources confirm that it already has, where the buyout amount is in the region of $30-$40 million and it is complete.

One source reveals that the talks slowed down during the holidays and hasn’t picked up yet while another has said that nothing has been closed. Finally, yet another source reveals that another company apart from Twitter has been looking to purchase ZipDial and is said to be Facebook.

ZipDial, a startup that is the brainchild of Valeria Wagoner, Amiya Pathak and Sanjay Swamy, will be the latest in the line of startups that have been acquired by American multinational companies – only, of course, if the deal gets done.

Last year, LittleEye Labs, creating an app performance analyzer, was bought by Facebook while Yahoo acquired Bookpad which creates file editing and collaboration software. Prior to looking at ZipDial, Twitter also looked at Frrole. However, no deal materialised as a result.

The company in question, was started in 2010, and has already raised an undisclosed amount of money from investors such as 500 Startups, Times Internet, Mumbai Angels and Jungle Ventures.


According to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple’s newest phones, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, have improved iOS smartphones sales’ figures for the fall while causing Android’s figures to drop as a result.

Its latest 12-week smartphone figures, from September to November 2014, have seen Android losing market share in the United States since September 2013.

In fact, this does not come as a surprise even though the Android platform has had ‘phablet’ devices for years but mostly owing to the fact that both these devices – Apple 6 and 6 Plus – were released in September. This has given iOS users to take a good look at the competition before owning their own palm-stretching phones.

Apple’s annual smartphone release cycle usually requires users to wait and which is what contributes to a large of number of users buying a new iPhone. Of course, if it is too long, some of them make the switch to Android phones – which has stayed at 18 percent. Alternatively, there aren’t many Android owners who have been interested in new Apple smartphones either.

The figures also show that Android’s dominance in the US market is slowly dropping and has been by 2 percentage year on year. Specifically, Android had 50.4 percent share of sales since September 2013 to 48.4 percent this year.

iOS, on the other hand, increased by 4.3 percentage points and was at 47.4 percent in terms of market share in the United States.

Apart from Android, Apple is taking share from smaller players such as Windows Phone and BlackBerry where the Others category dropped by a further 0.6 percentage points.

This drop in share for Android has been reflected in not only the United States but also Europe and Australia. That said, in China and Japan, the reverse trend was evident.