Zamano has created its own mobile ad unit to negotiate bulk buying on behalf of its many content provider partners.The company has already agreed an agency deal with Yahoo to offer WAP inventory to its existing customers. Zamano provides messaging and billing services via 3G, SMS, MMS, WAP and IVR into all UK, Irish and Australian operators. The launch of an ad buying unit is an obvious next step as its mobile content provider clients are among the most enthusiastic purchasers of WAP banner inventory. Declan Pettit of Zamano said: “The aggregation industry is commoditised and there is very little scope to differentiate, therefore it’s important to add value where at all possible. The new ad unit continues Zamano’s strategy to offer an end to end solution for partners that complements its existing offering of a mobile white label solution comprising billing, content management services and powerful reporting tools.”
Zamano is already in discussions with all operators in the territories in which it operates, plus off-portal sites with the highest traffic. It expects to announce more formal partnerships soon. Zamano has launched its new service at a time of growing interest in mobile as an advertising medium. According to market watcher Informa, the global mobile ad market will hit $12.09 billion by 2013, up from $1.72 billion this year. It says that 80 per cent of mobile ads are currently generated by mobile content providers. Meanwhile WAP page impressions are also soaring. According to the Mobile Data Association, 17 million people accessed the Internet on their mobiles in December 2007. This equates to 23 per cent of mobile users in UK.