Google Patents Transport Ads; McKinsey: Mobile Lags

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Google Rides

According to TechCrunch, Google successfully filed a patent giving advertisers the ability to arrange free or discounted transportation to potential customers. Using an algorithm, Google would determine whether it made sense for the advertiser to offer the transportation to a potential consumer. One use case pointed out in the article would be for a casino on the Las Vegas Strip that wants to lure a potential visitor. Read more. And the patent, “Transportation-aware physical advertising conversions,” is here.

Ads Lagging Adoption

While mobile use in China continues to skyrocket, mobile advertising is still a tiny piece of advertising budgets, according to Ad Age. Two big players in the mobile space, Alibaba and Tencent, are both vying to be the de facto standard for mobile payments in the region. McKinsey & Co. estimates mobile will account for 3% of overall ad spend this year. Read more.

Publisher Hopes

SpinMedia, which is struggling financially, hired Piper Jaffray to try and turn the company around, the New York Post is reporting. CEO Dale Strang said he expects the company to be profitable this year, and CFO Scott Southron has apparently been telling partners that the company hopes to recapitalize soon. According to comScore, the number of unique visitors across SpinMedia’s sites has fallen 22.3% in eight months. Read more.

Really Big Ads Best

A study conducted by Ipsos ASI, on behalf of Undertone, found that Internet browsers preferred large, full-screen takeover ads (a key Undertone product) over banner ads. According to Adweek, the larger ads were more likable and memorable. Native advertising wasn’t included in the study so it’s not clear whether people prefer traditional display ads over native ads. Read more.

Redirection Prevention

The Media Trust released a mobile scanner that will detect and prevent mobile redirects to other sites that may contain phishing scams and malware. The service works by scanning mobile Web pages, apps and ad tags around the clock. As The Media Trust points out in the blog post detailing this new service, users’ patience with redirects is much lower on mobile, and having malicious redirects could turn the user off from the publisher altogether. Read the post.

Startup Success

Adconion Direct CEO Kim Reed Perell is the subject of a glowing profile in Forbes. After living through the boom and bust of dot-com bubble years, Reed Perell started her own performance marketing company, which she sold to Adconion Media Group for $20 million. She attributes her success to building a profitable company from the ground up rather than relying on funding. “It always takes twice as long and twice as much money than you think it will,” she said. Read more. Reed Perell claims her company has seen 70% growth in ad sales in the past year.

Online Payment Struggle

Mobile is working well for eBay and PayPal, but offline is a major headache for the companies right now, according to Mobile Commerce Daily. It’s a struggle that eBay is going to continue working on as big retailers successfully merge brick-and-mortar stores with mobile. “PayPal in-store has gotten lost in the shuffle over NFC, iBeacon, Bluetooth low energy and anything else you can imagine,” said Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at Retail Systems Research. “I think the fundamental issue with mobile payments is that they’re solving a problem consumers don’t believe they have.” Read more.

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