Google expands cell ad program to affiliated sites

SAN FRANCISCO, US: Google Inc has expanded its widely used AdSense online advertising service to allow affiliated Web site publishers to target ads at Internet users on cellphones as well as computers.

The leader in computer-based Web search and advertising has begun allowing hundreds of thousands of affiliated Web sites that carry advertising sold by Google now to run contextual advertising targeted at mobile phone users.

The long-anticipated move by Google lets Web site publishers begin generating ad revenue when consumers view ads on their sites via their mobile phones.

"Everything we have done in the PC area can be extended to mobile phones," Dilip Venkatachari, product management director for Google AdSense for mobile phones, said in an interview. "The needs are similar."

Those needs include new money-making opportunities for Web site publishers and the need of advertisers to find new ways to reach consumers, coupled with the willingness of some people to tolerate advertising on phones in exchange for free services.

AdSense for Mobile is intended for AdSense customers who have Web sites specifically for mobile phone browsers.

Like other AdSense products, mobile text ads run on an auction model. The system automatically reviews the content of publishers' mobile Web sites and delivers text ads that are relevant to the Web sites' audience and content. Publishers earn money whenever mobile users click on the ads.

Google stands to make money on transaction fees only when mobile phone users click on their ads, similar to the way its online advertising service works on computers.

The move expands Google's ability to make money running phone advertising on sites other than its own. Google already offers advertising aimed at mobile phone users through its AdWords program on its own sites.

Mobile advertising, while a still nascent market, is able to reach an increasing percentage of the world's 2.5 billion mobile phones as users upgrade to handsets with built-in mobile Web browsers running on high-speed networks.

"The effects of all that is that we will see rapid adoption" of advertising on mobile phones, Venkatachari said.

He declined to put a timeline on growth in mobile Internet advertising, but said Google was deriving "meaningful revenue" from its own search, mapping other services on mobile phones.

Wall Street expects Google to earn revenue of $16.3 billion in 2007, virtually all of it from placing Web advertising in front of computer users.

"The mobile advertising market is certainly in the early stages," Venkatachari said. "We are making it (financially viable) for new sources of mobile content to emerge," he said.

Google AdSense for Mobile will soon be available in the United States, as well as England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan. Singapore will be added in a couple weeks.