Adhere serves as an enabler for a wide array of mobile advertising applications and ad-sponsored services. Adhere fits the needs of different players in the mobile industry including:
The business models for mobile operators, mobile ad networks, and mobile content providers are based on creating new revenue streams by ad-sponsoring certain mobile services.
The Adhere Ad Server does not only serve targeted ads on the fly. Its capabilities also include campaign scheduling, campaign budgeting, and reports and statistics. Thus, it is a fully featured campaign management tool.
The usefulness of the Adhere User Profiles Server goes beyond just providing profiles for the Ad Server to serve targeted ads; it can serve as a full fledged Subscriber Data Management application.
Mobile Application Developers and Publishers
Adhere enables mobile application developers and publishers to replace the traditional product-based business models and service-based business models with a novel ad-funded business model. The ad-funded business model enables the application developers and publishers to offer their products and services to the end users for free and to securing a recurring revenue from the ads which is more attractive on the long run.
In addition, to enabling the ad-funded business model, the Adhere User Profile Server is an essential building block for all mobile application developers and publishers who wish to manage user registration, sessions and user preferences and demographics.
Mobile Content Providers
Mobile content providers offer a multitude of services which are ideal for ad sponsorship. The services can be classified into:
- Entertainment services such as the download of video or audio clips to mobile handsets
- Information services via SMS, MMS, or some proprietary applications. For example, daily weather forecasts, currency exchange rates, stock quotes, … etc
- Alerting and notification services for breaking news, disasters, … etc
Mobile ad networks create a marketplace for advertiser and operators/mobile publishers to meet. Their presence is necessary for the mobile advertising industry to scale. Adhere takes into consideration the needs for a scalable marketplace and fully supports:
- Multiple operators and multiple channels per operator
- Multiple advertisers and multiple campaigns per advertiser
- Maintains the privacy and confidentiality of the operators and advertisers
Mobile operators may deploy and operate a mobile advertising solution themselves or they may elect to partner with a Mobile Ad Networks or a Mobile Content Provider (usually on a revenue share basis). Depending on the ad-sponsored service, the operator may, or may not, elect to pass part of the revenue on to the mobile subscriber as an incentive for them to participate in the service. Some examples:
- Ad-sponsored audio ringback tones: most probably, the operator will have to offer its subscribers a cash incentive or some reward points for them to agree to listen to ads instead of the regular ringback tones.
- Ad-sponsored voicemail notification SMS: this service is usually free to the subscribers and no need to add an extra bonus for inserting ads into the notification SMS.
The list of mobile services which may be ad-sponsored is endless and includes: messaging services (SMS and MMS, mobile web, content delivery to the mobile handset, ringtones and ringback tones, screen savers, custom applications, … etc.
Enterprises
Some enterprises use mobile messaging (predominantly SMS, but also increasingly MMS) as CRM channels for communicating with their clients. For example, a bank may send its client an SMS notification each time a transaction occurs on their account. Another example, a healthcare center may send its clients SMS reminders of their appointments. Such notifications and reminders can be supplemented by targeted promotional information about other services offered by these institutions.