The history of the creation of "Mobile Advertising"

    As the Steel Was Tempered.


    Topic published at the request and support of the residents of Habr.

    I'll start with the results.

    Ad network now:


    - 20 million advertising views per day
    - 3000 advertising campaigns conducted
    - 150 advertising campaigns in rotation simultaneously
    - 84 countries of the world and 326 mobile operators in targeting settings
    - 100% mirror statistics with detailed logs for both sides of the mobile advertising market

    For me, this is 3 years of work without days off and holidays, access to publishers outside of Russia and offers of integration with other systems, dozens of problem partners and everyday stress.

    For all the time I worked on the project, I got a lot of experience and met interesting people.
    I consider all the experience gained positive for conclusions and further work. I consider any situation overcome on my own an adventure and the plot of tales for friends.
    At one time, mobile Internet was a hobby and a game for me, but the hobby grew into a business, and the game became part of the business process.

    I will try to do without addresses and surnames. Get ready to read a lot.

    The story begins in 2005, when I made my first mobile site (the websites never interested me). It was a catalog of nightclubs in Russia with contacts and addresses, in addition it contained several links to content and had its own chat for regular visitors to communicate.

    After a short period of time, I thought, as they say now, about the monetization of the project. The purpose of monetization was self-sufficiency, that is, in order not to invest in the project, and the project could provide for itself with attendance of about 600-800 people daily. Now this project is a music news feed, without catalogs and other information.

    2006 year.

    At that time, I did not see advertising networks for mobile sites, I only knew affiliate programs that redeem traffic to third-party sites for a penny with their own accounting algorithms. I was not happy with the sale of traffic by such software, I was constantly looking for more acceptable solutions, the requirements for which I already started to formulate for myself.

    2007 year

    One of their first experiences with placing quality targeted advertising on a mobile project was of course Google AdSense.
    It seemed that it was very difficult to withdraw money from it, but the fantastic prices for the cost of the transition seemed like a fairy tale. Three months or more stood a block.
    As many already know, my Google AdSense account was banned after filling out the address form for sending a check. The reason, as I recall, was that the sites I linked to contained links that violated the rules and regulations.

    The idea was in the air.

    I searched, continued to put links from PP and pseudo-advertising tools, tried many, but settled on one that for the first time in a long two years of searches paid for advertising more than the cost of hosting for the project.
    Network advantages: displaying ads for a visitor, more expensive ads were shown more often, each visitor had their own link.
    I won’t give names and links, but I’ll say that at that time the possibilities and accuracy of accounting for this advertising tool amazed me, the price of the transition was fine, the output was every month, but ...
    Cons were definitely present:
    - lack of a transition log in the public domain
    - inaccurate viewing ads
    - lack of analytical information
    - muddy advertisers
    - Calculation and pricing in WMZ Webmoney (but I would like rubles)

    But all this was blocked by regular receipts to the account without delays and complaints.

    After that, it became clear to me that in Russia there is no universally uniform way of advertising on mobile sites, with the calculation in rubles. The niche is completely free, and click-through resale softwares are not related to advertising and, therefore, are not competitors in principle. So far, I myself did not fully understand how to implement this, what investments are needed and what will be required for maintenance. But he looked for people, looked, studied how the emerging advertising tools work.

    2008 year.

    Good mobile advertising tools began to appear. He himself began to use some to advertise his project. Acquaintance with the managers / administration of the networks gave an additional reason to think about increasing advertising turnover. Claims and requirements for advertising tools were formed by themselves with the growth of turnovers and needs. I would like one tool where all the minuses were removed, all the necessary chips were implemented, and there would be an opportunity to monetize not only one project, but give everyone an opportunity to transparently use the advertising opportunities of their site.

    Having knowledge of all (maybe almost all) traffic purchase / sale systems existing at that time, their subtleties and payment terms, I tried to organize a stable stream of transitions from one PP to another. The first project appeared, taking into account transitions, a multi-user structure and a credit system for buying / selling, where the rate for loans (credit - unit of calculation) was formed by the internal exchange. Starting speed and price difference were insignificant, but understanding the logic of the processes can be successfully resold, remaining a big plus. This was also in the hands of new networks, which could in the shortest possible time give their advertisers a large amount of traffic and work out the budgets received. I myself several times organized advertising flows for advertising campaigns of famous brands, but I received only a percentage of the budget without direct contacts with advertisers.

    Further, my programming knowledge was not enough. To optimize and improve the purchase / sale system, good hands were needed by the programmer.

    At that time, I already had a significant balance on advertising, contacts with managers of well-known networks and agreements on large volumes of traffic.
    The advertising campaigns that drove the ad networks were large, advertising budgets exceeded my earnings tenfold. All this began to turn into a gameplay for me. I started looking for a programmer to improve my tools and logging system. Money and turnover allowed to hire an employee.

    Many of my friends did not believe that it would work with advertising, especially in such a narrow field as mobile Internet.

    The first experience of entrusting the idea of ​​a buy / sell tool to a third-party developer was negative. Either the level of the developer was not high, or I could not formulate the task, but the developer didn’t work for the fixed payment for supporting the tool consisting of one file and the database, I had to raise deductions in his direction and add more tasks to match the amounts and performed works. The catalog of sites, which still stands in the state of 60% of the planned, has gone into the launch. Not fused, and pay, and demand for work. The developer went into freelance, leaving me in a panic and with an obscure tool code.

    The following experience with a remote developer was not long in coming.
    I was recommended a young and very gifted specialist.
    The task was simple:
    - make a tool for buying and selling advertisements on mobile sites
    - with the ability to target advertisers by mobile operators, mobile browsers, brands of phone manufacturers
    - maintaining a full detailed log for each display and transition
    - with automatic input of funds
    - with free registration in the system
    - single account for all operations

    Work on the project went very quickly, I myself did not believe that everything was realizable and customizable, although I did not take much into account in the first version of the network. Three months after setting the task, the advertising network was already working, but it needed at least its own server, and the existing hosting did not allow either external or incoming requests, which greatly complicated the work, up to the project stop at the first stages of work.

    With the appearance of good incomes, a desire arose to go into legal existence, to establish an organization, which would give direct access to the good budgets of large advertisers.
    All available experience and ready-made tools allowed to accumulate on primary investments in the business. If I knew where to look for investors, how to get start-up capital and the support of specialists, then everything would be possible faster.

    On the bad experience of finding co-founders.

    I will give advice: “One person must manage the business, on the decision of which the course of affairs, all participants and employees will depend.” And I wanted to go the other way.

    To start the advertising network, both advertisers and the sites on which the advertisement will be placed are needed. In the absence of one of the parties to the turnover, the network of income will not bring.
    As a co-founder, I invited friends from the sales department of another advertising tool. The terms of the partnership were 50x50: from me the equipment, network maintenance, sites and traffic, and from the “partners” side, the advertisers. The scheme is correct when everyone is busy with their task for the sake of a common cause, but, as it turned out, it is better to do everything yourself. I waited a long time until the "partners" come to advertisers. I changed constituent documents several times before submitting tax, adjusting to the interests of my “partners”, but one test advertiser with dubious advertising campaigns for three months didn’t suit me and my employees.

    The server is purchased, installed in the DC, the advertising network is set up, people are hired, sites are connecting to the network, time has passed. Expectations of new advertisers gave way to anxiety about the profitability of the project. When “partners” stopped answering my calls, SMS and letters, I had to make a decision to get out myself, to get out of this situation.

    Mobile Advertising LLC

    An organization has been created, an office has been rented and a loan has been taken for the first salaries to employees. People believed in me, I expected full return from them, they did not disappoint me. I hope they also have no complaints or complaints about possible rigidity in the first months of work, but then they had to come up. Only rigidly, in the absence of external financing, by distributing responsibilities and means, could one get on their feet.

    The first contract was received during the first three months of the organization’s work, we went to it for a long time. The second in almost six months. It would seem that there are organizations seeking advertising, there are publishers who want to sell advertising, but getting an advertising contract is not just going to the office, bringing a commercial offer and signing an agreement. Communication is everything.
    I had to go to content providers, call offices, write letters with commercial offers, but this did not give any results. My connections and the connections of my friends brought to the managers who are responsible for advertising within the KP. A couple of calls to the right people and here’s a contract for you, advertising campaigns have been signed and started. I note that the first contract I signed with KP has been extended for all three years and is currently valid.

    Work on attracting sites to the network is one of the most ungrateful pursuits. The more you try for people, the worse they treat you. As an example: I personally helped the first partners set up advertising campaigns and explained how to choose ads, communicated with everyone through ICQ, people knew me for a long time, but more and more my help turned into a duty. At any time of the day there were requests, comments, requirements. I had to listen to rudeness and read mats in my direction. He put people on his neck - lifelong support. I had to limit the use of ICQ, now this is not more than once a week. I made all business contacts on Skype, contacts on a business card that I personally give to an important person. There is a standard ticket system for partners where you can always ask a question and get an answer. All requests and answers are personalized.

    With advertisers, too, everything is not going smoothly, but once I set up a template for them, showed where to turn on / off campaigns, where to monitor statistics, where to select sites, and they understand everything. There are also independent partners, from whom there are no questions or complaints. They themselves place ads, use all the functionality, they monitor and upload statistics for local processing.

    Our core team consists of three people:
    I, in the person of the leader and coordinator,
    Andrei - support partners and users of our tools;
    Nikolay - hardware support and all software.
    All in shared participation and for more than three years doing this together.
    My employees are my friends, people whom I trust and my like-minded people.

    We were connected by a chain of random events. Nikolai, at that time still not a very experienced programmer, wrote a catalog of nightclubs for my first mobile site. The first systems for buying and selling conversions we organized with Andrei. He was brought to me by one of my first public works, then joint interests and frequent meetings with or without, made us good friends.
    We are all originally from different countries, but now we are working together. I managed to assemble a team, I was lucky in this.

    The organization also employs salaried employees, but the staff turnover does not allow focusing on core business. Training and introducing new people is time-consuming. All activities are organized through an online office.

    Our advertising network: mobiads.ru
    The project has been working for three years. During this time, the network engine, including the functionality and authorization system, was rewritten from scratch. A new engine in operation a little over a year.

    The designer from me is rather weak (I am not the designer), but the whole design that is present now is invented by me. Many reproach for minimalism and lack of information on the main page, but I think that it’s better easier than a bunch of extra elements and graphics. At the moment, work is underway on a new network design. The work is performed by a professional studio. The design will be radically different from the existing scheme.

    The system is built on the full trust of three parties.

    The owner of the site chooses which advertising campaigns to show his visitors;
    The advertiser chooses on which site the rotation of his advertising campaign will go;
    We control traffic from sites and advertisements.

    The basic principles of the network

    Initially, there were:
    - regular payments once a week
    - no porn in the text of the links that hung the entire mobile Internet
    - accuracy of accounting and an understandable logic system
    - accurate logistics and the system for issuing advertisements, the
    following was added to this list:
    - transparency of all information about sites and advertising campaigns
    - mirror statistics for both groups of network users
    - analytical information to advertisers about the current and past campaigns
    - information about all current promotions for legal holder s websites

    Because parts of the network:
    - auction system ad
    - good speed issue advertising
    - the necessary debugging information is displayed in the comments at the place of advertising output
    - along with statistics, a log of each transition with IP, referrer and additional is attached. data
    - the ability to choose the time of rotation of the advertiser
    - to set the minimum cost of advertising for your site

    Further network development plans:
    - expansion of ways of advertising
    - integration with major international networks
    - consultations and seminars for advertising agencies
    - the presence of representatives of the network in all important conferences and forums

    so My personal plans include:
    - applications for modern mobile platforms
    - new mobile projects and services
    for these projectsa team is being formed .

    Ask questions, write recommendations.

    PS
    I am very grateful to the people who helped and supported me in difficult moments.
    Thanks to the Habrovsk people who helped in the publication of this material.
    I do not know the consequences of this topic, but I hope they will be only positive.
    Always open to new connections with interesting people.

    PSS
    Requires developers for Android, iPhone and Win Phone, preferably living in St. Petersburg.
    If you are interested in teamwork on new projects in shared participation, send your resume by e-mail. There are more than enough ideas for starting new projects.

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