Text advertising alters m-commerce landscape

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - 15:08 by Mike Price

A new affiliate services which allows any mobile-owning member of the public to earn cash by attaching adverts to the text messages they send is just one example of how m-commerce and phone technology is evolving in the modern age.

Gtext Media has launched the new initiative which earns subscribers money every time they send out a text with an attached add to their contacts and it is clicked on, in the same way that website owners can earn revenue from banner adds.

This new m-commerce initiative is the first of its kind in the world and shows how the values and practices of safe shopping online are being applied to the mobile world.

Of course the idea of bombarding your friends and family with ads each time you want to get in touch may not be the most appealing thing to contemplate, but there is obviously no pressure to interact with the ads and since webmail services like Gmail already float ads around messages anyway it is something with which many consumers will be familiar.

The system operates via a standalone application which is currently built for both iPhone models and Google's Android operating system. By placing a link within each text a user sends, it will potentially earn them a bit of cash on the side while their friends get access to the latest offers via safe shopping online.

At the moment the earnings per click are at around five pence, which may seem like a drop in the ocean, but getting a slice of the £6.8 billion m-commerce advertising market is not a bad idea given the further growth that is expected.

Mobile advertising is an unavoidable thing and it will actually help to subsidise the services and sites that you love, so considering new platforms like this should be done as objectively as possible.