As more companies try to capture customers through their mobile phones using banner, pop-up and video ads, one Scottsdale-based company, IQzone, has technology that can identify when a user leaves an app and automatically displays a large-format advertisement.
Through their patent-pending product Postitial, Android developers and publishers can work in synergy to embed the smart engine software and identify when the user leaves the app through their home or back button in order display a full-screen, rich media or video ad display. According to President and CEO Jim Wolfinger, this technology is returning a 3-5x click-through-rate (CTR), 5X effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM) and 10 percent uplift in revenue to publishers.
Recently IQzone partnered with Smaato, the leading global mobile ad exchange company. In a case study by Smaato, by adding Postitial to Mobivention’s (publisher) Android app “3D Mahjong Mountain”, there was 6x CTR to 1,500,00 impressions, an average 6x eCPM and 13x increase in revenue by using a 300×250 ads or smaller. COO of Smaato, Georg Fiegen stated “Postitial provides an innovative solution to [app developers and] publishers to increase overall earnings without impacting the user experience.”
With mobile ad revenues growing at 4X in the next few years generating close to $25 billion in revenue, banner spend dollars are projected to go down and move to large-format.
I sat down with Jim Wolfinger to learn more about Postitial and the future of mobile advertising.
Describe IQzone’s flagship product Postitial.
Postitial provides Android application developers (publishers) with a unique, incremental revenue stream. Postitial gives publishers the ability to display large-format advertising when the user closes an application. This innovative mobile advertising solution enables publishers to increase overall earnings without impacting user experience.
How has your technology increased engagement?
Our metrics are phenomenal. Engagement in mobile advertising is measured by how many users click an ad to interact further or learn more about the product advertised; this is known as the click-through rate (CTR). A recently concluded trial has shown the CTR on ads served in the Postitial slot to be six times higher than that of the same ads served inside the application. This in turn resulted in a 13x increase in revenue delivered to the publisher! These results have validated our initial belief that users are significantly more likely to engage with ads presented at app close, as they are no longer being interrupted during an active task.
With an extensive background in mobile technology, what problems were you trying to solve when you joined IQzone?
Many mobile application developers struggle to turn a profit. Ninety percent of the Android apps that are live today are free to the user, and as such are supported by in-app advertising. The mobile advertising industry is currently dominated by banner ads, which historically have resulted in poor engagement and minimal monetization. Therefore, app publishers would prefer to supplement these low-paying ad units with full screen, rich media, and/or video ads. However, there isn’t an ideal location within applications for these advanced ad types, so when publishers do place these types of ads, they interrupt the user experience and run the risk of driving away their users.
Additionally, $20 billion of brand advertising in the US alone wants to transition from print into mobile, but banner ads are simply unacceptable to these premium advertisers. Brands need the entire screen to tell their stories properly, and the global shortage of full screen mobile inventory represents their number one challenge in the mobile advertising space.
Our disruptive technology is designed to dramatically increase the supply of full-screen ad units globally, thus removing the single largest barrier preventing brand ad dollars from flowing into mobile.
Tell me about the partnership with Smaato and the launch.
We’ve partnered with Smaato, the leading global mobile ad exchange to launch our Postitial advertising solution. As an industry pioneer and leader, more than 70,000 app developers and publishers use Smaato to monetize their content in 230 countries. Smaato plans to release the Postitial-enabled software development kit to their entire Android developer and publisher base next week.
Why IQzone over a competitor?
Our patent-pending technology makes IQzone the only company in the world able to offer this solution for the Android OS.
Are you in the process of raising capital?
We are currently in the process of opening a new round of funding in the amount of $3 million. Our current investors have expressed a strong interest in a significant portion of this new round.
What happened to PicDial after IQzone pivoted?
PicDial is legacy product; there are no plans for an expansion into iPhone. Due the market feedback we have received for Postitial, we have pivoted the company to focus exclusively on mobile advertising.
Why an office in London and Scottsdale? Are you expanding beyond this?
Scottsdale is our headquarters; our founders and executive team have lived here for many years. Scottsdale has become a promising technology and software hub with an outstanding pool of engineering talent. We opened up a satellite office in London approximately two years ago because it is the epicenter of commerce in Western Europe. With the new round we plan to expand to San Francisco and New York.
Learn more about iQzone technology here.
3 thoughts on “Smaato to release IQzone's Postitial software to over 70,000 developers worldwide”
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No offense to anyone involved, but this sounds like a terrible thing to do to users. I would be alienated and seek to use an alternative app.
Cool to see they’ve moved on from their last product, which quickly became a commodity on all cell phones 🙁 …This new one seems more of a money maker, but will only make ad companies happy and will diminish the user experience.
A similar tradeoff Facebook is currently making…
i found this page after researching why my CraigsList app starting pushing ads to my phone… i uninstalled the app as a result. i think that it’s bullshit for ad companies to think that the phone that i bought and the service that i pay for equates to a place for them to get paid off of, especially when it ends up reducing my happiness associated with my purchases. I believe that Bill Hicks said it best when he asked people in the audience that worked in advertising to raise their hand, and then asked them to go kill themselves. over consumerism is a cancer in the world, and these asshats are pushing it to the “next level”. they need to find a real way to create value.