Mobile Ads: What Works and What Doesn't - WSJ.com - 1 views
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Simeon Spearman on 01 Nov 12"Big Is Beautiful As smartphone screens get larger, companies have found some success with ads such as "takeovers" that briefly fill all or most of a device's screen. San Francisco app company Fotopedia sells such ads on its iPhone and iPad apps, which let people flip through high-quality photographs of Paris, national parks or wild animals. Marketers including National Geographic and travel websites Jetsetter and Expedia Inc. EXPE -0.23% pay roughly $1 to $1.50 for each user who clicks an ad, which fill a full screen. Like fashion ads in a luxury magazine, the Fotopedia ads appear every 10 "pages" or so of the app. As many as 18% of people who see an ad click on it, said Christophe Daligault, Fotopedia's senior vice president of global operations. On the Web, it isn't unusual for just 1% of people shown an ad to interact with it, marketers said. Still, big ads should be used sparingly, some marketers said. Craig Bierley, director of General Motors Co.'s GM -0.84% Buick advertising, said the auto maker tends to limit takeover ads to major product introductions because otherwise "people might find it annoying.""