Mobile advertising leads the way for social networks

Flirtomatic highlights the success of mobile advertising with its billionth mobile advert

1 May 2008 – Less than a year ago, Flirtomatic, the mobile and online flirting service served its first text and banner ad. Today it announced the placement of its billionth mobile advert.

Flirtomatic, the UK’s only social network dedicated to mobile, serves over 56 million text and banner ads each week and has seen quick and steady growth over the last year – with ad revenue growth of 31% in Q1 2008 over the previous quarter and a 27% growth in ad impressions in the last month.

Flirtomatic has a number of consistent advertisers on the site including O2, Orange, Vodafone, Yahoo, Samsung and MSN. Its range of mobile advertising services can target specific pages and channels of the Flirtomatic mobile site as well as user targeting through gender, age and location by postcode.

Matt Dicks, Head of Sales and Marketing at Flirtomatic commented, “Traditionally, the majority of advertisers are content or gambling services, who are well established off-portal services who fully understand the mobile acquisition model.

“What we are seeing now, is the trend changing very slightly and more brands are testing mobile advertising. With the increase in users, the advertising model for mobile is likely to change, moving away from standard banners and text advertising to a more integrated and targeted system as consumers begin to engage more and become familiar with the technology.” adds Dicks.

As more brands begin testing mobile advertising, the single biggest restriction to its success, is the lack of a mobile specific website or a suitable mobile centric retail promotion. Flirtomatic overcame this by offering brand marketers a mobile destination. For example, a branded profile page, promoting products, delivering brand awareness, driving the number of clicks or footfall to venues or stores through mobile ticketing and coupons.

Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic commented, “It is wonderful to see how successful our mobile advertising has been. Being in the position to place our billionth ad in less than a year of launch we have exceeded all expectations we had. We hope to continue building this and are aiming to announce a series of these deals over the coming months in conjunction with our Ad sales networks.”

Flirtomatic’s announcement follows a recent partnership with LBi Netrank who is working to identify areas of the site that need to be adapted to improve its mobile search traffic. Through LBi’s work, Flirtomatic expect to see more than 100,000 unique mobile users in the next month, exceeding all previous targets.

Flirtomatic also recently confirmed its first on-portal deal with Orange which will see it promoted on the operator’s mobile and online channels.

About Flirtomatic
Launched in 2006, Flirtomatic has quickly developed flirting as a new entertainment category. Operating an uninterrupted service across the web and mobile, Flirtomatic enables users to flirt, meet new people and have fun online.

The addictive nature of the service generates phenomenally high levels of interaction. August 2007 saw Flirtomatic reach more than 100 million WAP page impressions, whilst September 2007 surpassed 110 million WAP page impressions, highlighting the high levels of interaction generated by the addictive nature of the service. Flirtomatic offers brands a range of marketing opportunities to tap into this intimacy with their customer base.