Mobile Affiliate Marketing: Are You In?

It seems that mobile is both one of the less crowded affiliate marketing arenas, yet one of the fastest developing ones out there. The total number of mobile Internet users in the U.S. has grown from an average of 10,821 unique users a day in January 2008 to 22,369 a day in January 2009 [source], largely due to the rapid rise of iPhone’s popularity and use [source]. Some state that iPhones are generating 67% of total mobile Internet traffic [source], while others place BlackBerries and other smartphones much higher in rankings than iPhone [source]. Smartphones or iPhones, the facts are obvious — the mobile Internet’s popularity is growing, and marketers still have plenty of opportunities there.

The question posed in the title of this post is addressed to both affiliates, and merchants. Do you have mobile-friendly websites in place already? Are you doing anything in the mobile sphere yet? If not, I would highly encourage you to review this recap of Cindy Krum’s SES NY presentation on Mobile Marketing Strategies. She shared some useful tips to keep in mind as you start developing your affiliate marketing strategy towards the mobile Internet users. Here are just a few of them:

• Mobile is different in (a) bot algorithms, (b) simplified presentation, (c) sophisticated users, and (d) search being the primary way of browsing
• You must aware of such difficulties as (i) plethora of browsers, (ii) different size screens, (iii) varying download speeds
• Avoid embedding images, Flash, scripts, frames, mouse-over functions, objects, pop-ups/unders
• Code your mobile websites in XHTML
• Forget about .mobi domains

Read more here, and remember, it is still a largely untapped area as far as affiliate marketing goes. Go for it! And the sooner you get in — the better.