Three years ago Apple released the first iPhone, and mobile advertising will never be the same.  The Apple orchard has continued to grow its’ market share of the smart phone niche and now owns roughly, 28% according to Nielsen survey.

Last week the Apple iPhone 4 went on sale with analysts projecting 1 million to 1.5 million units would be sold in the first three days, compared with 1 million during last years launch of the 3GS.  The Apple faithful that were upgrading their device represented 77% of the iPhone 4 sales.

Advertisers are aware of this growth, are anxious to tap into these markets and get their content into these smartphones.  Just one problem - Apple’s strict control of the applications (apps); these apps will be the vehicle for advertisers to reach this valuable market of tech-savy leading-edge gadget buying consumers.

Apple has truly gotten everyone’s attention, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which will investigate whether Apple Inc.’s practices are harming their competition.  Wow, in just three short years, Apple has enraged the folks at Adobe over its choice to ban Flash video technology in favor of the HTML5 standard.  Google has also complained about being shutout of the market place for presenting ads inside the iPhone, due to restrictions placed on the developers of the highly prized apps running on their devices.  AdMob’s founder and now Google vice president Omar Hamoui said in a blog post, “if enforced as written, would prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google’s advertising solutions on the iPhone.”  He added Apple’s rules “hurt both large and small developers by severely limiting their choice of how best to make money.”   These conflicts reinforce the fact that mobile advertising represents a huge potential market worth fighting for.

How this will all play out remains to be seen, but one thing we can agree upon is that it is worth monitoring.  Keep your eye on the news out of the MicroSoft camp and their recently released mobile operating system.  How will Yahoo place it’s content on these smartphones?  Does Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz have a plan of attack via a deal with Nokia to provide email and chat services?  I’m sure the next three years will bring more excitement and opportunities for savy internet marketing professionals, and the entrepreneurs mining these channels.

It has become strikingly apparent that browsing the internet from your mobile device is becoming increasingly more common.  So making sure that your website is mobile friendly and you are leveraging your mobile traffic to the best of your ability, should be of the utmost importance to you. The main question that tends to perplex people is whether or not visitors are trying to find their website from a mobile device?

The best way to establish whether or not visitors are seeking out your website from a mobile device is through your analytical data. Google Analytics is the best free tool in helping you to analyze your website traffic. You can find out how many people are coming to your site from a mobile device and how they are interacting with your site.  As a result you will be able to either confirm or deny your need for a mobile friendly website.

Google Analytics permits you to make advanced custom segments, which allow you to easily determine if visitors are coming to your site from a mobile device. To begin creating an advanced custom segment, click “Advanced Segments” from the “My Customizations” section of your profile and then click “Create New Advanced Segment.”

Follow the 7 easy steps below to create your customize advanced segment and better determine how many visitors are finding you from their mobile device.

1. Drag the `Dimension’ or metric from the left-hand side into the field bordered by dotted lines. (i.e. `Operating Systems’, as seen above)
2. Choose the `Condition’ appropriate to your segment. (i.e. starts with, ends with, greater than.. etc) “Contains” was the value used in our example above.
3. Enter the comparison `Value’ you are using to measure the condition selected. (illustrated above are the names of the operating systems)
4. You can use “and” “or” statements as well to make the segments more comprehensive and limiting.
5. Be sure to click ‘Test Segment.’ to ensure that you chose conditions that make sense and pull data correctly.
6. Name your segment accordingly, and then click ‘Create Segment’ to complete the creation of the segment.
7. Once you have saved the advanced segment, you will be able to apply it through the ‘advanced segments” function in your profile. You will also have the ability to edit the segment at a later date as seen below.

 
Now comes the fun part! You will now be able to determine the quality and quantity of your mobile traffic through your newly created advanced segment and validate the need for creating a mobile friendly website.

As we all know, cell phones are a term from another era. Today it’s all about having a handheld device, a smart phone that can tackle everything from email to the internet to the myriad of apps that somebody wants to have at their fingertips.

One thing that hasn’t changed so much over the years is the fact that people still like to eat in restaurants as well as get delivery or carryout. The future (and the now) however is consumers using their smart phones to help them facilitate their meals.

The user experience differential of viewing a restaurant’s mobile website vs. standard site on a mobile device is dramatic. One helps conduct business and one essentially repels it. The mobile site may not include all of the pictures and aesthetics that a regular site does, but it will incorporate the menu and directions (even to multiple locations), which is in all likelihood what someone wants if they are searching for the restaurant from their phone.

So few restaurants have mobile versions of their sites today that an argument could be made to wait a year or two before embarking on this endeavor. Just like with regular websites, the companies who were early adopters are the ones who have a considerably more advanced and profitable online presence today.