We have all been hearing the rumblings about mobile ads for the past few years, but where is mobile advertising today? Has this new channel really started to show its true potential as a viable source of traffic yet?

Whether texting, looking up the basketball scores or scanning the latest news, we are all spending more and more time on our phones. Many professionals have now traded their regular mobiles for the latest version, high-tech PDAs. So is it possible that we have been hit with advertisements and just not seen them?

Currently a $1-billion dollar marketing channel, accounting for just .2% of all advertising, EMarketer is now estimating mobile ad spend to grow to over $19 billion in just four years!

This means that the channel is really an un-tapped area for many merchants and should be tested now, while costs are just a fraction of ‘traditional’ Internet ads. Advertisers can choose to create specific mobile campaigns that target a certain demographic, just as you can with search. Further, search engines continue to grow their mobile capabilities, including mapping, GPS, and advertisement all in one!

Many marketers had predicted that 2007 was going to be the year that this advertising option would break through to the mainstream, but Mobile Advertising has still not begun to realize its huge potential. Slow growth of high speed networks and lack of an overall mobile internet audience have slowed the mass adoption by advertisers.

The recent introduction of flat-rate mobile plans and lower cost smart phones should help to expand the mobile phone user audience and increase mobile ad spending levels. According to eMarketer, worldwide mobile ad spending will grow from 2.7 billion in 2007 to over 19 billion in 2012. Text message (SMS) campaigns will likely account for the majority of the spend, with advertisers using the “walk before you run” approach before testing more complex campaigns with Mobile Search and Display formats.

Consumer costs continue to drop and mobile technology is improving, but there are still obstacles to overcome with mobile carrier constraints, user privacy, multiple ad formats, campaign tracking, and the unawareness of what the space can provide to an advertiser. 2008 probably wont be the year that Mobile Ads hit the mainstream, but its a good bet that Mobile Advertising will eventually rival Search Advertising.

Shopping cart abandonment happens when a visitor initiates the order by starting the check out process, but leaves before the purchase can be completed. The rate at which visitors abandon the cart is a critical indicator of website performance. For online businesses with their main goal of selling products, shopping cart abandonment can mean the difference between profitability and loss.

According to various industry publications the average shopping cart abandonment rate is currently around 40% - 60% for most online merchants. That means that roughly one out of every two visitors who adds an item to their shopping cart ultimately abandons it instead of completing their purchase. Although the rate of abandonment is alarming, the opportunity for improvement is significant. E-commerce businesses have to learn how to identify and implement effective strategies to streamline and optimize their ordering processes. Understanding the causes of shopping cart abandonment can help any online merchant convert more visitors to buyers.

Leading causes of shopping cart abandonment, involve a lack of effective conversion marketing strategies. Some of the most common reasons people abandon their shopping carts are:

• Comparison shopping and browsing - The Internet makes comparison shopping easy. Consumer performs shopping research before buying, which causes a time delay between initial visit and actual purchase. It’s not unusual for consumer to add items to the cart to determine the total cost of purchase including tax and shipping or save items for later purchase. Visitor may return later after further comparison shopping on other websites or may completely abandon the site and buy elsewhere.

• Confusion in regards to checkout process - Consumer is intent on buying, but can’t determine how to complete the checkout process. Consumers may be confused about added costs such as shipping or distracted by other elements on the pages.

• Impatience and frustration - Consumer becomes impatient if the checkout process is too long, shopping cart pages load slowly, site requires registration before purchase, or requests non-purchase related information. Client gets frustrated when facing shopping cart technical problems like receiving a form error message but not being able to figure out what was in error, or has been returned to the form to find the original data cleared as well when facing payment issues i.e. the site doesn’t take certain credit cart type. Out of stock and back ordered products may also irritate customers, they will not want to wait for the product and may purchase from other site or offline instead.

• Privacy, Safety and Security Fears - Consumer is concerned with providing personal information, including credit card. A lack of confidence and trust in an e-commerce business is a sure sign of shopping cart abandonment, especially with the rise of spam, identity theft and other fraudulent activities. Anything that seems a little out of the ordinary or order forms that ask for too much personal information may scare potential customer away.

• High shipping prices or long delivery times - High cost of shipping and the lack of shipping options may discourage customers from purchasing products online.

• Total Cost of Purchase ends up being more than expected

Shopping cart abandonment is a significant problem. The many ways to reduce it will be discussed in Shopping Cart Abandonment Demystified - Part 2.