Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Gil Dudkiewicz, CEO of StartApp (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: So you are saying that as this evolves, the pay-per-call on the mobile side is going to be more of a call-to-action-based advertising metrics?

Gil Dudkiewicz: You have more options in a pay-per-action than you have on the PC. For example, a few days ago I got a Starbucks gift code. I can use it on the PC and print a page, or get it on the cellphone and just show it next time I am going to Starbucks. The experience is going to be totally different. But it gives users and the industry a bit of time to evolve.

SM: Where are we? This pay-per-call seems to be a compelling conversion metric to work with. Are people using pay-per-call as a metric right now?

GD: People are absolutely using pay-per-call.

SM: What about customizing to local offers or situations? How big of a trend is that today?

GD: It is a huge trend. If you look at any of the maps or a GPS, when you are traveling from one place to another, you see almost only local ads on them.

SM: All ad networks are normalized on local advertising at this point?

GD: I wish I could say that. But the industry is definitely moving there.

SM: You made the statement that everybody is standardized and moving in that direction. Why is it not?

GD: Because there are also technical obstacles. You have different devices, and not all users are enabling them to give up their locations. There are privacy options that users need to enable, which they are not always willing to do.

SM: Can you double click down on that a bit? As an ad network, if you want to be able to do local advertising, what permissions need to be enabled on the device?

GD: You need to enable the device to provide information [about] the locale, and the user needs to be willing to do that.

SM: Where does the setting happen?

GD: On the device.

SM: So all apps have access to the location information?

GD: No. It depends on which platform you are looking into. Most apps, when you download them, ask for permissions.

SM: So it is app specific? Each app needs to seek permission to turn the location on individually?

GD: That is correct. There are ways to overcome that, but each application needs to ask for permission.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Interview with Gil Dudkiewicz, CEO of StartApp
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