Billing on Mobile

MMA compliance provides WAP billing with robust framework

sarahkeefe — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:48:45 +0000

The MMA code of conduct for mobile marketing provides a robust framework for the industry to follow. This means that all off-deck services sold in the US need to be MMA compliant. The code of conduct has recently been extended to mobile web services and WAP billing systems such as Bango’s mobile billing platform.

Here’s why WAP billing is good news for anyone selling mobile services:

More successful transactions – more money
Message based systems are prone to failure because some messages simply get lost in the operator’s network. Because Bango integrates directly with the operator’s own billing system, you’ll experience a higher conversion rate and more successful transactions.

In addition, as people are already in your mobile ‘shop’, you’ll benefit from more repeat sales as your consumers are bound to see something else they want and can buy there and then.

Bill your mobile marketing traffic
Now anyone responding to your mobile advertising campaigns (eg on-deck placement) or sponsored links in mobile search results can browse straight into your mobile website and pay directly on their phone bill. This means they no longer need to stop and send a text message to pay for the content.

This single, integrated ‘browse and buy’ flow generates more successful transactions and lets you fully capitalize on your hard working marketing dollars. Because the mobile web is without boundaries, brands often find users browsing into their sites from search engines, you need to take advantage of this free traffic as well to sell your digital content.

Transparent consumer experience
WAP billing gives your customers the same, familiar browse and buy model they see on the PC and on operator decks. So whether consumers are paying for a download or signing up to a subscription service, the process is familiar.

The payment page shows the merchant’s name, title of the content or service being bought price along with the price and terms and conditions, ensuring your customers fully understand what they are buying. They also get a clear cancel button should they not want to proceed.

Mobile websites can easily detect handset capabilities and only offer content known to work, ensuring the consumer does not pay for content they cannot access or use. You can also choose to use the Bango Identifier functionality to leverage the Bango User ID and personalize your site for each of your customers.

Lower support costs
Research from iGilliot and Qpass shows that when content is purchased using Premium SMS, refunds represent between 10-20% of mobile content sales. Bango’s statistics, however, show that on off-portal WAP sites refunds are much lower – no wonder WAP billing is being strongly endorsed by the operators.

With Premium SMS, the point of payment (sending the text message) and download (on a WAP page) are separated into two steps. With WAP billing, the point of payment and download are tightly coupled in one seamless WAP flow, leading to fewer errors and low refund levels.

Read the WAP billing guide to find out more how WAP billing delivers these benefits compared to Premium SMS and what the customer experience is like.

Does lots of mobile web traffic map onto m-commerce?

sarahkeefe — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:11:37 +0000

Everyone is now surfing
the mobile web

In our experience, not necessarily! When we compare the top 10 countries for mobile web traffic with the top 10 countries for mobile payments, then only 3 countries featured in both lists - the UK, USA and South Africa (November 2008).

What’s happening here is that mobile internet growth rates are way higher in countries where there isn’t a good fixed line network infrastructure. Countries like India, South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia fall into this category.

India, with a population of just over 1.1 billion and lack of an established fixed phone line network, relies on mobile phones to stay in touch.

However, high activity levels don’t necessarily mean lots of financial transactions. There are a number of reasons for this:

They’re just surfing the web - A higher proportion of people in these countries have no intention of buying any digital content through their phone, they are simply using their phone to get onto the web. Africa, in particular Nigeria, dominates international mobile phone access to the BBC’s news website.

Low disposable income - With the exclusion of the US and UK, the countries in the Bango Top 10 feature those with some of the lowest per capital incomes in the world. It doesn’t mean they won’t be buying, it’s just that content needs to be priced low for that market. In South Africa, for example, a game is 20 RAND (just under $2 when I did the currency conversion just now) but the same game will be priced at $4.99 for US consumers.

Lack of on bill payment - Enabling on bill payment is often difficult in these countries for one reason or another. Low payout rates make it uneconomical for content providers to market to consumers in these countries. Or, the need for operator approvals of all content to be sold, as in India, means its an onerous task to enable on bill payment - especially as there are over 10 operators covering this huge country.

From what we see of our customers, South Africa is the exception to the rule - there are lots of people surfing the moble web from a country with low fixed line infrastructure and low disposable income but you can create a great content business here.

Have you had any successes selling your digital content around the world? Do tell us. Why not read some of the experiences of Bango’s mobile billing customers.

Quiet revolution is taking place in US mobile billing

sarahkeefe — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:12:27 +0000

Mobile content industry moves to WAP billing

The best way of understanding the recent changes in mobile billing is to think of the mobile content industry as an oil tanker. Previously, it has been moving in a northerly direction in the Premium SMS sea. But the captain (think of mobile operators here) has given the order and now our oil tanker is moving westerly - towards the warmer climes of the mobile internet.

Like all oil tankers change happens slowly! So what has caused our oil tanker to change direction?

New mobile traffic channels have opened up - paying for on-deck links to off-deck sites and mobile advertising through Yahoo! and Google - so content providers are now acquiring customers through the mobile internet rather than via PC web affiliate programs. Quite simply, a quiet revolution is taking place in the way that media companies and content providers engage with their consumers and sell content.

Marketing is now more precisely targeted at consumers ready to purchase with sales made through WAP billing. The UK oil tanker registered in London started changing direction in 2005 and is now moving full steam towards WAPland. The good news is that the US oil tanker is now moving in the same direction - towards a MMA compliant WAP-based mobile subscription service.

Bango’s mobile billing service provides a seamless consumer journey and eliminates the need to send text messages to make a purchase. It offers a safe buying experience for consumers - the price, subscription time period and T&Cs are clearly displayed on-screen before consumers click to purchase.

A recent update to the Bango mobile subscription service provides an API so content providers can immediately see the status of all their subscriptions.

“Bango re-bills consumers on their behalf once the subscription period has finished, notifying the user by text,” said Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing at Bango. “Using the Bango API, content providers get up-to-date information on the status of each subscription which is invaluable as they measure the conversion rates of their mobile marketing.”

Are smartphones dumbing down mobile billing?

bangoandy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:44:12 +0000

Smartphone with Mozilla browser

Gartner research reveals that in Q2 2008, 10.5% of all phones sold worldwide was a Smartphone. While it’s great to see functionality rich browsers on mobile devices along with big screens and fast connections, the problem with emulating PC browsing is that it dumbs down the potential for mobile commerce.

On the mobile web today it’s simple to collect money from consumers worldwide through their mobile phone bill with just a single click. These things, and many others are nowhere near as simple to achieve on a PC through broadband today. This is partly because PCs are typically shared and static, compared to the personal nature of a phone which is always on and always with you.

Capabilities like on-bill payments are delivered securely by operators through Bango’s mobile billing services. In effect the operator is providing a “Smart Connection” – it’s a long way from the stories of operators turning into dumb pipes we saw a few years ago…

But as we rush to get smarter phone capabilities that are closer to the power of a PC we must take care not to dumb down our smart connection. Fortunately, plans are afoot to ensure this doesn’t happen with some operators already working with Bango to securely identify people prior to payment.

Google offers 70% payout rate for mobile apps

sarahkeefe — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:31:40 +0000

Mobile billing on the Google
phone

This has to be sweet music to any mobile apps developer. The news is that the Google Apps store on the T-Mobile G1 phone will payout a whooping 70% of revenue (see Google Releases Details On Android Market; Will Split Revenues Between Developers And Carriers). This is groundbreaking for mobile billing and the mobile content industry for a number of reasons but you have to ask yourself is this really good news for developers?

Google says developers will keep 70% of the revenue with the remaining amount going to the mobile operators and billing settlement fees. When you delve, the payment method is Google Checkout, rather than the more established “pay on the phone bill” which is used for the vast majority of mobile content sales.

While on the surface a 70% payout rate might seem great, there are some downsides. If phone bill payment was implemented such as the mobile billing service from Bango then developers could be:

Earning more revenue because everyone with a mobile phone can pay on their phone bill but not everyone has a Google Checkout account.

Earning more revenue than the 70% payout rate, particularly for consumers who buy the content in the UK as the payout rates here are on average around 75% and go all the way up to 88% if the user is on the Orange network.

Even though T-Mobile is not involved in the billing at all, they still get a generous share of the revenues as a “reward” for letting Google onto their network. Google is now in a position to battle it out with Apple and steal some marketshare from the iPhone. This bribe, if you will, is a smart move and will win the hearts and minds of mobile operators worldwide.

Apple on the otherhand don’t give any content revenues from its apps store to any of the operators that supply the iPhone. In the Apple app store, the payment is through iTunes and good news for developers is they get a generous payout too but the carrier is completely out of the loop. How long do you think this will last? The G1phone is about to change the rules of the game.

Verizon 3-cent ruling great news for mobile marketing

sarahkeefe — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:50:06 +0000

Verizon says no to 3-cent hike

Verizon has been hiitting the news a lot recently. This past week , the US’s No. 2 mobile operator has been the subject of a “will they, won’t they?” question on charging their subscribers for sending text messages.

The plan was to charge $0.03 each, something that caused wide consternation in the mobile industry, particularly for mobile marketers.

That charge would have either doubled or tripled the cost to marketers who send out SMS text messages to opted-in consumers. On the otherhand, Verizon users would get less SPAM. Although Verizon requires approval of all “campaigns”, that rule is widely flouted. Services like Twitter mean that SPAM is an everyday hassle as there’s no cost to send a message.

The news today in Mobile Marketer is that Verizon will not levy the SMS fee on Nov 1 as originally planned differently. The levy could still happen but for the time being, Verizon is continuing to consult with the industry.

In fact, when Verizon does decide to go head, it will fall into line with almost all of the other 500+ operators around the world who do the same. What’s different though is that Verizon charges users to receive texts, something that is completely alien in Europe. It might explain why so few US phone users can receive texts abroad!

So if Verizon decides to go ahead and apply these charges, which it probably will do at some point then the question is whether the operator will change it’s policy for end users receiving texts.

Will France expand its mobile business overseas?

martinharris — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:41:50 +0000

Vive La France! Well as long as you are happy with the French “Gallery”.

France has a unique structure for mobile content with the Walled Gardens of their operator portals surrounded by a Fortified Field called “Gallery”. This is not true off-portal as there is a strict approval procedure which is run by the mobile operators. Outside gallery is the mobile desert where mobile billing can only be done by credit card.

The French Gallery!

I get a sense, however, that French mobile content companies are now eager to break out of their constrained local marketplace.

The walled garden is explained perfectly by the cartoonist Hugh, but in France, the mobile content market is a bit more like a sushi roll with the operator portals in the centre and a bit of fertile ground outside. Beyond that is the arid area called off-portal.

The problem is that instead of there being thousands or tens of thousands of companies selling off-portal in France, there are a few hundred and many of those exist on-portal as well. Its not good for the market because there is less encouragement to create new content companies and neither does it serve the consumer well. It has also created an environment where the local companies are not familiar with the mechanics of operating in a true off-portal environment and therefore they cannot understand the possibilities they may have in other territories.

The good news is that there is a movement among French mobile companies to expand into proper off-portal in the UK, Spain and the USA. A few French companies such as Gameloft have already pioneered the move to off-portal and are reaping the rewards. I met with several other French content providers last week and there were some common themes:

There is a lot of innovation and drive amongst French mobile companies.
The local French mobile content market is not bad, but there is limited choice for consumers.
Gallery is onerous even for the local companies and is a nightmare for foreign ones.
Their eyes are opening to the fact that off-portal markets in many other countries are strong and worth addressing. Target countries mentioned to me include: UK, Germany, Spain, USA, South Africa, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Australia.

Work is now being done by many content providers to make sure foreign language versions (in English, Spanish etc) of their sites and content are made ready for launches in early 2009.

Watch out as the French content companies expand their horizons.

Are higher payout rates increasing mobile billing volumes?

sarahkeefe — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:00:36 +0000

The mobile content pie

A basic rule of economics is that if you want to grow the size of the market then you need to make it attractive for people to invest and do business - and by attractive, we are talking about rewarding businesses financially. In the mobile content business, the most effective lever you can apply is increasing payout rates for mobile content billing off-portal which is just what the UK operators have done over the past few months.

Today, Orange’s top rate is 88%, Vodafone’s is 86%, 3’s is 79% and O2’s is 77.5%. They have not only increased the top rate but also upped payout rates for content sold at higher price points. Businesses should consider adding a subscription service or a £5 content bundle – all simple to set up and now delivering even bigger rewards.

Higher payout rates encourage content providers to run promotions on these networks as they receive a better return on their marketing investment. It’s virtuous circle and because businesses can measure the success of marketing promotions with tools like Bango mobile analytics, it builds confidence and shows them the best ways to spend their money.

At Bango, we saw this happen amongst our content providers in the last half of 2007 when the first major wave to payout increases occured.

This is being repeated once again and we believe it will dramaticaly increase the size of the mobile content pie. So even if the operator’s slice of the pie is smaller, the increased volumes means that everyone potentially wins - operators, content providers and billing networks like Bango.

But what do you think? Tell us…..

Refunds just 0.1% for mobile web billing

sarahkeefe — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:14:27 +0000

The plague of Premium SMS, apart from the current spate of law suits in America, is the high refund levels experienced by content providers. This has been a necessary evil when there wasn’t another way to buy digital content on the mobile phone but now there is an alternative!

The mobile web experience is clearer

This alternative is WAP billing where consumers buy content on the mobile web. They choose to buy content and then pay in one seamless internet session so there is little room for error compared to the two-step Premium SMS process.

Because the point of payment and download on the mobile web is tightly coupled into one seamless WAP flow, there are fewer support problems with refund levels as low as 0.1% of all downloads, according to Bango’s analysis of mobile web transactions. This compares to levels approaching 10-20% where content is purchased with Premium SMS (source: industry research firm iGillot).

Using the mobile web, consumers can purchase and download a variety of digital content as easily as they do on the PC internet. Many brands are realizing that by integrating the promotion of the mobile service with the rest of the mainstream marketing, it is true that “if you build it – they will come!”

UK payout rates approach credit card levels

sarahkeefe — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:07:19 +0000

UK payout rates

One of the reasons why the UK mobile content industry is as prosperous and vibrant as it is, is because the mobile operators in this country have increased payout rates over and above other European countries. This encourages content providers to run promotions on these networks as they receive a better return on their marketing investment.

What’s really interesting is that the payout rates are now exceedingly high, approaching that of credit cards. With billing networks like Bango content providers could be earning up to 88% on all content sales in the UK from Orange subscribers. Vodafone UK is close behind with a payout rate of up to 84%.

These levels are unprecedented in the industry and we watch with interest to see which other mobile operators follow the UK’s lead and realize that to grow a market, you need to reward those that can make it happen - the content providers.