iPromote launches mobile ad network for local businesses

Small local businesses are different from enterprises and Internet startups. They may not have anyone to sit around working out their media buys. They may not want to splurge on ad creation. But they do want to advertise to potential buyers who are nearby.
iPromote, which already operates a Web-based local ad network for small businesses, has extended its reach onto mobile phones. For a minimum of $5 per day, iPromote will serve display ads — that means they’re not counting clickthroughs, they just show the ad and hope for the best — to mobile phones near an advertiser’s place of business.
CEO Michael Barr said in a prepared statement that this is “a major breakthrough for local businesses that can now access mobile advertising to directly reach new customers in their local area.” Mobile ads today are a small percentage of the online ad market, but no one seems to doubt that over the next few years, mobile ads are a guaranteed growth area. Especially if mobile ads prove more effective than outdoor advertising at getting shoppers to come in from the sidewalk.
Barr said it’s “a tremendous opportunity for iPromote.” No argument there. What we want to know is how tremendous.
Meanwhile, if you’ve got time to kill over Christmans, give iPromote’s automatic ad generator a spin. Punch a URL into the box on iPromote’s homepage, and it will mix images from that site with pictures from a stock photography database to create both Web and mobile display ads. (Remember, these are designed to get a brand name in front of consumers, not to get them to click.) You can edit the result, the premise being that it’s easier than starting from scratch. iPromote’s software put a ChaCha logo in place of ours, but we like the Guy From an Old Painting.