Tom Conrad has some pretty compelling evidence that mobile advertising could sell at a fat premium to web-based ads.
Conrad, the CTO of online radio station Pandora, says the click-through rates on Pandora's iPhone app ads have easily trumped the click-through rates on the web.
"Something like 3 percent of our iPhone ad impressions get a click while we get about 1 percent on our web product. And that's true even though we're oversaturating users with Beck's and Best Buy ads," said Conrad, while speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
The assumption is that if mobile ads are seen by more consumers, then the ad rates should reflect that.
And as an unrelated side note: Conrad also throws cold water on rumors that Apple is singling out and blocking specific iPhone apps that it considers competitive.
"I'm extremely skeptical of these theories that Apple is crippling certain apps. Pandora is actually a music company, and Apple has a huge music business . . . At the end of the day, I think it's quite likely that your app will get rejected by Apple if it provides a poor user experience. "
*Photo: *Flickr/Thomas Hawk
