InMobi takes on Facebook, Google with Miip

New ad delivery platform targets $ 1 billion worth of revenue in two years

InMobi, a Bengaluru startup is going head to head with Facebook and Google with a new ad delivery platform called Miip, in delivering context rich ads to mobile app users and guaranteeing higher returns to advertisers. With this, InMobi is aiming at revenues of $ 1 billion in two years.

Miip was launched in Silicon Valley on Wednesday. The company says that the solution will create discovery zones for consumers within their favorite apps and present a curated collection of product feeds, apps and related content with visuals. "The entire technology is built in India. It is disruptive," said Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of InMobi said. "In three months, the platform will have 100 billion sharing impressions globally".

The company plans to charge higher premium for ads delivered from advertisers and share revenue with mobile commerce companies on business transactions. The firm expects by 2017, over 268 billion apps would be downloaded globally, InMobi said on its website.

InMobi is betting on mobile apps, which users download for social conversations, e-commerce transactions and even education. They claim to be the world's largest third party ad discovery platform pitting against Google and Facebook, who have their own ad delivery engine that generates billions of dollars. Google dominates the web search market and is struggling to get a stranglehold in the mobile ad market, despite owning Android platform, which runs 8 out of 10 smartphones in the world.

InMobi has tied up with a few customers in the US, which it says, have got click through rates that are 1.5 to 2 times higher than the average rate. As against a banner ad, that gets one per cent clicks, the content discovery platform has seen 20-25 per cent clicks, said Tewari.

Miip will be the bedrock of all ad delivery services that InMobi offers to its clients. "We took two years to develop the solution. All our customers are seeing better impact." he said.

"We're working with InMobi to dynamically showcase our products within mobile ad units that display directly in app, allowing us to reach highly targeted audiences in 30,000+ apps within InMobi's network," said Slaton Carter, Director of Digital Marketing, TheRealReal.