Guide to Mobile Classifieds

We use our mobile phones today for everything from checking email to downloading the day’s entertainment. It’s no surprise then that one of the best places to check out classifieds is right through your mobile phone. Mobile phone classifieds have all of the benefits of online classifieds because of the phone’s access to the web but they also have additional beneficial features that are unique to the phone platform. Consumers, advertisers and classified ad publishers can all benefit from taking their classified ad use to the next level and using their cell phones to post and read ads.

The most important thing about mobile classifieds is their immediacy. Like with online classifieds, ads are posted in real-time and individuals can review them at their convenience to find the latest in everything from jobs to free stuff. Better than the Internet, though, is the fact that mobile classifieds are accessible right through your phone which you almost always have by your side. You can easily read mobile classifieds while you’re waiting in lines or using public transportation which is not necessarily the case if you rely on a computer to access the Internet.

More importantly is the fact that communication through the mobile classified sites may be more immediate than if you’re using standard online classifieds to get information. Mobile classifieds typically allow the user the option of simply clicking on a space in the ad to send a mobile email or a text messages to the person who placed the ad. Responses are then sent back to you via text. This tends to happen much more quickly than email exchanges online since you may be able to check texts at times when you can’t check email. This immediate back-and-forth response option makes mobile classifieds efficient and increases the ease of the classified transaction.

To use mobile classifieds correctly, you need to understand that there are two different types of mobile classified ad sites. First there are mobile versions of existing online sites (such as Craigslist) which basically provide a version of the site that is easier to navigate on the cell phone. Secondly, there are sites that are designed solely as mobile classified ad sites. These sites (which include Gumiyo and iMojoAds) are the best sites in terms of leveraging the SMS / MMS functions of the cell phone in conjunction with mobile phone ads. For example, Gumiyo allows you to set up alerts for items that you want and then you’ll be notified by text message when that item shows up on the site.

Mobile advertising is particularly appealing to sellers in today’s marketplace because it is able to provide great results using targeted advertising and the geo-location services on cell phones. Sellers can place keywords in their ads that target people who are in a specific geographic location so that the ad reaches the most optimum audience. Ad stats can be tracked through the mobile web so that frequent sellers can adapt their ad approach to continually improve their classified advertising. The result is that sellers are more successful in making sales through classifieds because buyers who are interested in what they have to offer can find them more easily than in the past.

The only way to get used to using mobile classifieds is to start trying them out. The good news is that these sites are almost all really user-friendly. Anyone who is familiar with the standard classifieds format can make sense of the format of mobile classifieds. Adjusting to the added features of SMS/MMS marketing takes a little bit of getting used to but it isn’t something that is difficult for the average person since these are phone features that we use all of the time. You’ll quickly learn how to adjust settings on these sites to give you the best updates on your phone without annoying you throughout the day. Before you know it, you’ll wonder why you used any other format for accessing online classifieds.