The in-SMS advertising platform from Gtext Media that we covered a couple of days ago “practically begs for click-through fraud”, according to Mark Westling, founder of mobile ad network Inuvi.
Westling does have a vested interest in the space, as Inuvi’s business is to fill the space left over at the end of network-generated text messages with ads. Nevertheless, he makes some good points in a blog post, noting that the most prolific users of text messaging are teenagers, and that it’s hard to see why their friends wouldn’t agree to always click on the ads sent by other friends. Even if this doesn’t happen, says Westling, assuming an ad fill rate of 100 per cent, and a clickthrough rate of 10 per cent, a subscriber will need to send 4,000 texts to get their first £20 payout. 
He also notes that while Gtext knows the sender’s location, interests, and behaviour, it doesn’t know those of the recipient. We have asked Gtext for its thoughts on the points Westling raises, and we’ll bring you these as soon as we have them. In the meantime, you can read Westling’s blog post here.
