NEW YORK ? A Mondelez executive at the Mobile Marketing Association?s SM2 conference said that experimenting with mobile marketing is only truly valuable when working towards monetization.

In the ?Connect Along the Path to Purchase: Mobile Offers Pure Synchronicity Along the Purchase Funnel? fireside chat, the exec discussed the four pillars of mobile marketing at Mondelez: reach, social media, impulse and loyalty. Monico Ho, vice president of xAd, interviewed the executive for the session.

?At the end of the day what I really care about is getting closer to that purchase number as possible,? said B. Bonin Bough, vice president of global media and consumer engagement at Mondelez International, Deerfield, IL.

?How do we get down to the sales level,? he said. ?The key to that is working with your clients and making sure that your clients are relentless to craft program that actually can look at a sales [angle].

?There?s no reason for us to invest money in these channels if we?re not going to learn what?s working and what?s not.?

Mobile money
Mr. Bough is a strong believer in experimenting with new mobile tactics. In fact, he said that we are no longer in a mobile-first world, but rather a mobile-only world.

Yet, at the end of the day, he acknowledges that just throwing out a mobile game without considering monetization possibilities is not a good move.

Mr. Bough brought up a number of different creative mobile campaigns that Mondelez has experimented with, but he also pointed out how each one could lead to more revenue.

One pilot in February delivered coupons to consumers when they were nearby retailers that sold Stride gum. Mondelez partnered with Waze to support the geo-location technology.

Results from the pilot indicated that the mobile integration led to increased store traffic.

Mondelez?s Nabisco also partnered with Endorse, an iOS and Android application, to create an NCAA March Madness bracket that would incentivize purchase and increase loyalty.

Mobile future
Earlier this year Mondelez rolled out a Mobile Futures program that paired nine start-ups with the company?s brands to foster mobile innovations.

The Waze and Endorse partnerships were two of many outcomes of the program.

For each partnership, a brand executive had to spend time working with the start-up. According to Mr. Bough this let them fully engage with the mobile innovation and understand it beyond abstract concepts.

He explained that the great thing about mobile is that unlike with TV and print, you do not have to say, "Here?s the one spot? and that is all you get. With mobile, companies can experiment indefinitely (resources allowing) and see how each campaign works.

?We know the platforms can sell,? Mr. Bough said. ?But the challenge is we have to learn how to get through to them. We haven?t been doing it long enough. The thing that?s most important to me is trying to learn by trial and error.?

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York