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Italian site Ultimoprezzo.com provides a unique service to online consumers. It supplies information on stores and their opening hours, as well as their best prices for smartphones, TVs, tablets, laptops and other consumer electronics products.

As a supplier of free services, Ultimoprezzo needs to be savvy about its strategy for generating revenue. AdSense provides a straightforward solution.

“The Google AdSense program is the ideal way for us to monetize our publishing efforts,” explains founder and CEO Alberto Giacobone. He says Google AdSense not only provides Ultimoprezzo’s users with relevant and interesting advertising information, but also provides its advertisers cost-effective ad placements since Ultimoprezzo doesn’t need to maintain a sales network.

Globally, smartphone usage is on the rise. In Italy alone, 69% of smartphone owners never leave the house without carrying their device and 82% use their smartphone to perform research on a product or service. “Certainly, the numbers speak for themselves,” Alberto affirms. “In Italy and abroad, we are increasingly in a ‘post- PC’ era where smartphones and tablets accompany us at all times and everywhere, often even while we are doing other things.”

Very early on in Ultimoprezzo’s development, Alberto’s team perceived an opportunity in the mobile space. An internal team developed Ultimoprezzo’s mobile-optimized website, while a special agency developed applications for iOS and Android.

So has the company seen an uplift in mobile traffic? “The trend is clear,” says Alberto. “Mobile traffic is growing and is now already more than 15% of our total traffic. And this is not only down to the growing popularity of smartphones which cost less than $100; what we notice is that the users are getting better at exploiting the technological tool at their disposal more and more frequently.” With Ultimoprezzo’s non-mobile traffic volumes booming as well, by the end of 2012 Alberto estimates mobile will account for one-third of the company’s total traffic.

AdSense provides a way for Ultimoprezzo to monetize its content across devices. As new digital platforms emerge, AdSense makes new revenue streams available. “The AdSense program has allowed us to invest in the growth – both in terms of quantity and quality – of the services to our visitors, so we can keep them free always. ”

This information is current as of October 23rd, 2012.

Posted by Cristina Miscimarra - Inside AdSense Team