By Ray Anderson

Philosopher Francis Bacon said "Knowledge is power" back in the 1500s. Centuries later this phrase still rings true, especially in our challenging economy.

In the interactive marketing landscape, any real-time data that validates your marketing investments is not only powerful but can save you and your company some hard-earned cash.

Consider the prospect of mobile marketing. How can brands determine when the time is "right" for an investment into the mobile space? Clearly, the answer lies in the data.

Bango recently conducted a survey and discovered that people accessing the Internet via their mobile phone often experienced difficulties, including sites crashing their phone.

We surveyed the top 20 most-trafficked wired Web sites - according to Nielsen Online - and we found that half of the sites did not work well on leading mobile phones.

This is a worrying trend given that typically 5 percent of visitors to wired Web sites now come from mobile devices, up from 1 percent a year ago.

Handsets have improved dramatically, making it difficult to buy a phone that isn't mobile-Web-enabled.

Combined with the increase in use of smartphones, it makes sense that we are seeing a rise in mobile traffic.

In fact, our statistics suggest that this number is likely to grow, telling me that wired Web sites are not adapting fast enough to match mobile browsing trends.

Clearly there is a need to present mobile-friendly versions of their sites.

If he were still around, I imagine Francis Bacon would suggest that you find out exactly what percentage of your wired Web visitors are on mobile devices.

Armed with this data, you can determine when the time is right to invest in a mobile strategy. Gathering this information is quite easy to do.

Some of our customers have collected this data and discovered that the number of mobile users visiting their wired Web site was much higher than they thought.

Armed with this information, the brands were able to make the case for a mobile investment to their management. If knowledge is power, then now is the time to get smart and find out for yourself where your visitors are coming from.

Enlighten your management with the real facts, facts that show the mobile Internet isn't coming soon -- it's already here.

Ray Anderson is CEO of Bango, a Cambridge, England-based provider of mobile billing and mobile analytics services with an office in New York. Reach him at.