US Mobile Display Ad Spending Likely to Exceed $1 Billion in 2015

ABI Research’s recent report says that mobile advertising spending on display ads in the United States is likely to quadruple in the next few years. The amount spent on mobile display ads, which stands at just over $300 million now, is expected to exceed $1.2 billion in 2015.

Neil Strother of ABI Research says that a survey conducted by the firm in February revealed that 28% of mobile users use the mobile internet facility regularly. He says that the percentage of mobile internet users has increased phenomenally in the last 14 months, which is a great sign for the mobile advertising market.

The report, based on the inputs from a number of mobile marketers, technology vendors, mobile network operators, and advertising agency executives, says that there has been a steady increase in the amount allocated for mobile ad campaigns by companies. Industry insiders say that they have been seeing year-over-year increases of 25%-30%, which is unprecedented when you consider the fact that the industry is still in its infant stage.

Marketers use different types of ads like mobile display ads, text message ads, in-app ads, search ads, and video ads to reach their target audience. They rely on simple text message ads to reach people with low end phones that lack advanced features like mobile TV, internet, audio, and video. On the other hand, they use a variety of rich, multimedia ads to reach people with smartphones that come loaded with advanced features. Statistics show that smartphone penetration in the US is just about 20% now. As this number increases, we can expect a huge surge in the number of mobile ads served across the country.

One of the important signs that indicate a bright future for the industry is the entry of big players like Apple and Google. So far, the industry has been dominated by independent ad networks like Millennial Media, Jumptap, and Greystripe. Google’s acquisition of AdMob and Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless, however, has changed the scenario completely. It shows that the idea of using the mobile phone as an advertising medium is slowly getting mainstream acceptance, which is great news for anyone is related to the mobile advertising industry.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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IAB Releases Mobile Buyer’s Guide at Mobile Conference

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) released a first-of-its-kind Mobile Buyer’s Guide for mobile marketing agencies at the IAB Marketplace: Mobile Conference on Monday.

The guide explains the medium of mobile advertising in detail and offers valuable information for mobile marketers to help them create and run mobile marketing campaigns successfully. The guide contains everything you need to know about mobile advertising – key terms and definitions, an overview of the U.S. market, a look at the key demographics, tips to create and run mobile marketing campaigns, and a number of examples to illustrate the intricacies involved in such campaigns.

You can take a look at the guide here.

Personally, I think this is a great initiative by the IAB. Though a lot of experts predict a big future for mobile advertising, it is still in its nascent stage and an unbelievably huge number of people are completely unaware of its potential. This kind of a detailed guide will definitely help people understand the value of advertising on mobile phones.

Mobile Marketer, AdMob, Mindshare, ESPN, HBO, NBC Universal, Nestle, AIG, Deutsch, IKEA, CNN Digital, Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, Pandora, Citi, and Nokia Interactive Advertising were some of the names involved in the conference. The future of mobile marketing was discussed in detail and the general feeling among both business owners and marketers was that mobile marketing as a medium is poised for huge growth.

Some of the important points raised at the conference include

• The click through rates of mobile display ads are five to ten times more than the click through rates of banner ads on websites.

• Online advertising has reached a point where almost every other website is filled with ads and people have started ignoring a majority of those ads. Advertising on mobile phones, on the other hand, is still in its nascent stage and a lot of consumers show interest in it.

• Microsoft, which has been trying really hard to dominate both the online and the mobile space, has had very good success with mobile ads so far. Compared to their online ads, mobile ads have performed exceptionally well so far. As a result, Microsoft is planning to invest a lot of money in mobile advertising.

• At the time of recession, mobile phone advertising can help businesses irrespective of their size. Mobile advertising campaigns are easy to create, easy to manage, and give excellent results. The response rates of these campaigns are usually way higher than the response rates of traditional advertising methods.

• A lot of companies have yet to try mobile coupons, location based advertising, and other types of mobile marketing which give very good results. However, experts believe that the situation will change slowly as more and more people are becoming aware of the potential of advertising on mobile phones.

Based on what I have seen and heard so far, I am of the opinion that mobile advertising, as a medium, will break through to the mainstream in a few years from now. What do you guys think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Some good news for mobile marketers

Finally, here’s some good news for mobile marketers. Access 360 Media’s latest report says brings up a few points which I think will be very reassuring for mobile marketers.

1. Once people subscribe to text message alerts from marketers, they stick to it. The number of people who unsubscribe after getting alerts for some time is very less. In fact, it is only around 4%.

2. The response for mobile marketing campaigns has been very high. On an average, 2 to 4 percent of mobile users click on the ads they get to know get more information. This is way better than the response rate from online ads, which is somewhere around 0.01%.

In my opinion, these two facts prove a point. The one which I’ve been telling again and again and again in this blog. Get your customer’s permission, send useful, relevant ads, and give them the choice to opt out of it any time they want. Rest assured, your mobile marketing campaign will be a success.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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AdMob + Unicast = Effective Mobile Advertising Campaigns

AdMob, a well known name in mobile advertising, has joined hands with Unicast in an effort to make its mobile advertising campaigns better and more effective. Through this partnership, AdMob will use Unicast’s Rich Media Mobile Platform to make its advertising campaigns richer, better, and more effective.

Rich Media Mobile is a technology which can be used to create rich, effective mobile advertisements and track their performance. Mobile advertisers are thrilled at the prospect of having a technology which will not only make their advertising campaigns better, but also track their performance and hence help them calculate the ROI (Return on Investment) perfectly.

Rich Media Mobile uses a unique technology which can automatically find out the type of mobile phone a user has and the kind of media it can play and offer the mobile content in the right format. In other words, this technology will customize mobile content and deliver it appropriately. This will help mobile marketers deliver their content effectively and enhance the experience of mobile advertising for end users. You can track your advertising campaigns through real-time reporting and assess their effectiveness. The service is compatible with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and other prominent US carriers.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Latin-Pak enters mobile marketing

Latin-Pak, a well-known Hispanic direct marketing company based in California, is the latest entrant into the big, happening world of mobile marketing. With over 12 years of direct marketing experience, Latin-Pak decided that it’s about time it tried its hands on mobile marketing. Latin-Pak plans to reach its target customers through text messaging (SMS), MMS, and WAP. Latin-Pak is pretty confident that it will be able to pull of some good results in its mobile marketing venture and the reasons are not hard to find.

Latin-Pak’s mobile database consists of 2.5 million mobile users who are open to mobile adverts.

Hispanics are among the most active mobile users in the U.S.A. – says a research firm.

Hispanics spend a good deal of time using services such as SMS and MMS apart from talking, which is a huge plus for mobile marketers.

Mobile phone is the primary mode of communication for more than 30% of Hispanics and they have it all the time, which makes it perfect for mobile marketers.

Well; seems Latin-Pak is in for a smooth ride. It’ll be interesting to keep track of its progress in the coming days. Well; that’s what I’m supposed to do; right?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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