With thanks to: Mobyaffiliates

Posted by ] Patricio Robles
For many years, mobile has been the ‘next big thing’ for advertisers. And to be sure, the market for mobile ads has grown by leaps and bounds in dollar-terms.
The latest figure evidencing the growth of mobile as an advertising medium: according to comScore, the number of advertisers in the U.S. running mobile campaigns has grown exponentially in the past two years.
When comScore looked at Ad Metrix Mobile data for 600 of the mobile internet‘s properties in April, the number of advertisers was 689, an increase of more than 120% from two years ago.
Needless to say, if the market for mobile advertising to grow rapidly into the future, larger numbers of advertisers need to buy into the medium.
In theory, mobile will have a key role to play in most multichannel advertising strategies in the future, and the timing appears to be right now. Thanks in large part to the rise of smart phones and greater use of the mobile internet, advertisers are increasingly experimenting with mobile ads. And in many cases, they should be liking what they see.
According to a recent study, click through rates on mobile search ads are 2.7% higher on average than their desktop counterparts.
But there’s still a huge amount of room for growth. Right now, comScore says that the mobile content and publishing category accounts for 50% of mobile ads served, with consumer discretionary representing another 26%.
That means more than three-quarters of mobile ads cover just two categories. Lucrative categories, like financial services, aren’t as prominent — yet.
The key to continued growth of mobile advertising would appear to be continued smart phone ownership. According to comScore, smart phone users access their mobile browsers and mobile apps at much greater clips than their feature phone-owning counterparts, 82.3% and 85% to 19.1% and 15.9%, respectively.
Currently, 31% of mobile phone owners have a smart phone. But that number is increasing rapidly; last year, just 20% of mobile phone owners in the U.S. owned a smart phone.
The numbers make it clear: if the number of smart phone owners keeps going up, so too will the number of advertisers spending on mobile ads. In turn, publishers already active in mobile will see more opportunities to build ad revenue, and publishers not active in mobile will have greater incentives to develop a mobile strategy.
New Gartner research estimates that the total spend on mobile advertising will reach the $3.3 Billion in 2011, growing to over $20.6 Billion by 2015.
The North American market will account for roughly 1/5 of the $3.3B total this year, or roughly $707M, and 28% in 2015 — or $5.8 billion. That’s equal to about 20% of the estimated $26 billion in U.S. Online ad spending projected for 2015. Breaking it down a bit further for 2011, search- and map-related advertising will account for the largest share of ad dollars by far, at nearly $1.5 billion globally.
Mobile Web display and in-app display ads will each account for just over $800 million, audio/video will generate $96 million, and SMS/MMS and Instant Messaging advertising will make up $112.5 million.
By 2015, however, the split in ad-spending will level out a bit as display closes the gap with search. Search in four years will account for about $7 billion; mobile Web display, almost $6 billion; in-app display, $5.3 billion; audio/video, $2 billion and SMS/MMS/IM, $247.3 million, according to the research. The most interesting tidbit from the data was Gartners predictions for the mobile app vs. mobile Web debate.
The research firm expects mobile apps to have the upper hand when it comes to drawing ad dollars until 2013, “when the mobile Web will eventually return as HTML5 standards become established.” ”While the growth rate for mobile advertising will peak in 2011 and in 2012, more than doubling each year, it won’t reach its optimum point for some time,” stated the report. ”We expect that targeting and contextualization, especially in social sites and applications, will carry on improving throughout the forecast period and beyond.”