If you yawn when you read another headline about mobile advertising and its ever-pending explosion, you’re surely not alone. It seems that year after year, experts are touting the mobile platform as the next big thing that needs to be on top of every marketer’s mind. This year is no different, but there are a few indications that 2010 might actually be the stage for mobile advertising’s coming out party.
The benefits of mobile ads are obvious: ease of tracking a user’s location, a booming user base and all the advantages of traditional online ads among them.
Millennial Media expects the mobile Web audience in the U.S. to reach 100 million unique users in 2010, which is equal to about half of the total Web audience. To add to the fire, Mary Meeker, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, forecasts that the Web will be accessed by more users via mobile devices than PCs in five years.
Still, less than one-third of one percent of total worldwide ad revenue, or $1.4 billion, was spent on mobile advertising in 2009, according to Juniper Research.
“For one thing, some marketers remain wary about trying it, for fear of annoying consumers by intruding on their personal space,” wrote Eric Pfanner at The New York Times. “A technical toolbox poorly equipped to work with small screens has also hurt; after all, banner ads the size of thumbnails don’t make a big impression.”
This hasn’t scared off Google from making a big bet on mobile advertising. In November, the company spent $750 million to acquire AdMob, which serves ads for more than 15,000 mobile sites and applications worldwide. Google outbid Apple, which acquired Quattro Wireless for $275 million.
The motivation for both companies is clearly to take advantage of their foothold in the mobile Web market, thanks to Google’s Android devices and Apple’s iPhone, and now iPad. Yes, boosting their mobile Web ads is a common goal, but so is monetizing their in-app ads.
According to eMarketer, U.S. mobile advertising spending in 2009 was $416 million, with the majority going toward SMS- and MMS-based approaches. However, mobile ad spending on search and display approaches are set to overtake message-based approaches by 2013. In 2010, display mobile ad spending is expected to grow 59.7 percent from the previous year, while search spending is expected to grow 71.1 percent.
In-app ads are set to receive more attention this year. “In my view, the purchase of Quattro Wireless was always about advancing the hit rate of in-app advertising rather than the monetization of websites viewed on the iPhone or iPad browser anyway,” wrote Robin Wauters of TechCrunch. She also notes that Quattro Wireless CEO Andy Miller was appointed to the newly-created position of VP of mobile advertising at Apple.
Mobclix indicates that finance apps made 4.5 times the average advertising revenue of the top ad-serving apps overall. Social networking apps made 3.9 times the average, while education apps made 3.7 times the average.
With two giants like Google and Apple leading the way, and with mobile advertising already on the upswing, it’s clear that the medium is set to take a step closer to center stage. Advertisers with more money to spend will likely tinker with the mobile ad realm a bit more than their more cash-strapped counterparts, but all advertisers should seriously consider bulking up their mobile forays in 2010 and beyond.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/technology/01cache.html
http://mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/01/10/will-2010-be-mobile-advertisings-big-year/
http://www.iab.net/insights_research/947883/1675/974217
http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/smsmms-remain-cornerstone-of-mobile-communication-revenues-reaching-233b-by-2014-5146/
http://gigaom.com/2010/01/05/2010-the-year-of-ma-in-mobile-advertising/
http://mashable.com/2009/12/29/mobile-advertising/
http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/48478/analysts-apple-tablet-could-speed-mobile-advertising-growth-at-last/
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