Predictions For The Mobile Advertising Industry

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iPhone and Android users now account for 82% of US mobile web traffic , which is surprising to me considering both parties combined have a Global Smartphone Marketshare of16.5%.

Google recently acquired the AdMob for $750 Million, which currently serves over 145,000,000, 000 worldwide mobile impressions so far. In their blog Google stated, “iPhone and Android users browse the Internet more often than anyone else [Morgan Stanley], contributing to Google’s 5x mobile search growth over the past two years and a quarter of these same iPhone and Android users spend nearly 90 minutes per day using applications on their devices …”

This was a blow to Apple, which was looking forward to acquiring AdMob, but was outbid by Google. Instead Apple acquired Quattro Wireless for $275 Million.

There seems to be a big shift in the amount of attention placed on mobile advertising, especially considering that corporate giants like Apple and Google have both taken notice to its value.

Paul Rosenfeld, a writer for Small Business Trends wrote an article titled “Five ...
... Can’t-Miss Mobile Marketing Trends for 2010,” where he gives the following five predictions:

1. Text message marketing goes mainstream.
2. Texting will be offered by local media (e.g., newspapers).
3. Retailers will move beyond mobile marketing to enhance the overall shopping experience †raising consumers’ expectations of what they can do with their phones.
4. Inventive smartphone applications will dazzle with new ways to engage customers †but ultimately disappoint in 2010.
5. In 2010, you’ll have it any way you want.

I left a comment on the blog post “Mobile Advertising: 5 Things You Need to Know to Succeed in 2010,” a guest post written by Kevin Nakao. My comment was: I wonder how profitable Mobile Marketing will be in 2010. I mean impressions are great, but clicks are even better =)

Although I didn’t expect a response, the author responded with the following:

“I can’t predict how profitable mobile marketing will be, but I do know that it takes time to test and optimize for results. We have been eating our own dog food and have been buying ads in text messages, mobile websites, and in application †it took some time to get to break-even and now some of the campaigns are ROI positive. Thus, I think it’s important to start now because it takes time and brands need to jump on the learning curve for marketing profitability.”

I think Nakao has an extremely valuable point. Now is the time to invest in these ventures. It’s important to be one of the first companies. It’s definitely a risk, but many risks have positive results. I would definitely suggest doing research and seeing how relevant mobile advertising would be to your business, but I also think that with the massive amounts of searches conducted on mobile devices each day, the reach of this industry is vast and only expanding.