The increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets is driving robust growth in mobile advertising, including display, search and in-app sectors; predicted annual growth for this industry has now hit 50% a year until 2016.
Mobile ad spend is expanding at six times the speed of desktop Internet ad spend.According to a survey from ZenithOptimedia, mobile advertising will be the main driver behind overall ad spend in the coming years.
Survey results
ZenithOptimedia forecasts that mobile will account for 35% of all extra ad spend in the three years between 2013 and 2016. Global spending on mobile advertising stood at $13.4 billion last year, representing 12.9% of all Internet ad spend and 2.7% of advertising budgets across all channels. Forecasts for 2016 predict mobile budgets will account for 28% of all Internet advertising and 7.6% of overall advertising budgets; this will turn it into the fourth largest advertising channel, overtaking radio, magazines and outdoor campaigns. In the UK, mobile ad spend shot up 127% in the first half of 2013, reaching £429 million of investment.It accounted for 14.1% of all digital advertising budgets in the country throughout the year – almost double the 7.2% recorded in the previous year.
According to the ZenithOptimedia survey, the fastest-growing segment in digital advertising is display, reinforced by the evolution of programmatic ad buying. Display advertising is expected to expand by 21% every year until 2016 thanks to programmatic advertising, which gives marketers better control over what they buy and ensuring they get better value for their money.