In case you missed it, the Wall Street Journal released an article on Thursday full of interesting stats about the mobile ad market. Among the numbers, the WSJ indicates that the mobile ad market is now at $2.6B, but only 20% of that is display. And yesterday’s Ad Age covers the difficulty publishers are having monetizing traffic for more than a $0.75 CPM.
These data points indicate significant opportunity for mobile advertising. Although we aren’t ready to proclaim the often repeated cliché that next year is the year of mobile, we do see some real momentum from marketers and advertisers.
At eXelate, we believe it’s important for the digital ecosystem to address certain key issues in order to more effectively leverage mobile as a platform for advertising. Specifically, we are leading the way in three areas:
- Going beyond local. Mobile is rightfully known as a great domain for geo-based targeting. But both DR and brand advertisers are demanding more robust targeting capabilities for tablets and phones, with behavioral data and richer consumer profiles at the top of their wish lists.
- Improving technical solutions for ad targeting. Whether we’re talking mobile web or mobile apps, display or video, each device has unique specifications to contend with. These differences provide technical hurdles for cross-publisher tracking and behavioral targeting as a whole. We expect to lead the industry to develop best practices to address these issues.
- Providing leadership on regulatory issues. The Federal Trade Commission is happy to let the industry take the lead in establishing clear, consumer-friendly mobile privacy practices, but that means we must lead. The industry must come together to establish best practices around consumer notice and choice.
We are excited to lead the way in addressing these challenges. It may not be the year of mobile, but it’s certainly time for mobile to take its proper share of three-screen marketer media spend.
