The market opportunity for mobile marketing and advertising is growing steadily, and spending on the new content distribution channel is growing in parallel. One six-month period in 2010 saw spending expand in the U.S. by almost 2.5 percent.
A new ABI Research market study forecasts that in 2016, revenue from mobile display ads will reach close to $1.5 billion.
ABI Practice director Neil Strother says, "Although the market for mobile advertising and marketing is starting from a very small base, it is showing steady, solid growth.
The recent survey conducted by ABI Research revealed that about one third of the smartphone owners polled had clicked on at least one mobile advertisement.
Overall spending on mobile ad media has accelerated with the arrival of the autumn back-to-school and end-of-year holiday seasons, and is expected to approach $1 billion by year's end.
Before 2010 this industry was seen as quite experimental, but, says Strother, "There was a shift starting at the end of last year from the pioneering phase to what we might call the early growth phase."
Approximately 20 percent of all major marketers have done something with mobile marketing, and some have ongoing campaigns. According to ABI's assessment, those mobile campaigns can cost $100,000 or more and annual budgets may run to several million dollars.
Mobile marketing and advertising fall into five categories: Text messages, Mobile display (banner) ads, Mobile search, In-application advertising, and In-video advertising.
All of these may have their uses within a campaign -- as does location data -- but Strother observes that, "Today mobile is often seen as a distinct channel, but eventually there will be nothing special about it. Therefore, it will be understood as an integrated part of a campaign's overall strategy."
