Are marketers doing enough in the mobile realm?

Consumers are engaging on mobiles at an ever-increasing rate. According to a recent Nielsen Mobile report, about 77 million US consumers report having received/viewed a mobile ad (80% increase YoY). However, even though consumers are seeing some mobile ads, the number of ad views is surprisingly lower.

by Kristina Knight

According to the report, 63% of consumers report seeing only one ad per month and less than 66% of the most visited mobile sites carry ads. Another startling finding is that more than half of the inventory on sites with ads is taken up by house ads, or unpaid ads from the host site.

With the sheer number of consumers and ads this seems like a large discrepancy. So, are marketers doing enough with their mobile campaigns?

Because mobile phones are so personalized and portable, it would seem that marketers could do much more with the marketplace. The lag could be because the mobile arena is new and therefore undeveloped. There are fewer metrics for mobile advertisers; also agencies aren't sure how to adapt to the different levels of the mobile marketplace.

Those metrics are still a few years off but there is something mobile marketers can do now: test the marketplace.

Consumers are used to seeing display and search/text ads on their computer screens. Seeing mobile ads in the same vein won't be a surprise. Also, because of the personalization abilities, mobile consumers are about 44% more likely to engage with an ad targeted to them.