Mobile advertising, commerce becoming heavy hitters

Newbie to marketing or not, the mobile space is growing fast with relatively few growing pains. At least in adoption. New research out from comScore shows that mobile display advertiser numbers doubled between 2010 and 2011 and a forecast from retail giant Ebay indicates that m:commerce will account for about $4 billion in sales this year.

by Kristina Knight

Nearly one-third (31%) of consumers are now smartphone users, helping to push the consumption of content and the increase in advertising dollars. Smartphone adoption saw a 20% increase year over year.

"[Mobile advertising] is quickly gaining importance as new advertisers come into the field," said Hans Fredericks, comScore Vice President. "The acceleration of mobile media consumption, driven by adoption of smartphones, 3G/4G networks and unlimited data plans, provides a ripe environment for advertisers looking to reach consumers through a variety of platforms including mobile browsers, apps and SMS. As consumer usage and technology continue to advance, look for advertising to play an increasingly important role in the development of the mobile ecosystem."

According to comScore's research mobilecontent and mobile publishing accounts for about half of display ads, but consumer discretionary is also high at 26%. Impressions are also served in information technology, financials and telecom services. For consumers, mobile browsers and downloaded apps are nearly equal (82% vs. 85%) in use.

Advertising isn't the only thing heating up mobile. Ebay estimates that they'll reach $4 billion in mobile sales by year's end; Ebay apps have been downloaded 40 million times for various mobile platforms (via MediaPost). That is just less than half of Ebay's total sales estimates for the year, but shows that mobile commerce isn't a small sideline for retail brands any longer.

Tags: comScore, Ebay, ecommerce, mobile ad spend, mobile commerce, mobile marketing, mobile shopping