Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing.
Some see mobile advertising as closely related to online or internet advertising, though its reach is far greater.
Mobile advertising is growing at a remarkable rate. as mobile advertising matures, like in the most advanced markets, the user involvement also matures. In Japan today, already 44% of mobile phone owners click on ads they receive on their phones. Mobile advertising was worth 900 million dollars in Japan alone. Furthermore, Berg Insight forecasts the global mobile advertising market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 43 percent to 8.7 billion in 2014.
In some markets, this type of advertising is most commonly seen as a Mobile Web Banner (top of page) or Mobile Web Poster (bottom of page banner), while in others, it is dominated by SMS advertising. Other forms include MMS advertising, advertising within mobile games and mobile videos, during mobile TV receipt, full-screen interstitials, which appear while a requested item of mobile content or mobile web page is loading up, and audio advertisements.
The main measurements are impressions (views) and click-through rates. They are also sold to advertisers by views (Cost Per Impression) or by click-through (Cost Per Click). Additional measurements include conversion rates, such as click-to-call rates and other degrees of interactive measurement. One of the popular models in mobile advertising is Cost Per Install (CPI) where there the pricing model is based on the user installing an App on their mobile phone.
In addition to standard mobile display banners, a growing trend is to include rich media execution within the banner ads. This includes banners that would expand to a larger size, offering advertisers a larger display to communicate their message. Games within the banner to make the experience more interactive or a video within the banner space.
There are hundreds of handsets in the market and they differ by screen size and supported technologies. The following gives an overview of various handset screen sizes and a recommended image size for each type.
Handset
Approx Handset Screen Size (px W x H) 320 x 320
Example Handsets
Ad Unit
Ad Size (pixels)
X-Large
Palm Treo 700P, Nokia X-Large E70
Samsung MM-A900, LG VX-
300 x 50
Large
240 x 320
8500 Chocolate, Sony Ericsson W910i
Motorola RAZR, LG
Large
216 x 36
Medium
176 x 208
VX-8000, Motorola ROKR E1
Medium
168 x 28
Small
128 x 160
Motorola V195
Small
120 x 20
Mobile media has begun to draw more significant attention from media giants and advertising industry since the mid-2000s, based on a view that mobile media was to change the way advertisements were made, and that mobile devices can form a new media sector. The unobtrusive two-way communications caught the attention of media industry and advertisers as well as cell phone makers and telecom operators. Eventually, SMS became a new media -called the seventh mass media channel by several media and mobile experts -and even more, it is a two-way mobile media, as opposed to one-way immobile media like radios, newspapers and TV.
Besides, the immediacy of responsiveness in this two-way media is a new territory found for media industry and advertisers, who are eager to measure up market response immediately. Additionally, the possibility of fast delivery of the messages and the ubiquity of the technology (it does not require any additional functionality from the mobile phone, all devices available today are capable of receiving SMS), make it ideal for timeand location-sensitive advertising, such as customer loyalty offers (ex. shopping centers, large brand stores), SMS promotions of events, etc.
As mobile is an interactive mass media similar to the internet, advertisers are eager to utilize and make use of viral marketing methods, by which one recipient of an advertisement on mobile, will forward that to a friend. This allows users to become part of the advertising experience. At the bare minimum mobile ads with viral abilities can become powerful interactive campaigns. At the extreme, they can become engagement marketing experiences.
Targeted mobile marketing requires customization of ad content to reach interested and relevant customers. To customize such behavioral personal data, user profiling, data mining and other behavior watch tools are employed, and privacy advocates warn that this may cause privacy infringement. Some mobile carriers offer freebie or cheaper rate plans in exchange for SMS or other mobile ads.
