The Evolution of Mobile Advertising

Smartphones haven’t been around forever, even though most of us can’t remember a time we didn’t have one. The same is true for mobile advertising. While mobile advertising and smartphones have been around less than a decade, we can’t remember a time without mobile ads. In 2006 mobile advertising was a $1 billion a year industry. Now it’s a $64 billion a year industry, and it is expected to account for half of all advertising dollars spent in just two years. That’s as close to exponential growth as an advertising medium has ever come.

The ads themselves are also getting more sophisticated. Early mobile ads were clickable banner ads that had been adapted from traditional websites. They were ugly and clunky and most people completely ignored them, reporting “banner blindness.” Nearly half of the clicks they received were by mistake. They were and still are highly ineffective as a form of advertising.

Thankfully mobile ads are changing. Interstitial ads are taking the place of less popular forms of mobile advertising. They have been found to be highly effective in certain scenarios. When interstitial ads are used on the loading screen of an app, for instance, they have nearly three times the click through rate of full page or banner ads. Even more effective than interstitial ads are overlay ads, which can include rich media and get even more clicks than interstitial ads. Even app walls, which contain a full page of clickable app choices, can be twice as effective as interstitial ads. Advertisers are using multiple ad formats to achieve great results.

Native ads are still uncharted territory for many mobile advertisers. They blend into their surroundings and can look like they belong where you find them. They are considered to be less intrusive, and can be considered more engaging and fun than other types of advertisement. They look like blog posts, pictures, and many other types of content users actually want to see.

Video ads are another growing sector of mobile advertising. There was a time they were taboo, because people had to pay for the data they used and that would just make a potential customer angry. But now most people have unlimited data or at least plenty of data, so video advertising is surging into the future.

There are a lot of different ways to use mobile advertising to your business’s advantage. Learn more about the evolution of mobile advertising from this infographic.

Source: http://www.startapp.com/blog/infographic-evolution-mobile-advertising/

Author: NowSourcing is an award-winning nationally recognized infographic design agency. Founded in 2005, NowSourcing has strong roots in the human and technical nuances of the web.