• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 6, 2011

Mobile advertising continues to perform well compared to online advertising, according to the latest ad effectiveness study from digital marketing research firm InsightExpress. From November 2007 to December 2010, mobile has posted better results than online across key measures including aided and unaided awareness, ad awareness, message association, brand favorability and purchase intent.

Mobile shows double or triple the percentage of online ad effectiveness in each of the metrics. Mobile ad awareness is 23% compared to 8% online, for example, while purchase intent for mobile is 11% versus 3% online. But the InsightExpress report notes that the gap between the two digital media has decreased compared to last year as online campaigns increased effectiveness in the last year.

Comparisons of each of the last three years show mobile ad awareness jumping to 31% in the late 2009-2010 period after averaging 15% during the prior two years. Message association -- the ability to match a given message with an advertiser -- also saw a significant spike, doubling to 20% in 2010 from about 10% the previous two years. The other metrics remained roughly stable. The bump in ad awareness could stem from the rise in rich media advertising in mobile and the proliferation of smartphones, where high-impact interactive ads are targeted.

InsightExpress said the consistency or increase in each metric shows that mobile is maintaining effectiveness even as it becomes more established. With their larger screens and broader functionality, it's not surprising that smartphones would generate higher ad awareness than regular phones (39% compared to 28%). But the results in other measures such as aided and unaided awareness and purchase intent are roughly the same between smartphones and feature phones.

Aided awareness, for example, is 17% on smartphones compared to 13% on feature phones, and the split on purchase intent is 15% to 12%. The figures may reflect the blurring distinction between smartphones and other phones, which may lack an operating system but have added larger screens and other physical features associated with smartphones.

When it comes to industry categories, entertainment showed strong results across the mobile ad effectiveness norms, followed by endemic segments like telecom and technology. Entertainment had the highest ad awareness of any of the eight industry categories tracked in the study, at 41%, followed by CPG (32%), technology (29%) and retail (27%).

Telecom far outpaced other industry ad verticals in message association and purchase intent. So 28% of people were able to connect an ad with a telecom brand compared to 13% in retail, the next-closest category. And 21% planned to purchase a product after seeing a telecom-related ad, followed by travel (12%), technology (10%) and retail (7%). Selling phones on phones seems to work.