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Most Mobile Budgets Coming From Online

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Apple  may have lowered the minimum buy for iAd buys to $500,000, but that decrease won't necessarily trigger a stampede of brands to the mobile ad platform.

Among companies with near-term mobile marketing plans, only 20% have created a separate budget line item for mobile. The majority (60%) carve mobile budgets from online ad spending, according to a new survey of 350 executives with responsibility for mobile  at brands, agencies, publishers and technology vendors. So mobile still has to battle it out for its share of ad spending against more established online channels like search, display and video.

The "State of Mobile Advertising" survey, by mobile ad network Jumptap and DM2 Media, also highlighted the growing importance of Android to marketers. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of executives said the Google mobile platform was a significant consideration in developing and planning their mobile campaigns. And Google's AdMob doesn't require half a million in spending up front.

Among publishers, 62% use a mobile ad network or exchange.  Most (73%) also offer mobile as a separate buy. On the buyer side, advertisers were evenly split in their approach between direct response and branding campaigns, with 51% citing awareness and loyalty as chief objectives, and 49% focused on customer acquisition and retention. There was also a split on pricing, with 40% focused on cost-per-click, while an equal proportion looked at hybrid options involving impressions and clicks.

Three quarters of advertisers surveyed cited targeting as the most important campaign attribute in mobile, putting it ahead of reach and price, at 64% and 63%, respectively. I'd say these findings support the idea that  targeting has often been viewed as one of the potentially most attractive aspects of mobile -- while reach is typically cited as one of the main barriers because of fragmentation among operating systems, carriers and networks.

1 comment about "Most Mobile Budgets Coming From Online".
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  1. Denise Leo from SAP, February 24, 2011 at 4:24 p.m.

    Is the fact that mobile budgets are coming from online / digital any different from when budgets were diverted from offline channels to online?

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