• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 11, 2011

New data from mobile ad network Jumptap shows older, more affluent consumers are more apt to interact with ads than younger, less well-off mobile users. Those 40 and over were almost five times more likely to engage with an ad than people below that age, and those making more than $50,000 were twice as likely to do so than people making less.

The findings were drawn from an analysis of the 10 billion ad requests made to the Jumptap network by its audience of 83 million unique users in April. The research also found that 58% of mobile Internet users are getting content through their browser, compared to 42% via ad-supported apps.

Smartphone owners skew older and wealthier than feature phone users, and are typically heavier mobile data users. That may explain, in part, why older, more affluent users had higher ad interaction rates on Jumptap's network.

The company also said advertisers are increasingly trying to target consumers on mobile phones by demographics, location, device type and time of day, among other criteria. "Targeting is being adopted at a faster pace than what was seen on the PC Web," noted Paran Johar, chief marketing officer of Jumptap, which last week announced raising an additional $20 million in venture funding.

Last month, Android again accounted for the largest proportion of ad requests on the mobile ad network, with 39.1% share. Apple's iOS was second, with 29.8%, followed by Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS, at 24.8. However, iOS still leads in user engagement.

Android led the U.S. smartphone market overall in the first quarter, with a 34.7% share compared to 27.1% for BlackBerry and 25.5% for iOS, according to figures released last week by comScore.

Separate findings from mobile ad optimizer Smaato Monday showed the top 20 U.S. mobile ad networks had an average fill rate of 23% in the first quarter. The average among the top 40 global networks dropped to 20% from 23% a year ago. Smaato's metrics are based on over 150 million unique monthly users, 80 billion ad requests and 60 connected ad networks delivering mobile advertising in some 220 countries.