• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 4, 2013

Mobile ad exchange Nexage said it saw a briefer slowdown in ad spending following the holidays this year than in 2012, signaling increased demand for mobile advertising. Spending began to grow again from pre-holiday levels in January compared to a lag lasting until May a year ago, according to the company’s first-quarter metrics report.

A key factor in the earlier rebound this year was mobile ad spending tied to the Super Bowl. Nexage saw a 180% jump on Super Bowl Sunday from the prior week compared to only an 18% gain in 2012. “The spike suggests that brands are more aggressively embracing mobile and driving third-screen campaigns that complement TV and online campaigns,” the report stated.

A new eMarketer forecast released today estimated U.S. mobile ad spending jumped 178% in 2012 to $4.1 billion. That figure is projected to rise 77.3% this year to $7.29 billion before reaching $27.1 billion in 2017.

The Nexage report also looked at what mobile ad attributes -- such as operating system, apps versus the mobile Web, and location -- were contributing to value for advertisers. It identified 112 sites and apps that are part of a “high-performance” quadarant based on combined eCPM and fill rate.

Comparing mobile platforms, iOS represented 76% of the high-performance apps and commanded more than twice the premium of Android apps. For publishers that have both Android and iOS apps, the premium falls to 62%. In comparing ad performance between the mobile Web and apps, Nexage found about the same number of sites and apps in the high-performance quadrant. “This shows that from an ad revenue standpoint, publishers have equal opportunity to deliver results whether they employ responsive display, HTML 5 or 'appify’ their content,” noted the company.

When it came to location, two-thirds of location- and lat/long-enabled sites produced better than the average eCPMs, but fill-rate performance was mixed. The report suggested this finding indicates not all media buyers are able to target on location-based parameters, affecting fill rates.

Nexage also examined mobile user habits on an hourly basis, revealing several patterns. For one, people turn to news and information sources throughout the day, starting at 7 a.m. Sports media was also consumed steadily throughout the day, spiking when games were being played as people used their devices to keep track of scores and stats.

Mobile gaming is another constant activity, while consumption of travel-related content on devices peaked during the lunch hour and at night. Nexage says its real-time-bidding (RTB) ad marketplace serves 20 billion impressions a month, bringing together more than 200 demand-side platforms and other ad buyers with some 300 publishers and app developers.