• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, June 14, 2013

Mobile real-time bidding (RTB) spend in Europe increased 275% during the first quarter this year, while March alone saw a 66% jump in total RTB spend. The figures come from Adform's RTB Trend Report Europe Q1 2013.

Mobile still only accounts for less than 3% of total RTB impressions (2.75%), but the number is up significantly from 1.25% in Q4 2012. As "mobile" is really a tale of two devices, it's worth breaking down spend on smartphones versus tablets, too. According to the report, spend on smartphones currently exceeds spend on tablets. However, March was the strongest month yet for tablets in terms of percent of total RTB impressions.

Adform also broke down total spend on RTB inventory by format type. A 300x250 sized impression was the most sought after, followed by 728x90 and 160x600. The "Megaboard" format, 930x180, reportedly accounted for 6% of the format share, up from 2% at the end of 2012. Adform reported that the increased interest in the 930x180 format is because it "delivered a three times better click-through rate than the [300x250] format."

In a company blog post, Adform CMO Martin Stockfleth Larsen stated that the "accessibility of the technology, the availability of more premium inventory and the increasing number of Rich Media formats" are part of what has been driving RTB's growth in Europe.

On a country-by-country basis, Denmark dominated in terms of click-through rates (CTR). The report notes that Denmark had two- to eight-times (which is a large margin) better CTR than the rest of Europe.

What about viewability? Adform's findings suggest that above the fold impressions "delivered a two-times stronger performance - as measured by CTR - than impressions that fell below it."

Adform's full report can be downloaded here.