• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, December 4, 2013

Europe has been quick to adopt real-time bidding (RTB), and the rate at which marketers are investing in programmatic technologies has not yet wavered. This is particularly true on the mobile front, where Q3 2013 saw significant growth in the amount of mobile ad inventory bought via RTB.

When breaking down "mobile" into its subcategories -- smartphones and tablets -- it's clear that tablets are the mobile device du jour.

The data comes from Adform's RTB Trend Report Europe Q3 2013 report. In it, they write, "Mobile RTB impressions grew by 43%, and tablet impressions by an astonishing 102%."

Dating back to Adform's Q4 2012 report, mobile accounted for 1.25% of all RTB impressions. In Q1 of this year, that number more than doubled to 2.75%. By the second quarter of 2013, marketers were mobile impressions accounted for roughly 5% of all RTB-based trades. In Q3, mobile accounted for 8% all RTB trading in Europe.

Despite the continual growth, Adform predicts more. "While this growth rate is impressive, it is still far below actual mobile usage. Over time we expect to see an influx of mobile and tablet impressions in the RTB market," the report reads.

That's because when the third quarter is broken down by month (July-September), the rate rose on a month-to-month basis. So even though mobile (including tablets) accounted for 8% of all RTB impressions in Q3 as a whole, it represented just under 10% in September alone.

There's also reason to believe that figure will continue to rise because, as Adform notes, the advertising still "lags far behind consumer adoption and usage." The report says that in some European regions, mobile represents 50% of all traffic.

Overall, ad spend was up 31% across Europe in Q3, down from the previous two quarters. However, the report notes that September saw accelerated growth in spending, which Adform predicts "will be sustained through the end of the fourth quarter."