• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 14, 2009

Mobile advertising keeps getting passed over by U.S. marketers, but a recent Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) study might provide reasons to take another look.

Unique device-specific browsers and a variety of other challenges have deterred marketers from developing mobile campaigns. A site developed to leverage iPhone's Safari browser may not perform equally well on an Android device, or vice versa, for example. But as devices gain processing power and the ability to render Web sites more effectively, the opportunities in mobile marketing will surge.

Despite these challenges, mobile networks report click-through rates between 5% and 15% on mobile campaigns, putting the desktop Web's average of 2% to shame, according to the study.

For many, paid search on mobile devices will become the logical first step in mobile advertising and marketing. Managed in tandem with desktop campaigns through Google AdSense, paid search enables marketers to test mobile campaigns through a familiar business model -- one where the price structure and process are similar.

But if the campaigns are not done properly, ranking in queries could become a challenge in light of the real estate on mobile screens. "People are less inclined to scroll down or click past the first page of search results on a mobile device," says Noah Elkin, co-chair of the SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee, and eMarketer analyst. "In some cases only the top three results are seen."

The good news for marketers is search engine optimization (SEO) on the desktop can often transition onto the mobile Web. Achieving visibility in desktop search engine queries provides the same positioning in mobile SERPs, as least for today. In time that could change. Mobile sites may have an advantage in rankings compared with a desktop site competing for the same keywords, according to Elkin.

And while people searching on the mobile Web are only likely to see the first few query results, that's nothing that a good SEO expert can't solve. Aside from organic or natural search results, paid search bids and positioning become that much more critical in a search engine on a mobile device. Elkin says the most successful mobile campaigns will require marketers to adjust paid search bids and tie the campaign into organic search campaigns.

The goal to demonstrate an opportunity for advertisers and marketers in mobile ads and search reveals that staggering numbers of consumers rely on mobile browsers to locate information. More than 64 million U.S. wireless subscribers searched the Internet on a mobile device in May 2009 -- nearly twice as many as in the previous year, according to comScore.

The SEMPO study also cites stats from around the world. For example, Forrester Research reveals that 55% of Japanese online consumers with mobile phones went online with their devices at least once a week. The Mobile Data Association observed 17.4 million mobile Internet users in the United Kingdom in February 2009, representing approximately 29% of the population.

On the docket or in the works is a list of emerging technologies and how they integrate with search. These include Internet protocol television (IPTV), radio frequency identification (RFID) and near field communication (NFC), SMS, and tracking and analytics. The organization had previously published a paper on social media.