Automotive was the fastest-growing ad category on the Millennial Media ad network in the third quarter, with spending up nearly sixfold. That finding echoes data just released by Nielsen showing that auto saw the biggest ad-spending gains overall in the quarter, up 26% to $2.7 billion, fueled by year-end promotions.
Other big categories on the Millennial network, travel, education and sports categories were each up more than four-fold in the quarter. Telecom remained the largest industry advertising vertical overall, followed by retail and restaurants, finance, automotive and travel.
Since telecom has been the top category throughout the year, Millennial took a closer look at audiences being targeted within the vertical. Given that everyone uses telecom services, campaigns spanned a wide variety of audience types including vacationers, fashionistas, parents, business travelers, and movie buffs.
Beyond audience targeting, the mobile ad network also shed light on options that advertisers include in ads after a click-through. The opportunity to get more product or other information from a company site was the most common post-click feature, used in 41% of campaigns. The option to download an app appeared in almost a third of campaigns.
Other prevalent post-click ad features included social media, m-commerce and the chance to subscribe to a service or other offering.
In terms of mobile operating systems, Android generated more than half of the impressions on the network, with iOS accounting for 34%. Among tablets, the iPad again led the way in generating impressions, followed by a quartet of Android-based devices.
Millennial says its network serves ads overall in more than 38,000 apps across 7,000 different device types that reach an audience of about 150 million in the U.S. and 380 million globally each month.