Almost two-thirds (64%) of advertisers involved in mobile advertising hiked their mobile ad investments last year, and even more (67%) expect to increase their spending in the coming year, according to a report from Advertiser Perceptions. So which mobile ad formats and products are trending within this burgeoning environment in which the mobile ad market is projected to surpass the TV ad market in size?
As it stands, short video ads are the darling of advertisers this year. Roughly half (49%) said that 6-second ads feature among the top 3 (from a list of 12) ad formats/products they’re most interested in when planning for mobile advertising campaigns.
The emphasis on shorter ads comes at a time when online video ads are judged to be more effective when shorter than TV ads.
Beyond 6-second ads, mobile advertisers also express an interest in cross-device retargeting (40%) and unskippable ads (38%). In tandem with 6-second ads, these top 3 products and formats were also the most-used in the past 12 months, notes Advertiser Perceptions. But while shorter video ads might find some appeal with viewers, research suggests that unskippable ads might meet some resistance.
Meanwhile, VR and AR ads haven’t yet broken through, as very few respondents indicated that these emerging formats are among those in which they’re most interested.
The survey was fielded among 305 marketer and agency contacts involved in media brand selection decisions for mobile advertising, and who plan to spend at least $100,000 on mobile advertising in the next 12 months.
Privacy Concerns Rear Their Head
Mobile advertisers are presented with somewhat of a privacy conundrum, per the report. On the one hand, they rank more advanced targeting capabilities the top benefit of mobile advertising (ahead of larger audience reach and better audience engagement). On the other hand, privacy ranks as their second-largest concern (behind only accidental clicks).
Similarly, while fully 82% of respondents see mobile device IDs as important to them, a majority (53%) describe the privacy issues posed by mobile device IDs as an “urgent issue.”
More Data Points
Other highlights from the report follow.
- Almost two-thirds (65%) of mobile advertisers indicate that brand safety or fraud will significantly impact mobile ad spending.
- Roughly 8 in 10 advertisers feel that measuring viewability is important (video ad viewability benchmarks can be found here).
- Two in 3 advertisers feel that location-based data for mobile campaigns is at least somewhat effective, although shoppers are loathe to share this data.
- More than 6 in 10 advertisers used mobile audio for advertising last year, up from 55% the year prior. Audio appears to be the digital advertising format that is most heavily skewed towards mobile devices.
- Almost one-fifth (17%) of mobile video ad spending is allocated to live video. Live stream mobile advertising is more commonly used on social media platforms (89%) than on publisher/content channels (76%).
- Just 1 in 5 advertisers believe that companies such as Nielsen and comScore are doing a good job measuring reach on mobile, and not many more (26%) feel they’re doing a good job measuring time spent on mobile.
