Mobile
Ads Pointing To Social Sites Increasing
by Mark Walsh,
The expansion of
social media on mobile phones is no secret. In a June report, comScore
identified social networking as the fastest-growing content category across
both mobile browsers and applications. And then there are the 100 million
people worldwide accessing Facebook on mobile devices.
The latest piece
of evidence in that vein is a 50% rise in mobile ad campaigns that send users
to multiple social networking sites in the last six months, according to the
May metrics report released
today by mobile ad network Millennial Media. Overall, 12% of campaigns direct
people to social sites as a call to action within ads, a higher proportion than
send users to m-commerce sites or store locator maps.
While mobile
advertisers are increasingly trying to drive users to brand pages or promotions
on social sites, click-to-call remains the most common type of action they
encourage in ads at 36%, followed by signing up for a service (29%), submitting
a form (28%), application download (24%) and watching a video (23%).
More than
three-quarters (77%) of campaigns overall directed users either to a mobile
site or a custom landing page. When it comes to ad formats, Millennial said
spending on rich media units was up 85% as marketers that use the higher-impact
units "doubled down, making sure it was a key component of their May
campaigns."
Spending on mobile
rich media ads more broadly will increase dramatically with the launch of the
iAd platform today, for which Apple has said it has already taken in $60
million in ad buys from a group of initial sponsors that includes Nike, Nissan,
Sears and Target. Whether competing mobile ad networks like Millennial and
AdMob enjoy a halo effect from higher spending on the iAd -- or just the
reverse -- remains to be seen.
Among other
findings from the Millennial report, the number of ad requests per page view
was just over one (1.03) and the average monthly page views per user was 108.
The average session time was up by a minute to five minutes -- three seconds --
as the ending of the school year led to more time spent on mobile phones.
Millennial's
audience grew slightly in April to 61.5 million from 60 million unique users,
or 82% of
For
more information visit www.mediapost.com
