Mobile continues to eat desktop, but advertising spend on the platform hasn’t kept up with the amount of time spent on it. That’s changing. Mobile advertising will account for 63 percent of online spend and 26 percent of total media spend by 2019 — more than all traditional media, except TV, combined, according to Zenith’s latest ad forecast. That counts all display ads delivered to smartphones and tablets, much of which is driven by programmatic advertising, but also includes mobile search and in-app ad spending.
Here’s a look at the status of programmatic mobile growth.
Mobile-to-desktop ad spend ratio
Mobile ad spend was an estimated $79 billion (£62 billion) globally in 2016, accounting for 45 percent of all internet spend and 15 percent of total ad spend, according to Zenith’s global ad spend report. By 2019, that will grow to $155 billion (£121 billion), accounting for 63 percent of all internet spend and 26 percent of all media spend in 2019.
Mobile display ad spend is outpacing desktop in the U.K., with $4.5 million (£3.5 million) forecast to be spent on mobile display advertising in 2019, up from $3.6 million (£2.8 million) this year, according to Zenith. Meanwhile, desktop display ad spend in the U.K. will decline to $1.1 million (£860,000) in 2019, from $1.4 million (£1.1 million) this year.
Mobile header-bidding growth
Header bidding was built to solve a desktop challenge, but it’s creeping into mobile. The volume of monetized mobile impressions grew at double the rate of desktop between March and June compared to the same period a year ago, according to PubMatic’s latest quarterly report, which analyzes billions of impressions across its network. Mobile CPMs also improved almost 150 percent during the same time.
“As mobile opportunities rise globally, we see holistic header-bidding solutions becoming increasingly important to publishers, enabling them to reclaim control of their inventory,” said Rajeev Goel, CEO of PubMatic.
EMEA is driving mobile growth
Volume of monetized mobile impressions nearly tripled globally, but the sharpest growth spike was across the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions, according to the PubMatic report.
In the first three months of 2017, monetized impressions volume jumped by 35 percent, compared to an increase of 13 percent in the same period last year. In the Americas and Asia-Pacific markets, the growth rate slowed in the same period.
Native ads are gaining popularity
In the U.K., native ad impressions are becoming the most popular ad format for trading programmatically via smartphones, according to a report from The Programmatic Advisory.
Native ads accounted for 84 percent of all impressions served on smartphones programmatically, according to the report, which analyzed inventory from across all open exchanges over a 30-day period in June. Standard display and video remain popular, with 48 percent and 51 percent of impressions programmatically traded in those formats on smartphones, respectively.
Mobile ad fraud persists
Mobile app stores prevent a lot of fraudulent apps from entering the marketplace, but bots still slip through. Ad fraud appears on 52 percent of the apps that are uncertified by the app stores and 8 percent of certified apps, according to Sizmek Research, which tracked 20 billion impressions last year.
Android is more susceptible to fraud than iOS. Ten percent of ad traffic overall comes from uncertified apps. Of that 10 percent, 60 percent comes from Android, and 40 percent comes from iOS, according to Sizmek.
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