Mobile advertising growth trajectory is not clear, where are the growth points?

In April 2013, a study by the US Interactive advertising agency (IAB) showed that advertisers ' spending on the mobile side showed significant growth in the last two years, with a total expenditure of $3.4 billion trillion, up 111% in 2012, up 149% per cent in 2011. The growth of mobile advertising has benefited from the maturation of mobile ecosystems and infrastructure. However, the growth trajectory of mobile advertising is still unclear.

First, as a whole, mobile advertising accounted for only 2012 of all digital advertising 9%, the main mobile end of the amount of money spent on the phone and people do not match the time. In addition, mobile ad ecosystem is very complex, need to consider equipment, operators and operating systems and other elements. In addition, mobile advertising lacks consistent protocols and standards, unlike PC advertising, from advertising to effect monitoring is a fair and seamless operation.

So where is the growth of mobile advertising? Looking at the current form of mobile advertising, I think 3 potential directions are worth exploring: location data, mobile video and social media.

Location data. Today, there are 1.2 billion smartphones worldwide, of which about 770 million smartphones have GPS positioning, and location data makes mobile ads more accurate and effective. The closer the consumer is to the merchant, the more likely they are to click on the ads, the study found.

First, advertisers will pay higher prices for location-based advertising. In addition, the problem of locating ambiguity is being solved by other means. In the field of mobile advertising, only 5%~10% has accurate GPS-generated latitude and longitude data in all the total mobile advertising. For example, using "geo-fencing" (geo-fence) technology, using micro-letters to find people around, using public comments to find restaurants, Apple's own reminder are "geo-fencing" practical case. Today, location-based advertising platforms are using geo-fencing technology to adjust their strategy and build a broader user classification with location data. For example, users who patronize airports and hotels at a certain frequency may be classified as business travellers and then targeted for accurate advertising.

Move the video. The scale effect of mobile video in the 2013 highlighted, like mobile gaming, that it has become one of the types of mobile content that can be stabilized monetization and drives the growth of mobile advertising. CPM is the most effective video, about the display of CPM 3~4 times, which is Youku, Sohu Video and other major investment in the original video content reasons. In addition, users can browse video content on a variety of scenarios and devices, from TV to PC, to tablet computers, to smartphones. For the promotion of brand, video is still one of the favorite choice for advertisers. Compared with the standard mobile banner ads, the higher price of mobile video advertising fully reflects this. EMarketer expects the U.S. market to have 520 million dollars in mobile video this year, accounting for 13% of the entire digital video advertising market. Cisco expects that by 2016, watching video will account for 2/3 of mobile traffic. In addition, tablet computers will be a powerful growth point for video advertising. With the popularity of tablet computers, new video ecosystems around tablets are taking shape. Watching video is one of the main reasons people use tablets, and tablet users have a higher conversion rate than smartphone users, which has been proven in search advertising and e-commerce.

Social media. 4 months after Facebook began to focus on mobile strategy adjustments, Mr Zuckerberg focused on the software and advertising business on smartphones and tablets, with many investments centered around attracting handheld users and advertisers starting to launch mobile ads. In the 1th quarter of 2013, Facebook mobile advertising accounted for about 30% of all advertising revenue, more than 25% of the previous forecast. Facebook has grabbed 13% of U.S. mobile advertising costs this year, accounting for about 9.5% in 2012, up about 4% per cent, according to EMarketer data. Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and its recently launched home desktop are designed to allow more users to use mobile devices rather than PCs to use its services.

Chinese social media representative Sina Weibo's commercialization program is also starting to take off, and its cooperation with Alibaba will further boost revenue growth. In the first quarter of 2013, Sina Weibo's ad revenue from the mobile end accounted for 34% of Weibo's advertising revenue, compared with 25% in the previous quarter. It is predicted that Sina Weibo mobile end advertising revenue share will rise further.