Nearly 90% of Marketers Will Pursue Mobile Marketing in 2011

A new survey from the Association of National Advertisers, along with the MMA, found that nearly nine in 10 marketers will pursue mobile marketing this year. However, a recent finding on the underwhelming reason why many mobile app users actually click on ads could be cause for concern for these marketers.

Sixty-two percent of marketers used some kind of mobile marketing for their brands in 2010, while 26 percent expressed their intention to start doing that this year.

The ANA-MMA survey found that 88 percent of marketers plan to pursue mobile marketing this year. Meanwhile, 75 percent will boost their spending on these efforts, with an average increase of 59 percent from a year ago.

Respondents to the survey pointed to Coca-Cola’s mobile advertising and Target’s integration of the mobile Web, rewards and wish-list registries as two particularly successful mobile marketing campaigns.

However, just 25 percent of respondents say their efforts were “extremely” or “very” successful, while 53 percent say their efforts have been “somewhat” successful.

Marketers who claimed they experienced above-average success rates had some common traits: they have been using the medium longer, tend to use more mobile platforms, integrate platforms with each other and measure mobile efforts with a wide array of metrics.

The five mobile platforms with the highest adoption levels (at least one half of the firms surveyed) were: 1) mobile websites, 2) mobile apps, 3) mobile messaging/SMS, 4) mobile display ads, and 5) mobile search.

The three main advantages of mobile marketing, according to respondents, are: portable Web access, ability to deliver content/promotions on-the-go and convenience for immediate consumer support/sales support/loyalty.

The three main barriers to adoption of mobile marketing by client-side marketers are: lack of metrics to properly allocate mobile marketing within the overall marketing mix, inability to prove ROI and lack of understanding by key people at the brand/company.

A survey by Harris Interactive on behalf of Pontiflex, a mobile, e-mail and social acquisition platform, found that 47 percent of mobile app users say they click/tap on mobile ads more often by mistake than they do on purpose. “Given that mobile advertising models typically charge advertisers for clicks, the survey findings indicate that a large portion of mobile ad dollars are wasted,” the press release notes.

The company adds that “In a related December 2010 survey, 71 percent of mobile app users stated that they prefer ads that keep them within the app they are using, instead of ads that take them out of the app to a mobile web browser, further reinforcing the need for mobile advertising to move away from a model based on clicks.”

Sources:</strong

http://mmaglobal.com/news/vast-majority-marketers-will-utilize-mobile-marketing-and-increase-spending-mobile-platforms-j-0

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=143922

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Survey-Finds-Nearly-Half-Mobile-App-Users-Report-Clicking-on-Mobile-Ads-Mistake-1386671.htm