With North Americans spending more than two full hours per day on average looking at their smartphones, it’s no surprise that marketing budgets are also going mobile – but that new investment doesn’t necessarily make for a healthy eco-system, writes Martin Kihn on Gartner for Marketing Leaders.
- Extra time viewing smartphones is converting into business opportunity with holiday shopping expected to rise 53 per cent on smartphones and tablets. Time spent looking at in-app ads is expected to rise 21 per cent.
- While more money is flowing into the mobile ads economy, it’s all flowing to just a handful of powerful players. Google alone accounts for $12 billion of this mobile ad spend.
- It’s more challenging to track users on mobile devices and therefore harder to target them with personalized ads.
Mobile strategy no longer optional
What Kihn’s post really comes down to is a message that for the year ahead, a strategy to reach people on their mobile device is no longer optional for marketers. It’s where the audience is spending their time and increasingly, paying attention to brands.
Developing a mobile strategy may be obfuscated by a lack of analytics, but coming up with creative solutions to track ROI on marketing done on mobile platforms is also a problem that falls on the shoulders of digital marketers.