Everyone knows that the most popular trend in marketing today is mobile, and that it is seeing constant growth each time new results come out. Therefore, any news regarding mobile growth would not be overly exciting to anyone, especially those who have been following the progress of mobile lately. However, numbers like the ones released in December’s SMART Report, from MillennialMedia, a mobile advertising and data platform, are higher than anyone could expect from mobile. Year over year, mobile has grown dramatically, more so in certain verticals than in others, but overall it has exploded. Mobile seems to be growing faster these days than anyone could have predicted.

The SMART Report shows the top ten advertising verticals as of December of 2012, ranked by ad spend.

1. TELECOMMUNICATIONS
2. RETAIL & RESTAURANTS
3. FINANCE
4. AUTOMOTIVE
5. TRAVEL
6. PORTALS & DIRECTORIES
7. CPG/FMCG
8. ENTERTAINMENT
9. EDUCATION
10. TECHNOLOGY

Although ad spend is highest in telecommunications, retail and restaurants, as well as finance, these verticals are not the ones that have been seeing the most significant growth year over year. Since this time last year, it has been automotive that has been exploding on mobile, with a growth of 574%. Here is the report’s list of top growth by vertical:

Automotive: 574%

Travel: 431%

Education: 421%

Sports: 417%

Technology: 294%

Government Services: 294%

Aside from government services, as they are sort of an exception in light of the recent elections, the growth of these verticals shows the true extent of mobile’s growth during 2012.

What are the goals of all of these new mobile advertisers though? MillennialMedia shows in their report that the highest percentage, 26%, of advertisers labeled sustaining their in-market presence as their main goal for the year in their mobile advertising efforts. After that, 23% said that their main goal for mobile was increasing site traffic. About 17% put registrations at the top of their mobile priority list, and 16% were looking for brand awareness more than anything. Only 11% used mobile to accomplish the main goal of increasing awareness about product releases, and then 7% were looking to increase foot traffic.

Then comes the topic that peaks the interest of many marketers in the mobile world, and that topic is actual device performance. As far as actual devices go, the most impressions were seen on smartphones, with 75% of the total. In terms of operating system, Android took the lead with 52% of all impressions measured. It appears that iOS only saw about 34% of overall impressions.

Of all the information that MillennialMedia has released, I would say that he most significant and the most shocking is their numbers proving the explosion of growth that mobile has been experiencing. Although mobile still has even more growth coming in the future, it is safe to say that it has become the next big thing. Marketers should start focusing more of their attention to mobile, as it is rapidly becoming the best option for advertising digitally.

Written by Michael Levanduski

Michael Levanduski is a news reporter at Performance Marketing Insider. He’s been a writer at one level or another for the past 15+ years. He has three kids and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

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