Soaring smartphone ownership is set to result in a 90% increase in mobile phone marketing budgets this year – reaching almost £1bn – fuelled by a mega spend on mobile search.
According to figures released by eMarketer, the market will grow from £526m in 2012 as the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter beef up their mobile strategies. In 2011 the Internet Advertising Bureau put mobile ad spend at £203m.
Facebook UK will make £279m in total digital ad revenue this year, a 25% year on year rise. Within this, mobile advertising accounts for potentially up to half of total digital income. But Google is way out in front; eMarketer reckons it will make £2.65bn in search and display digital ad revenue this year.
Meanwhile, digital advertising spend in the UK has increased to £6.1bn this year, with Google UK is estimated to account for 44% of the market. It is forecast to reach £6.8bn next year and £8.4bn in 2017.
eMarketer vice-president of communications Clark Fredricksen said: “Major ad platforms have vastly improved mobile ad products to advertisers over the last two years, which has helped drive a redistribution of dollars spent on their platforms from desktop to mobile,” said, at. “Two years ago Facebook and Twitter had no mobile ad business. Today the companies earn between a third and half, respectively, of all revenues from mobile ads.
“Google, similarly, has seen mobile searches rise dramatically thanks to smartphone adoption, and thus the company is seeing more paid search ad clicks than ever before coming through mobile devices,” said Fredericksen.
