A Survey of Over 100 Major Brands & Advertisers on Performance & Future Spend

Millennial Media and DM2PRO.com, a knowledge base for digital media and marketing professionals, collaborated to explore of attitudes and spending plans of leading agencies and brands. The responses resulted in the development of “State of the Industry: Mobile Advertising.”

There were numerous take-aways from the report, including:

The CPG, Retail, Entertainment, Travel and Restaurant categories are expected to lead mobile spending; which is somewhat consistent with who is spending the most in mobile advertising today (see our September/Q3 SMART at www.millennialmedia.com/research). Engagement leads the number one sought return for an investment in mobile marketing, though “opt-in”, or list building, was cited as the most likely goal for Q4 campaigns.

The largest cohorts replied that they will spend less than $100K in mobile advertising in 2009; however, that number jumps significantly in 2010.  With 60% of non-mobile marketers planning to employ mobile advertising in 2010, the increase in mobile spend is among the leading highlights:

• Mobile spending is expected to increase next year, with 31% of agency respondents stating that they will invest between $100K and $249K.
• More than 15% plan to invest more than $1M and 2.6% projected spending of greater than $5M.
• More than ½ of Q4 mobile campaigns will represent between 1% and 10% of their clients’ total spending, but, for a few, that number will be 40%-50%.
• Nearly 75% of the 100 leading agency respondents stated that they have developed mobile campaigns for themselves or a client.
• As an average value, brand respondents forecasted at least a 15 percent increase in spend in 2010.

Mobile advertising performance meets expectations and remains valuable. Among those who have executed mobile campaigns:

• 78% of respondents said the medium met their campaign goals, and an additional 9% said mobile performed “beyond our wildest expectations.”
• For 89% of agencies, the mobile facet of a campaign is just one portion of a multi-platform buy.
• Nearly a third (30%) of agency respondents said mobile has become an “indispensable” part of the media mix. Another 67% ranked mobile as “somewhat valuable” and only 2% said it was not valuable in their overall media mix.

More than 80% of agencies who have participated in mobile campaigns have hired or developed internal resources to support them. Nearly 90% stated they are typically the ones to suggest that a client employ mobile as part of their campaign strategy. Still, it often involves multiple partners to expertly execute on the promise of mobile media. Partners include technology, metrics, mobile ad network, and app developer resources, among others. Approximately 80% of mobile campaigns employed a mobile ad network of some kind, and about half of those have a single favorite provider.

Download the full report online.