Mobile advertising is in growth mode. But when will it topple the king of the hill – television?
According to eMarketer, advertisers will this year (for the first time ever) spend more on mobile-device ads than they spend on newspaper or radio.
Market research company eMarketer also expects mobile-ad spending to soar 83 percent in 2014 to nearly $18 billion.
But BlueRun Ventures’ Operating Partner Cheryl Cheng says mobile advertising spend will not surpass television in the near future.
“Mobile advertising is a following indicator of where the market is,” says Cheng. “The medium for mobile advertising still has a lot of catching up to do before it can even reach — or surpass — the levels of TV advertising.”
The reason, she says, comes down to infrastructure and not yet “being able to close the [analytics] loop between an ad unit, and purchasing a product.”
The story first appeared at FoxBusiness online.
But some companies, like Verve Mobile, she says have leveraged the unique functions of a smartphone to provide highly targeted and relevant mobile advertising.
“Those types of advertising units do really well, the ones that leverage that aperture of mobile,” she says. “Outside of that, you are still seeing a lot of infrastructure being built out, so that advertisers can use that to validate their spend.”
In lieu of that, Cheng notes, “it is going to be difficult for them to move from traditional TV.”
