Given that more than 50% of consumers are accessing the internet via mobile devices now, it stands to reason that the internet model of advertising would come to mobile access. After all, websites are now designed specifically for mobile devices in addition to desktop, so why wouldn’t desktop internet models of making money also apply?  That is, seeing ads pop up on your browser screen after you’ve done a search. 

I have noticed more and more mobile ads in 2016 than I’ve noticed in the past.  As an example, I typically go look at the New York Giants website once a week during the football season.  When I went to the site in October on my wired connection, I saw ads about Toyota and Verizon.  When I accessed the same website within minutes of that using my smartphone, I saw a banner ad about Aquafina. In the past, there wouldn’t have been an ad if accessed through my phone. The ad was also more interactive, as it was a banner that changed a couple of times.  This simple example is repeated countless times on many many websites across the globe. 

In fact, according to eMarketer, during 2016, global mobile advertising market will surpass \$100 billion in spending and account for more than 50% of all digital ad expenditure for the first time. This makes sense to me given that more than 50% of all internet access is via a mobile device.  But the screens are smaller and so the ads are somewhat different.  What kinds of mobile ads are there? Stay tuned for next week. I’ll go over the different types of ads that are available on mobile.