Mobile Ads still taking Baby Steps.

Counting in millions, not billions (for now).

Like a gifted but underachieving student, the US mobile ad spending story remains more about potential than results.

The most recent evidence comes from a February 2008 iMedia Connection study.

More than two-thirds of online marketers polled said that they planned to do no more than dabble in mobile marketing in 2008.

The executives surveyed by iMedia were not just being instinctively conservative. Online marketers are used to being able to measure their campaign results, and mobile marketing metrics are still very much a work in progress.

The problem does not seem to be that too few mobile users are getting ad impressions. In March 2008 Nielsen said that 58 million US mobile subscribers viewed an ad on their mobile phones during the previous month.

The finding was cited in a BusinessWeek article which concluded that “the problem is that advertisers don’t know what users are doing, if anything, when they see the ads.”

Despite the sentiments expressed to iMedia, US mobile advertising is growing fast. eMarketer predicts that US mobile advertisers will spend 89% more in 2008 than they did in 2007. It should be noted, however, that, at the equivalent of only 6% of US online ad spending in 2008, the total amount is still small, especially given that more than 80% of US adults have mobile phones.

“Although 2007 saw some important groundwork laid for mobile advertising, there remain clear growing pains ahead,” said John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer.

Some marketers are also daunted by the amount of planning required for an effective mobile campaign. Lining up all the parts and players needed to accomplish client goals can take a while.

A record label may want to sell ringtones. The cost of the music could be sponsored by a consumer brand, which in exchange would want to drive consumer engagement. Other brands might look for registrations, e-mail addresses or phone numbers.

“There’s a ton of different ways to do mobile marketing,” Jack Philbin, CEO of Vibes Media, told eMarketer. “So it’s even more important to know your objectives.”

Courtesy of http://www.emarketer.com