Does Mobile Display 2012 = Online Display 1999?

[Commentary] Mobile advertising is growing rapidly. Total spend in the U.S. during the first half of this year hit $1.2 billion — a staggering 95 percent jump from last year, according to an October report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Many forecasts predict that this growth won’t slow, and I believe them. Viewing this through the prism of mobile display, it’s clear to see that critical needs are being served. Display can build brand exposure and heighten awareness. Plus, display is easy to buy. However, this is where the trouble starts. Data is hard to come by, reporting is opaque, and tonnage trumps targeting. All advertisers have to do is sign up with one of the myriad mobile ad networks and, boom! Banners go everywhere, shares of ad networks soar and everybody wins. Party like it’s 1999.

Actually, this whole thing feels like deja vu all over again. The parallels between desktop display back then and mobile display right now are downright eerie. We have to learn from the past. Because, in advertising, there’s this huge iceberg called performance. And that iceberg is even bigger in mobile. You’re dealing with more fragmentation at the publisher level (such as thousands of developer apps), significantly different form factor (smaller screens), and much higher rates of accidental clicks and incidence of spam (robo-dialers). Increasingly, businesses will want to know, “Does mobile work?” The future of mobile advertising depends on what that answer is.

[Christothoulou is the president of Marchex , a mobile advertising company]