Smartphone apps driving mobile marketing

Smartphone applications are where the money is at for advertisers and brands.

It is where mobile ad network AdMob is focusing most of its efforts today, more so than the mobile Web, following an explosion in both smartphone and mobile app usage, Charles Yim, part of the North American business development team for AdMob, told an audience of entrepreneurs, investors and developers at the Mobilex conference. AdMob, which was acquired by Google in November for $750 million, observed its own network traffic reach a crossover point at the end of 2009 when smartphones traffic surpassed feature phone traffic, Yim said. Now smartphones are experiencing explosive growth in use and mobile ad utilization. At the same time, WiFi usage is driving more mobile app usage, which Yim expects to continue with the introduction of new mobile computing platforms like Android-based computing tablets and Apple's iPad.