JiWire has been watching mobile and in-app advertising, and says that “Advertisements in mobile applications are especially effective.” Their new report, released today, “examines device use, consumer adoption of Wi-Fi and consumer preferences for mobile content and advertising delivery.” Interesting take-aways from the report include the fact that iPhone has surpassed iPod Touch in number of ads delivered, and that the iPad has had a non-trivial effect on WiFi usage, indicating that people really do want to access content on-the-go but might not want to do so with a phone or a laptop.
JiWire,”the leading mobile audience media company that reaches the on-the-go Audience across its location-based media channel” (read: hot spots), collected data from it’s quarter million hot spots and polled more than two thousand random customers from March 2010 to April 2010. They found that “over half of survey respondents acted on an advertisement in an app in the last 30 days, and 18 percent made a purchase as a result of it.” I find this data extremely surprising, because no one I know has ever made a purchase as the result of in-app advertisement.
Additional data collected by JiWire:
- 40 percent spend over one hour daily using apps and have an average of 22 apps on their mobile device.
- 76 percent prefer free apps that have advertising over paying a fee for the same apps.
- 84 percent would be just as likely or more likely to engage with an ad relevant to their current location.
- 53 percent are willing to share their current location to receive more relevant advertising.
- 52 percent acted on an advertisement in an app and 18 percent made a purchase from an ad in an app in the last 30 days.
Much of this data is pretty consistent with my own casual observations, except for the last item. Location-based advertisements that appear in an application may not necessarily be your typical AdMob banner ad, of course. I’ve been tempted to check out a couple of establishments as a result of Foursquare check-ins revealing deals or specials at near-by venues. This kind of location-specific advertising might well compel a lot more business to follow the ads; but I can also see myself quickly growing jaded of mobile ads in the same way that we’re all jaded to billboards and bench ads and such.
You can read the whole report for yourself, which also includes some interesting data about free versus paid WiFi hot spot proliferation.