As CEO of the first performance/CPA-based mobile marketing company, people often ask me what my predictions for the mobile ecosystem will be in 2011. First, I want to draw some parallels to the world of the internet and how it developed early on. It wasn’t until certain factors converged that things really started to accelerate. With the internet, that had a lot to do with broadband adoption. When the adoption of broadband became previlant, we saw things really start to take off, like getting all the pieces of the puzzle in place. As for mobile, there was a couple pieces of the puzzle to work with; one being 3G adoption, a key piece that’s been in place for a few years now, the other being the introduction of the smartphone, beginning with the iPhone becoming a big factor in what everyone perceived what mobile could be.
The major trent for 2011 is likely to be a drastic increase in smartphone adoption and usage. The impact of smartphone adoption will have profound implications on he mobile marketing industry. Right now in the U.S. about 25% of the market consists of smartphones., It is likely that by the end of 2011, we’ll see a flip in the ratio where over 50%of the market will consist of smartphones, quite a transformation for one year with the biggest factor being the significant price drops we will see with smartphones. This began in 2010 and we will see that trend accelerate in2011.
As a mobile ad network that tracks performance, we see what types of devices and carriers are effective for different advertisers and campaigns. We can see that even though feature phones are still a huge part of the market, the conversion rates tend to be better on smart phones. The adoption of the smartphones in 2011 is going to translate into much more effective use of mobile advertising than you had on feature phones. This will affect the entire mobile ecosystem, both on the direct response side as well as the branding side as people start taking advantage of things like iAd and do much more rich media advertising than they could do previously with smartphones.
This year, we’ve already seen that advertisers have jumped onboard beyond just preliminary testing budgets, and in 2011, we’re going to see more of the same, but at a much more accelerated pace. Another factor that will drive the acceleration of the mobile advertising industry in 2011 is the comfort level of the consumer, which is important in driving a lot of mobile commerce, direct response- making purchases on mobile devices, and just generally using the phone in new ways that they haven’t done in the past.
The adoption of mobile by direct response advertising is one other thing that will accelerate next year. Currently the mobile marketing ecosystem is dominated by brand advertisers. That will start changing as more advertisers begin using direct response ads. Towards the end of 2011, we’ll see more use of mobile payment systems which will have a profound impact on mobile commerce for the following year.
Looking into the future, during 2011 we will see the rise of the mobile web, as smart phone browser capabilities continue to improve. Eventually I see apps being more a shortcut just leading to the mobile web. Because of the smartphone becoming so dominant, the mobile browser is going to become more prevalent, and as a result of that wewill start to see the mobile web begin to eclipse the app world in the next couple years.
mobile marketing is on the rise this year. we'll see how this prediction will go.Mobile Marketing
Wow!!! Nice blog. I don’t have any objection to this blog. Actually this is true. 91% of the US population is now using mobile devices. I think in this year, mobile marketing will lead this road. By means of mobile devices, one company will easily commit to its prospect target consumer.