2012 Mobile Spend: $2.61 billion

Written by Claire Thursday, 26 January 2012 16:05

eMarketer analysts announced that they were revising their forecasts for US mobile ad spend in 2012 – the new prediction is $2.61 billion! That's a 45% increase from their original prediction, and it's all due to Google's performance.

But what worries me is that advertisers are blindly throwing their money at mobile. In today's SMN Webcast about mobile call campaigns, nearly half of poll respondents had no idea what the ROI on their mobile campaigns was. And 11% said they were flushing their money down the toilet with mobile.

Those numbers are not okay.

Mobile may be a new advertising platform, but it's old enough that there are plenty of specialists and software programs available to help advertisers know where their money is going and what the return is. There is no excuse for ignorance here. 90% of smartphone searches result in action, with 77% of those actually contacting the business. So why are people losing money and flaking on tracking ROI?

At LW, we rely on our tracking and optimization as a crutch. Without analytics propping us up with detailed data that allows us to see what works (and more importantly: what doesn't), we wouldn't have gotten anywhere. So it's time for you to stop, look at your campaigns, and figure out what you need to succeed in mobile. Set up some analytics software to track clicks, use multiple phone numbers to track the origins of calls, and start paying attention to what your spend is returning.