• by Ash Kumar , November 13, 2013

What lies ahead in 2014? Our team of industry experts compiled a set of bold predictions, based on their own knowledge and research.

With over 75% growth in mobile advertising during 2013 per AdAge Mobile Fact Pack, mobile is no longer an emerging channel. Along with social media, it’s become an essential part of every digital marketer’s strategy. We have outlined what we believe will be the important trends and innovations that marketers need to plan for in 2014.

Mobile RTB Will Makes Up 45% of all Mobile Ad Buys

Mobile Real Time Bidding (RTB) went mainstream in 2013 with the Twitter acquisition of MoPub, an early leader in mobile RTB technology. In AdExchanger’s third quarter 2013 mobile round up, they projected mobile RTB will hit 30% by the end of the year. We expect this trend to continue, with RTB comprising 45% of all mobile ad buys at years end in 2014.

The RTB trend has been around for some time in desktop advertising and promised to deliver more transparency to buyers and better monetization (higher CPMs) for publishers than non-RTB buying. PC ad buyers, however, were slow to adopt RTB and the results were mixed. In mobile, it’s grown rapidly as buyers have embraced this model as the best way to get scale.

Continued Consolidation in the Ad Network Space

The 2013 Millennial Media acquisition of Jumptap signaled a turning point for mobile ad networks. The explosion in ad mobile ad networks that followed Google’s 750 Million Dollar acquisition of Admob in 2009 has finally come to an end. The widespread adoption of transparent buying methods like RTB and the growth of large mobile publishers’ direct sales teams, has greatly reduced the amount of inventory available to ad networks.

The proliferation of options now available to buyers means that more consolidation will happen. Small niche players, particularly in the gaming space, will continue to build their businesses independently. But buyers will quickly find the offerings of large and medium-sized mobile ad networks redundant against the combination of RTB platforms and direct ad sales by big publishers.

Mobile video formats are ripe for innovation. The days of simply repurposing a 30-second spot for mobile and Web, just to increase reach, are over. We expect five- and 10-second mobile video spots to increase in popularity. Production costs for video creation continue to fall as the technology evolves.

High quality video production tools now come preinstalled on every laptop, and most smartphones can capture HD video, turning even the smallest marketing department into a TV production studio. The widespread availability of wifi in most workplaces, cafes, and hotels means mobile ad inventory is regularly available to deliver video ads.

Twitter Ads Expand to Third Party Twitter Clients

Per Darren Rovell and comScore, nearly 90% of time spent on Twitter was on a mobile device. Currently, there are only a few select third-party Twitter clients that support Twitter ads which includes formats promoted accounts, tweets, and hashtags. Twitter client apps that have ads include Echofone, HootSuite, Twitterrific, Plume and the official Twitter app. Some of these apps have a paid version that removes Twitter ads from the user experience. Twitter ads are not available at all, however, in the following Twitter clients: Twitterific desktop version, Hootie, Tweet Lines, Twidere, and the No. 1 ranked client, Tweetbot.

In Conclusion

We expect all marketers in 2014 to significantly increase their investment in mobile. Now that the technology has finally caught up with the popularity of mobile devices, business will find significant ROI from mobile marketing next year. More is detailed in the company’s ebook on best practices for mobile marketing.