Now that webmasters are starting to bring in an increasingly large percentage of their income from mobile traffic, we decided to drill down deeper by having a discussion of and assessment about the current state of the mobile market. We found some interesting facts about the future outlook of emerging audiences as well as the ways site owners can earn more quickly and efficiently over the long term from portable device revenue streams.
One of the interesting facts is that at times, mobile earned a big portion of our platform revenue, even though it is a much smaller percentage of our inventory than web traffic. Mobile is booming and we have seen growth last year far surpassing what was predicted in the market. At the current rate of growth for traffic from the mobile market, ad networks like ours will eventually derive more than half of their profits from mobile advertising. The convenience and privacy of using a mobile device to purchase or view adult content is driving growth very rapidly in our market space.
Even as mobile traffic still makes up a fraction of the volume desktops provide, it has already become significantly more profitable.
Just how big is the mobile traffic market right now? Globally, mobile traffic accounts for a sizeable chunk of internet traffic right now, and it is thought to increase significantly according to sources we have seen. However, mobile internet usage in individual countries like China and South Korea has already surpassed desktop Internet usage during 2012 which means large emerging markets of new customers are likely to see mobile platforms as the dominant venue for digital purchases right from the start. Much the way American consumers were preconditioned to use credit cards for buying things online and desktop screens to view content, international customers from India, China, Korea and elsewhere are coming online from a starting point where cardless billing and mobile devices are what they are most accustomed to right from the outset.
Even as mobile traffic still makes up a fraction of the volume desktops provide, it has already become significantly more profitable. There is more money being spent by advertisers, for the same user on mobile vs. the same traditional user, with mobile usage far outpacing mobile ad spend, which leaves a huge gap of opportunity in the mobile market. In the U.S., mobile ad spend is only three percent of total advertising spending, which is far below ad spending on traditional Internet, TV, print or even radio.
For site owners incapable of monetizing their own mobile traffic directly, there is a high demand for mobile traffic, because advertisers are spending more per click in mobile than on web display traffic — and with the advent of easier methods of payment via mobile, transactions are on the rise. That makes sending your mobile traffic to a company that has a solid monetization platform already in place to pay you what your mobile traffic is worth is the easiest way for any site owner to start cashing in on mobile traffic immediately.
To sum up the status of mobile traffic succinctly, as an ad network you must offer your traffic partners the full freedom to use your marketplace to monetize their mobile or traditional traffic in whatever way that earns them the most. After all, mobile traffic does in general is a lot less important than what it can do for you and your own bank account when you optimize it and monetize it with trusted networks.