Mobile Advertisers Leverage Social Media

About one-quarter of mobile advertising campaign actions in October 2010 led to social media post-click, according to the October 2010 Millennial Media SMART Report.

Social Media Drives Brand Engagement, Lead Gen

Social media, as a post-click campaign action, represented 26% of the mobile campaign actions in October 2010. The top advertisers on the Millennial network from the finance, automotive, entertainment and retail verticals leveraged the social media platform to drive further brand engagement, as well as lead generation.

Retail Promotion, M-commerce Grow as Campaign Actions

Retail promotion and m-commerce as post-click campaign actions experienced tremendous growth month-over-month with a 13% and 8% increase, respectively. Millennial analysis shows the increase is tied to brands in the retail and CPG verticals developing promotions to drive increased holiday sales through mobile advertising.

Traffic to Site Top Mobile Ad Destination

Traffic to Site continued to be the top destination for brands advertising on mobile and represented a 42% impression share in October 2010. Custom Landing page as a campaign destination grew slightly to represent 40% share of impressions.

More than eight in 10 (82%) of campaigns on the Millennial network drove to these two mobile web destinations, providing further validation that brands are finding value in maintaining a persistent mobile web presence.

Targeted Audience Campaign Methods More Popular

The trend of advertisers leveraging targeted-audience campaign methods (GEO, Demographic, Behavioral Audience and Audience Takeover) continued for the fifth consecutive month, with 44% of campaigns on the Millennial network leveraging these methods.

Broad reach methods (Run of Network, Custom Subnet and Channel) represented 56% of the campaign targeting mix in October 2010. These methods are recommended for broad-reaching brand campaigns and brands first entering the mobile space.

Audience takeover as a targeting method accounted for 7% of the targeted audience mix in October 2010. Millennial data indicates brands in the entertainment and CPG verticals utilized this targeting method to achieve 100% share of voice for new movie releases and product launches.

Mobile Restaurant Interaction Spikes

The restaurant vertical received a significant 51% spike in mobile interaction during the four-day Thanksgiving weekend (November 25-28, 2010), likely due to consumers seeking a break from cooking after preparing a large holiday meal. CPG had a 31% mobile interaction lift, which Millennial analysis indicates resulted from consumers seeking cooking tips on the actual Thanksgiving holiday.

The movie sub-vertical of entertainment received a 31% lift as consumers sought options to amuse themselves on their day off, which also probably led to a 19% spike in mobile access of dating sites.

Text Coupons Most Popular Retail-related Consumer Mobile Activity

Looking at a variety of retail-related consumer mobile activities, text coupons lead both in terms of current engagement (25%) and planned engagement in the next 12 months (47%), according to a recent study from IHL Group. Probably due to the high percentage of consumers who will already be using mobile text coupons within 12 months, planned engagement within 12 to 24 months is only 9%, tied for second-lowest with consumer self-checkout.

The other two retail-related consumer mobile activities currently used by more than 20% of mobile phone subscribers are regular barcode (22%) and 2D barcode (21%). Coupons on mobile screen only have 16% current engagement, but 38% planned engagement within the next 12 months, second only to text coupons in this category.