Night at the Opera: Software firm tracks mobile ads

Opera released its Q4 State of the Mobile Advertising report that uses the software firm's mobile advertising network which offers up an incredible 50 billion mobile ad impressions each month via 12,000 mobile sites and apps. Opera paid off mobile publishers a whopping $400 million in 2012. The fourth quarter delivered twice the growth in impressions and revenue to publishers than any other quarter during the year and Android continued to show growth in the fourth quarter, led by the Samsung Galaxy S III. 

Specifically, while iOS was the leading mobile platform, Android was the leader for mobile phones with 30.94% of mobile impressions for the whole year, edging out the 29.08% of impressions that were sent over the iPhone. But when it came to monetizing the ads, the iPhone had over 37.28% of revenue while Android had 29.97%. The Samsung Galaxy S III alone, accounts for 9% of the Android ad market.

All together, iOS had the biggest share in the mobile ad market

The top category for impressions was music, video and media. According to Opera, mobile users are using their devices more and more to listen to music, and view video on the go. 21.4% of ad impressions fit in this category. Arts and Entertainment had fewer impressions, but generated more revenue for publishers. And Opera notes that as more global players enter the game, North American share drops. From Q3 to Q4 of 2012, North America's share of global ad requests slipped from 70% to 64% of the market. Some of that drop came at the hands of the Russian Federation. Thanks to the use of Android in the region, the Russian Federation had 60% growth in ad requests from the beginning of Q2 through the end of Q4 in 2012.

Opera also pointed out in its report that new features found on today's smartphones allow for rich media campaigns that are high impact.  DreamWorks Animation and Kraft Foods were two examples of companies using new branded content and embedded calls to action as ways to engage the interest of smartphone users. You can see the examples of those campaigns in the slideshow below.

source: Opera