Marketing Professionals Still Finding Difficulties In Adopting Mobile Said IAB

This morning I came across the latest study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) which gauges the current condition of the mobile industry among media agencies. It has established that as a whole, marketers are gradually raising their understanding of m-commerce, but still there are barriers they are yet to overcome in order to afford bigger mobile advertising budgets.

The IAB approached 350 media agency professionals in collaboration with research firm Work to find that responsive web design and mobile privacy are the two aspects of mobile advertising that are of greatest concern for marketers, as 53% of them stated that they lacked experience in these areas. Another 49% said they had no experience in real-time advertising and 48% claimed they did not know enough about Near Field Communication (NFC).

Tracking and client education are also factors that make marketers think twice before raising their advertising spend on mobile, although 64% of them believe that they have sufficient industry data on hand and 48% think they have read enough case studies. What’s reassuring is the fact that fewer marketers now consider a lack of internal resource as an obstacle to mobile spend, with their share having contracted to 17% from 33% in IAB’s previous’ study.

While tracking and measuring the efficacy of mobile advertising remain key challenges for marketers, the share of those finding difficulties in handling them has also declined, to 31% in December 2012 from 53% the previous year.

Going forward, augmented reality, 4G and NFC will be the key areas marketers will seek to capitalise on, the survey also showed. In order to make use of these fresh growth opportunities, media professionals believe they will also need to improve training and expand staff skills in the field.