us media time

Mobile Apps now Represent Over Half of Media Time

If you or your company is using digital advertising as part of your overall marketing campaign, it is time to make sure you are including in-app ads. According to a recent study from Comscore, people are now spending over half of the total time they are using digital media within mobile apps. This means that people will be more likely to see an ad that is displayed within an app than they would one that is shown anywhere else online.

Share of u.s digital media time spent by platform
Share of u.s digital media time spent by platform Source : comscore.com

According to the study, apps constitute about 83% of the time people are spending on their mobile devices, which may not be to surprising to many, since just about everything is done within some type of app. With over 60% of total time spent on mobile devices compared to traditional desktops, it is easy to see how this would add up to people being in apps such a high percentage of their time.

Fortunately, many of the in-app ads are starting to become more interactive and effective when it comes to getting people to read and click on them. In addition, since you can specific what types of apps you want your ads displayed in, it is easy to set up an extremely targeted and effective marketing campaign that operates entirely within mobile applications.

Breakdown by Category

The report from Comscore gets even more interesting, and useful, when you take the time to look at the numbers broken down by category. The following time spent on each of these categories is broken down into mobile on the left, and desktop on the right:

  • Photos – 96% / 4%
  • Instant Messengers – 90% / 10%
  • Games – 86% / 14%
  • Social Networking – 71% / 29%
  • Informational Resources – 65% / 35%

As you can see, mobile is clearly dominating in every category that was measured in this study. In addition, mobile apps are used in every category, which shows exactly how important it is to be included in your marketing strategy.

Cross-Platform Ads

One thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of cross platform opportunities available as well. For example, you can run ads on Facebook and have them displayed both on desktops and within mobile apps on phones or tablets. Finding the best opportunities like this will make it easier for many marketers to maximize their investment, without requiring too much extra work on your part.

It is important, however, to make sure the advertisements that are being displayed will look good and result in high conversion rates on both platforms. If necessary, making tweaks or other changes based on the platform can help ensure all your marketing dollars are as effective as possible.

However you choose to handle your digital marketing, it is important to make sure you are keeping mobile apps in mind. This is clearly the way people are consuming digital content, and this trend is only expected to continue to grow for the foreseeable future. If you don’t market where your target customers are, they will never even see your advertisements.

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