Everyone — from app developers to startups such as AdMob to Google — are feeling bullish about the megabillion-dollar potential of mobile advertising. They shouldn’t count their chickens before they’re hatched, warns a study conducted by Chitika, a Marlborough, Mass.-based online advertising company. The study based on 92 million impressions reveals that mobile users are only about half as likely to click on an advertisement vs. non-mobile web users. 
The mobile click-through rate was 0.48 percent vs. 0.83 percent on non-mobile advertising. And iPhone users were found to be the least likely to click on mobile ads.
There is one massive caveat: Of those 92 million impressions cited in the study, some 1.3 million (1.5 percent) came from mobile browsing, which in my opinion is a miniscule sample size. That said, I think mobile advertising needs a fresh approach, one that doesn’t simply replicate traditional web advertising. What do you guys think? Are you more or less likely to click on ads on your mobile device than on your desktop?
Well, Chrome user are less likely than Firefox users who are less likely than IE users to click on ads – mobile or otherwise. So, it is not surprising what Chitika saw in the cited study.
Other reason may well be that ads are typically around content and iPhone users double tap the area they want to see larger. So, ads gets less visibility as they get thrown out of screen so easily.
There are no ads to click on my desktop or laptop. On my phone, I use wap and mobilized sites to avoid ads and other fat, useless content as much as possible. I don’t think it will be long before ad blockers will be available for some mobile platforms; so I expect that in about a year I will be able to say there are no ads on my phone either.
My mobile (iPhone) isn’t fast enough to conveniently consume adds. And my usage modes are much more task driven – so ads are less interesting and welcome than on a full computer.
Dennis
I usually stop the page from loading when it hangs at the end. It is usually ads holding it up. Ridiculous. I’m talking to you, Washington Post!
Om,
Are you trying to punk us?
“There is one massive caveat: Of those 92 million impressions cited in the study, some 1.3 million (1.5 percent) came from mobile browsing, which in my opinion is a miniscule sample size.”
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No way will I click on ads or accept any form of ads on my phones. I’m being charged to receive those ads by my providers, the last thing I want to do is pay for advertising on phones, it’s bad enough on pay-tv these days.
Whenever I get an text that is some form of ad, I call my provider to make sure I’m not paying for the time or message, if someone wants me to view their ad then they can pay my phone/data charges!!!!!!
Just my 2cents…
Clyde,
I don’t even do any browsing on my verizon phone, but if I did, you hit the nail on the head as to why I wouldn’t hit any ads.
And I second your comments about ads on tv (whether it’s legacy networks or the FX & Discovery folks). And they wonder why we FF past them using either a VCR or DVR. Gee, I really want to watch 20+ minutes of ads/promos per hour (or 22 out of 62 minutes in some cases). No, I have more important things to do instead of wasting my time with all the ads/promos. Be reasonable (10 minutes per 60 minutes) and I’ll watch.
Talk about bad pay-tv, we have directv and pay for 185 channels, out of all those channels we watch (wife & I) maybe 15-20 on regular basis. Half of the rest we are not interested in for many reasons the other half are basically stations constantly selling stuff or showing us we need to have this or that. What a disgrace toward the networks, we know it really isn’t upto directv for the most part but it is upto the network what the programming is to be.
And now they want to do the same thing on our mobiles! I will not accept that as a way to do business unless they pay my costs!
again my 2 cents….
Dennis Stevenson’s comment says pretty much what I thought as I read the post: the slowness of page loading on mobile phones, including 3G phones, discourages casual clicking, and, partly because of the slowness, most people’s mobile browsing is probably more task-driven than their desktop browsing.
On your mobile device, you spend far less time by random browsing, willing to get distracted by ads, than on your desktop. When on your mobile device, you just want your thing’s done.
Will somebody please explain why all the hatred towards advertisers.
Last time I checked ads are NEEDED – to tell me when something good is on sale, or something new is being offered, etc. Nobody can buy anything without somebody selling it– dern ! why all the rucous??
Unless of course you make your living writing blogs that get peeps all upset , and then the peeps forget if those big boys did not advertise, how would you know about the lates and greatest in the cell phone, or HD TV, etc. Gimmea a break! stop all the whinning!
It is just as honorable to sell as it is to buy.
The #1 reason in my opinion about why people despise ads is the change to people not only being hit with huge volumns of ads but the fact that we are forced to pay for viewing and receiving the ads with no seen benefit to the consumers. I never ever click on any ads, never buy anything from any service/ad that comes to me unsolicited, and I especially will not buy any product/service from any company who forces an ad on me via my paid phone services.
Ads that come on free broadcast tv or free email services is one thing because that’s how those services pay for the cost, but when I’m being double dipped for receiving ads I did not selectively pick and have to pay for getting them…that’s the final straw, my money goes only so far and enough is enough!!!!!
People understand that those in the ad business are working to make their living but the problem is distribution of the ads that has people mad!
Again this is my personal observation/reason and I know all my friends feel the same way almost exactly..
Online Ads *can* be informative, although I’ll grant a small percentage achieve that goal. The paradox is that online ads can’t be made more personalized and relevant to users without techniques that create privacy issues. btw, while the operator gets the flack for displaying ads, the reality is that the operator mostly doesn’t control what the ad networks push to the display of mobile web pages. If interested, check out this blog re. how mobile operators can insert themselves into the mobile ad chain and at least make ads more personally relevant with a new approach that doesn’t impact subscriber privacy. With this approach, operators could even offer discounted data plans to users who opt-in for personalized ads:
https://www.myciscocommunity.com/community/sp/mobility/blog/2009/09/15/mobile-advertising-the-operator-holds-the-advantage