Millennial Media sees advertisers 'moving out of test phase of mobile'

Latest Smart Report shows a number of verticals showing triple-digit growth year-on-year.

US mobile advertising company Millennial Media has published its latest – and 50th – quarterly 'Smart Report', revealing some of the metrics from its network of advertisers.

The company says that in the second quarter of 2011, six advertising verticals saw triple-digit growth year-on-year in terms of spending. "This is an indication that more advertisers are moving out of the test phase of mobile and starting to make a consistent investment," explains the company in the report.

Among the categories enjoying the biggest YoY growth were Finance (up 1,095%), Retail & Restaurants (956%) and Pharmaceuticals (426%). In terms of total spend, Retail & Restaurants comes top for Millennial's network, followed by Telecommunications and Finance.

Millennial has also pulled out key trends from Q2 2011 from its advertisers. It says brand advertisers were increasingly using mobile video ads to raise their brand awareness; and that advertisers are also "aggressively" using local targeting tools to laser-focus their campaigns.

52% of ads on Millennial's network in Q2 were designed to drive traffic to a site, with 25% more about a custom landing page, and 23% driving an app download. Millennial also says that app developers are investing more of their revenues into mobile advertising campaigns, trying to create a circular payoff to boost their ad revenues.