Leading research organisations including the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) and Juniper Research have recently released reports on the current mobile advertising market and its future.
This year represents the first time truly quantitative research has become available on mobile advertising, but the numbers indicate conflicting trends in this nascent market, according to Jouko Ahvenainen, Co-founder and VP at Xtract, which provides social intelligence software for mobile operators.
Ahvenainen notes that while the first expenditure study on mobile advertising in the UK, carried out by the IAB and PWC, showed that the mobile ad market is growing 99.2% year on year, a report from Juniper Research released this month indicates that by 2014, mobile advertising would still only account for up to 1.5% of total global adspend, despite mobile advertising offering substantially higher response rates than advertising in other media.
There is clearly a conflicting trend at present, says Ahvenainen. Mobile ads are the most interactive, compelling form of advertising for many brands, and offer far better response and clickthrough rates when they are done well. And usage of the mobile web is growing rapidly. Other forms of media are struggling to sell advertising – in particular newspapers – and are shutting down. Yet even in five years, mobile advertising is predicted to remain a mere drop in the ocean in terms of overall global ad spend.
Ahvenainen believes the conflicting reports are leaving the industry scratching its head about how to cash in on the promise of mobile advertising, and that targeting and accountability are key. 
One thing that we constantly hear from advertisers and marketers, who hold the purse strings, is that they need far more intricate levels of targeting than are generally available today, as well as measurability, accountability, and clearly defined ROI, in order to choose mobile over other media platforms, he says. Clearly, highly-targeted advertising that can be measured back is the way to continue the upward trend in mobile ads. If marketers can't see exactly who they are targeting, and understand the likely behaviours of these customers socially, they can't trust the most personal advertising channel available today, and mobile will continue to be insignificant in the overall global ads picture.