Mobile Marketing Statistics (How Effective Is Mobile Advertising?)

Are you a digital marketer interested in the most exciting mobile marketing statistics to discover what works and what doesn’t?

Mobile advertising has become essential to digital marketing strategies across most industries. Thus, businesses and organizations cannot ignore its importance.

Optimizing your marketing efforts for mobile devices can bring you exceptional results you don’t want to leave on the table.

In this statistical roundup, we’ll look at 33 interesting statistics and trends on various aspects of mobile marketing.

You’ll get plenty of valuable insights to take your mobile-device-specific advertising to the next level, whether your marketing budget is small or large.

This post covers:

Mobile Marketing Statistics (Our Top Picks)

• Global mobile marketing market size is estimated at $11 billion
• Mobile advertising spending is expected to reach $360 billion worldwide
• The US spends the most on mobile advertising – $165 billion
• 60% of total digital advertising spend globally is mobile
• Video advertising viewability rate is 80%+
• Google ads have higher CTR on mobile than on desktop
• 80% of consumers like getting location-based alerts
• SMS opt-ins impact 79% of smartphone users’ purchasing decision
• 36% of apps worldwide monetize through in-app advertising
• Digital ad fraud could reach $100 billion in 2024

How Large Is The Mobile Marketing Industry?

1. The global mobile marketing market size is estimated at $11 billion

The estimated global mobile marketing market size was approximately $11 billion in 2020. But this is just the beginning.

Statista says that it could reach upwards of $60 billion by 2030.

The use of mobile devices and mobile commerce (have you seen our mobile commerce statistics?) are on the rise, so it’s no wonder why more and more marketers go mobile.

Source: Statista

2. Mobile advertising spending worldwide is expected to reach $360 billion in 2024

Mobile advertising spending has been on a rapid rise over the past decade. And it looks like businesses and marketers won’t stop investing their marketing budgets in mobile anytime soon.

Global advertising spending by year

Year	Advertising spending in millions
2024	399,000+
2023	360,000+
2022	327,000+
2021	279,000+
2020	243,000+
2019	212,000+
2018	175,000+
2017	137,000+
2016	95,000+
2015	61,000+

Source: Statista

3. The US leads in global mobile advertising spending

The United States invested the largest amount of marketing budget into mobile advertising in 2020 – $165 billion. If we compare it with the global mobile advertising spending, that’s over 50% just the US.

Two of the largest industries in the US ramping up their marketing budget spend on mobile are entertainment and telecommunications.

Interestingly, 57% said in 2020 they’d invest more in podcast advertising and 49% in mobile video ads.

The second biggest spender was China, at approximately two-thirds of the US spending.

This shows how important the mobile market in these two countries is because all other regions are FAR behind.

It’s expected that Instagram advertising revenue is expected to hit $40 billion in 2023.

Other countries with high mobile add spend share	In percentage
China	92%
Mexico	88%
South Korea	81%
United Kingdom	76%

Source: Statista #1, Statista #2, Statista #3

4. Social media advertising is the largest form of mobile marketing spending

Since there are different forms of mobile advertising out there, Statista did a great job of estimating approximate spending to find that social media advertising is the largest at $141 billion.

Not that far begin, in second place, are mobile banner ads, with a spending of $128 billion. Third and fourth are search and video advertising.

Source: Statista

5. Advertising spending on mobile gaming is growing fast

Between the years 2021 and 2025 (yes, that’s just four years!), global mobile game ad spend is expected to rise from $46+ billion to $130+ billion, according to Statista.

Fun fact: According to research, there are three billion mobile gamers worldwide. (I’m not one of them – yes, really.)

Source: Statista

6. 60% of total digital advertising spend globally is mobile

More and more marketing agencies and businesses worldwide are investing in mobile advertising and marketing. Mobile ad spending is at 58% of total digital advertising spending around the world.

But, it’s expected to reach nearly 70% by 2025.

If your business isn’t taking mobile seriously yet, someone else will.

Source: Statista

How Effective Is Mobile Advertising?

7. 80%+ video advertising viewability rate

Mobile video advertising is an excellent investment (especially after you optimize your video) because the global viewability rate is a whopping 80.1%.

What this means is that 80.1% of the video ads were in view mode during the measured period.

Fun facts: 

• A consumer is 85% more likely to purchase a product or service after watching a video.
• An average user is exposed to 32+ videos monthly
• 78% of users watch videos online weekly
• 1/3 of people online are on YouTube
• Video ads perform better on mobile than on desktop

Source: Statista, MetrixLab

8. 66% prefer social media advertising

Semrush ran a survey where 66% of the respondents said that social media is the best place to run paid advertising campaigns. This is another proof of the above fact: social media advertising is the biggest channel of mobile ad spending.

Source: Semrush

9. More than 50% of people who see an ad do a Google search

According to Google Data, more than half of the users do a mobile search after seeing an ad. This indicates that they require more information about the product, service or anything else being advertised before taking action.

Source: School4SEO

10. People spend, on average, 3.5 hours on their phones

While this isn’t necessarily directly connected with mobile marketing, we all know that the more people are on their phones, the more businesses will invest in marketing. Why? Because of the positive results they’re getting in return.

Source: RescueTime

11. Mobile click-through rate in Google ads is higher than desktop

The average click-through rate (CTR) for Google ads search network is 4.10% and for display is 0.60%.

Moreover, the five best-performing industries (search ads) are travel and hospitality, arts and entertainment, hair salons, finance and transportation. But these also perform really well in Google’s display network.

Industry	Average search CTR	Average display CTR
Travel and hospitality	5.36%	0.61%
Arts and entertainment	5.01%	0.84%
Hair salons	5.00%	0.93%
Finance	4.57%	0.53%
Transportation	4.54%	0.59%

Source: WordStream

12. 90%+ smartphone owners will likely take action after seeing an ad

If smartphone users see relevant ads, 91% will purchase or plan to buy what the ad was advertising to them. This shows that most smartphone users are action-takers, ready to open their wallets when they see something relevant.

Source: Think With Google

Mobile Marketing Trends

13. 80% of consumers like getting location-based alerts

Honestly, it’s almost hard to believe that only 20% of consumers don’t like receiving location-based alerts. Moreover, 53% said they visited a retailer after they received the location-based notification.

In addition to that, nearly one-third of the global population uses location-based services.

Source: Salesforce

14. Most consumers respond to new text messages within 3 minutes

It only takes the majority of consumers three minutes to respond to a new text.

The reason is that most mobile device users have app notifications turned on, like sounds, badges, etc. This allows them to see and respond to a new message much quicker.

Also, the younger generation checks their massages at least 7x per hour, while the older people do around 3x.

Source: EZ Texting

15. SMS opt-ins impact 79% of smartphone users’ purchasing decision

Nearly 80% of smartphone users are affected by the SMS messages they receive or other mobile device services, increasing their potential to make the final purchase.

Source: Mobit

16. 40%+ of Millennials and Generation Z consumers like to receive a text from a brand

In the United States, 47% of Millennials and 44% of Generation Z consumers say they enjoy getting contacted by (their favorite) brands via SMS.

What’s more, 50% of US consumers will make a direct purchase after receiving branded text, QR code or a discount coupon.

That’s a massive percentage of action-takers, so if you’re not yet applying SMS marketing, you might be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Source: Statista, Mobit

17. Text open rates are nearly 100%

SMS open rates are at a whopping 98%, and the response rate is 45%. That’s massive compared to 20% and 6% for email.

The reasons might be many; SMS is still being considered more personal and receiving a lot fewer texts compared to the filled-up inbox, to name a couple.

Source: Gartner

18. 69% prefer reading a review on their mobile device than asking the store staff

Interestingly, almost 70% of in-store shoppers prefer checking a product review on their device to asking a store associate for help. And if they receive a personalized offer (a discount or a coupon), they’ll more likely visit the physical store.

Mobile marketing applies to online stores and businesses but can also bring more potential and existing customers to a retail store.

There are still 38% of consumers who begin their journey on a mobile device that’ll finish it in a physical store. Plus, 30% prefer to seal the deal in person after finding a great deal on their smartphone.

Source: RetailMeNot

In-App Advertising Statistics

19. There are over 5 million apps worldwide

Let’s first quickly experience how vast the mobile app market is to see how many in-app advertising opportunities there are.

The largest app store is Google Play with over 3.5 million apps; Apple’s App Store is in second with 1.6+ million apps and the third is Amazon Appstore featuring 489K+ applications.

Fun fact: Apple App Store, although second largest in the number of apps, is the largest in terms of consumer spending.

App store	Number of apps
Google Play	3,553,000+
Apple App Store	1,642,000+
Amazon Appstore	483,000+

The three main ways apps earn money are paid version of the app, premium in-app features, and selling ad space.

Source: Statista

20. The in-app advertising market is expected to reach $343+ billion by 2027

The market hit $110.9 billion in 2021, but it’s expected to grow by 3x by 2027. Although in-app advertising isn’t the most preferred thing by users, it’s still a growing market for one main reason – it works.

But advertising will usually have only free applications; once you go premium, the ads disappear.

Source: IMARC

21. Android apps’ highest banner eCPM is in the US, $0.61

The United States has the highest effective cost-per-mile (eCPM) for in-app banner advertisements, going all the way to $0.61. In second place is Canada, with eCPM of $0.45 and in third is Australia, with a $0.41 eCPM.

In comparison, in-app full-screen advertisements reached $10.45 eCPM on Android in the US (most expensive worldwide), $9.10 in Australia (second highest) and $7+ in South Korea (third highest).

Source: Statista #1, Statista #2

22. 36% of apps worldwide monetize through in-app advertising

Including advertisements in applications is the most preferred monetization strategy for app owners globally (36%) and in the United States (26%).

Compared to paid apps, only 8% monetize this way in the US and even less, 3%, worldwide. In-app purchases are still more popular at 11% for the US and 4% globally.

Source: Statista

23. Full-screen ads have a better conversion rate on Android apps than on iOS

Full-screen or interstitial ads have the highest conversion rate on Android, almost 22%. But on iOS, it’s far lower at 14%+.

Moreover, video advertisements perform better on iOS devices than Android, with almost 2x higher conversions.

Source: Statista

24. 43% of consumers like interacting with rewarded video ads the most

Do you like to see and engage with rewarded video ads, too? 43% of global consumers do, showing that nearly half of them enjoy getting rewards (whether it’s a discount, coupon code, etc.).

Furthermore, 24% of the survey respondents said playable ads are their favorite and only around 10% would interact with in-app banner ads.

Source: Statista

25. Cost per action (CPA) is cheaper on Android than on iOS

It’s actually A LOT cheaper. For instance, the same in-app advertising format costs $36.77 on iOS apps and $10.28 on Android. That’s how much marketers, on average, need to spend on mobile advertising to drive a conversion.

There’s more.

CPA on video ads is also much more expensive on iOS than on Android – 2x more, to be precise.

Source: Statista

26. The average click-through rate for all types of banner ads is 0.06%

If you’ve ever wanted to know the average CTR for banner ads on mobile, it’s 0.06%. And knowing, “How many?!” are accidental (see below) is shocking for mobile marketers.

Source: Marketing Insider Group

27. 60% of banner ad clicks are accidental

It happened too many times that when I wanted to click “X” to close the banner ad, I accidentally clicked on it. Sometimes those Xs are so tiny it’s almost impossible to click them without clicking the banner.

A whopping 60% of clicks on mobile ads are accidental. Unfortunately, there’s no data on (and if) how many of the unintentional clicks turn into action.

Source: Media Post

Other Interesting Mobile Marketing Stats And Facts

28. 79% of gaming apps used in-app purchases

While there are endless gaming applications that cost nothing, they often comes with in-app purchases, which unlock the true potential of “having fun.”

79% of gaming apps implemented this strategy, while marketers used in-app advertising for non-gaming apps in 49% of the cases (in 2017).

Source: Statista

29. 50% of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is mobile

Regarding pay-per-click advertising, marketers report that a whopping 52% of all clicks come from mobile.

Source: Lunio

30. Global search ad spend is predicted to reach $231+ billion by 2027

The total ad spending when it comes to search advertising is expected to jump to $231.8 billion by 2027. That’s quite significantly more than on desktop, which shows that search advertising on mobile devices is on the rise.

Source: Statista

31. If a brand “forces” users to download their app to get a deal, 63% of people delete it shortly after (getting the deal)

No mobile marketing should be done forcefully; it’s about building a relationship. Thinking of scoring a new app user by forcing them to download the app in exchange for a deal is wrong. More than 60% of users who will do it will then delete the app after getting the deal (I did it twice).

Source: Think With Google

32. 40%+ transactions happen on mobile

Knowing that over 40% of transactions happen on mobile, you must take mobile marketing, customer and shopping experience extremely seriously. The smoother and more effortless the journey, the higher the conversion rates will be.

Source: Think With Google

33. Digital ad fraud could reach $100 billion in 2023

Fraudulent activities when it comes to digital and mobile marketing are a serious issue. Sadly, many businesses aren’t even aware of it, but it can reach $100 billion in 2023.

The cost keeps increasing by multiple billions yearly, so it’s A MUST that companies and organizations invest some of their marketing budgets into tech against fraud and unnecessary expenses.

Source: Business Of Apps

Conclusion: Is Mobile Marketing Successful?

These mobile marketing statistics validate that marketers and agencies worldwide should include this advertising method in their digital marketing strategy. Consider it a must.

With more mobile users each year, more opportunities to prioritize mobile advertising will come.

This will allow businesses to engage with more potential consumers locally and around the world and boost their conversions.

Do you have experience with mobile marketing? Feel free to share a tip or two in the comments section below to help other fellow marketers test new approaches.