WARC released its annual report this week on The State of the Industry: Mobile Marketing in the UK 2020. Their findings, based on a survey of 90+ marketing professionals, found that 43% of marketers are allocating more than 25% of their marketing budget to mobile.
The takeaways:
- 31% of marketers plan to allocate budgets over 55% of their to both social and mobile video (36% and 20% respectively).
- 31% of marketers expect to see their mobile budget increase over the next year compared to 56% before the pandemic.
- Ad spend in the UK slumped 39% in Q2 while early estimates expect Q3 to drop by only 21%.
Debatable effectiveness of mobile marketing: The study found that in 2019, 14% of marketers found mobile an ineffective channel. The number has since risen to 21% this year. On the other end of the spectrum, 57% feel that mobile is effective in reaching engaged customers.
A look into the future: The pandemic has given rise to new innovations in the ad industry. Advertisers are looking for new ways to create interactive and engaging content.
- Google recently announced Swirl, while Snapchat launched a new AR campaign.
- 20% of marketers predict AR and VR will be key channels for advertising within the next 5 years.
- By 2025, 48% of marketers feel mobile-based branded content will be their main focus.
As things stand: Paid search and display account for the vast majority of mobile ad spend. 47% of marketers indicated that display is the biggest focus, used in 25% of ad campaigns for 2020.
