Despite rapid growth, mobile advertising has been hampered by fragmented formats and standards, which limit what marketers can do with the newer and richer types of marketing data available in mobile.
Full consolidation of standards is still years away, but improved measurement and transparency will help marketers make some progress in 2018.
On mobile, apps and websites track identity and measure performance in their own way, making identity resolution and attribution more difficult than in a desktop environment. Consolidation with common standards has begun, but much more needs to occur.
Lack of transparency of publisher data is a huge issue for mobile marketers, and it contributes to ad fraud and poor targeting. Media Rating Council (MRC) guidelines and auditing tools have made a difference, but acceptance is still early, with viewability a notable exception.
Meanwhile, most of the impact of mobile advertising occurs away from smartphone screens, in the physical world or on other devices. As marketers demand proof of performance, mobile platforms are offering cross-device and online-to-offline (O2O) services.
These insights are drawn from eMarketer's latest report "Mobile Measurement and Targeting: Eight Challenges Advertisers Face." The report examines the many challenges of mobile measurement and targeting, and how the industry is addressing each. eMarketer PRO subscribers can access the full report here. Nonsubscribers can learn more here.
