40 Percent of Mobile Marketing Dollars Wasted

Is mobile marketing worth the investment?

Even though 10 percent of internet visits come from smartphones and tablets, businesses are not spending a lot of digital marketing dollars on mobile marketing or advertising (comScore).

A study from Trademob found that 40 percent of display clicks from people who do advertise on smartphones were in fact wasted. They were caused accidentally, came from botnets, or were the result of click fraud.

(Botnets are viruses that create false clicks. Click fraud involves real clicks generated from click farms or by placing one ad behind another and charging both advertisers. It can also mean that websites are falsely reporting or logging clicks.)

eMarketer, who published the report in this blog post, urges companies to carefully choose providers and invest in ad verification tools. This way mobile marketing could actually be worth it.

Still, what does this mean for the future of marketing on smartphones and tablets? Will the number of false clicks or false click reporting increase or decrease? Will more advertising dollars be wasted? Forty percent is very high. Does this change your opinion about marketing on mobile? Will you invest?