With Google’s purchase of AdMob, it proves even further what many have already speculated for a while- that mobile advertising will be dominated by the major players for some time to come.
A few months ago, Jeff Lindsay of Bernstein Research released a report titled “The Long View: How Will The Wireless Internet Impact Online Advertising,” in which he expressed opinions on how he thinks the big players such as Google and Yahoo will take most of the mobile ad-spend over the next five years. The reason for this, according to Bernstein, is the fact that most advertisers – when testing the mobile waters – will go to one of the major players with “legacy agency relationships” versus smaller, newer entities.
We already knew Google was serious about mobile advertising with mobile enhancements to both its AdSense and AdWords programs, the addition of mobile metrics to its Analytics solution and much more- but its acquisition of AdMob will introduce the search-giants immense reach into the realm of mobile app monetization as well- AdMob’s specialty.
Think about it- if an app developer decides to monetize his app via in-app advertising, who do you think he’ll chose as his provider; Google or one of the many cookie-cutter mobile ad-networks that have popped up all over the place. It seems like Bernstein’s predictions are already ringing true.
When looking at the two most talked-about mobile OSs — the iPhone and Android — Google already dominates the mobile search functions on both devices, and now with it’s acquisition of AdMob, will dominate mobile app advertising on both devices through their respective app stores as well.
According to IDC analyst Karsten Weide, the combination of Google and AdMob will create a mobile advertising giant dominating between 30 and 40 percent of the total market segment. “AdMob is clearly the best of its ilk for applications monetization,” Eric Schmidt commented recently. “We think that’s as strategic as search monetization, which, of course, we’re very good at.”
AdMob built it’s business around being the go-to provider for monetizing apps on the iPhone and Android, a business model that produced $100M in annual revenue for AdMob in a few short years. Google is betting big on the future of its mobile advertising reach, and it will undoubtedly pay off in the very near future.