Millennial Media has published its June scoreboard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting (SMART) report for 2012, detailing key advertising developments in device and manufacturer data, mobile advertising data, mobile developer trends and global tablet trends.

The Q1 2012 report highlights mobile advertiser trends along with key global trends and campaign goals for brands and agencies. The leading behavioral audiences targeted in Q1 included In-Market Auto Intenders, IT Decision Makers, Gadget Geeks, and Movie Buffs.

Key Global Trends

More advertisers, notably in the Finance vertical, shifted ad spending away from traditional media channels to mobile. Finance advertisers focused more on mobile advertising related to lead generation for their new products and services.

In fact, five different verticals experienced triple-digit growth year-over-year for mobile ads. Sports topped the list, growing 287 percent year-over-year followed by News (261 percent), Travel (200 percent), FMCG (179 percent) and Fitness and Wellness (111 percent).

Advertisers across the sports vertical in particular leveraged mobile to provide awareness of seasonal events, while promoting campaigns to increase ticket sales and viewership.

And telecommunications was the leading global vertical on Millennial Media;s platform in Q1, followed by Finance and Travel. Hotel, tourism, and airline advertisers utilized mobile to target customers with travel deals and post-holiday getaway ideas.  Moreover, cosmetics advertisers spent plenty of money on campaigns for retailers to drive their customers into stores to purchase their products, while alcoholic beverage advertisers focused on seasonal events like St. Patrick’s Day to drive sales.

Mobile Target Audience

According to Millennial Media’s findings, sustained In-Market Presence was the leading campaign goal on their platform, followed closely by lead generation/registrations.

The Auto category was targeted the most (24 percent) with a variety of brand awareness campaigns. Other sub categories like Luxury Vehicles (23 percent) or SUVs/MPVs (19 percent) focused on consumers to understand the research phase of purchase process.

Mobile Advertising Trends

More advertisers leveraged mobile to connect with local markets. In EMEA, for example, this translated into campaigns by large OEMs to target new marquee handsets. In South East Asia (SEA) the focus was more on delivering lead generation for new products and services.

In addition, games led other verticals in incorporating the mobile app category into campaigns followed by music and entertainment, mobile social media, communication, and productivity and tools.

Finally, the SMART report sheds light on what advertisers want us to do after the click. The report says, 42 percent of all campaigns on the platform allowed the consumer to download an app as a post-click action. Other desired post-click actions include subscribing to something (34 percent), buying something on your mobile device (7 percent), engaging in mobile social media (21 percent) and placing call (9 percent).

Android devices accounted for 49 percent of mobile phone impressions targeting Millennial’s ad network during the first quarter of 2012. Apple’s devices trailed behind with 33 percent, followed by Blackberry OS with 14 percent of all impressions.

Last month Millennial Media published the latest Mobile Mix Index report for the first quarter of 2012, where the iPhone again topped the chart as the most dominant device, and the leading individual mobile phone in the mobile ad market.