Everything that used to be exclusively PC is becoming mobile as well –be it malware, viruses, anti-virus tools, videos, and even advertising. In Millennial Media’s Q3 SMART report, six verticals experienced triple digit growth in mobile advertising. It is led by the Technology vertical which stands with 687 percent augmentation. It’s not about consumer electronics though, but more like BtoB tech such as cloud storage. CPG and Finance follows, growing by over 350 percent.

In the US, the top ad vertical is Finance. It was ranked 3rd in the first quarter but has shown a 356% year-over-year increase since. It’s followed by Entertainment, which is the top ad vertical internationally. Local market targeting lived through a 50 percent increase quarter-over-quarter, and accounts for 66 percent of all Targeted Audience Campaigns in Millennial’s network. Campaigns that allow consumers to watch ads from their mobile devices revel with a 78 percent quarter-over-quarter increase, which makes up 32 percent of all campaigns.

In addition, ads that offer maps to customers grew by 27 percent quarter-over-quarter. Maps have become an important tool to reach local consumers in order to lead them to the physical scene. And consumers who utilized their mobile phones while shopping used it mostly to find particular items at a better price, as well as to skim through product reviews.

The top 3 advertiser trends that drive mobile advertising are: brand advertisers who seek to increase their investment in interactive mobile or brand awareness; advertisers bought on a national scale or those who seek to drive consumers to local retail outlets to complete their purchase; and brands that further utilize mobile as a mass media solution.

Video ads on the rise

Advertisements these days come in many forms, and a popular one at that are videos. The video ad market is garnering a lot of budget allocation, and Casale Media predicts that it will grow by 25 percent over the next 12 months. Another survey conducted by Burst Media reveals that 70 percent of web users watch online content on a weekly basis, and that a fifth of them have taken action after watching a video ad.

Apart from the ads, Millennial Media is set to extend its foothold to Southeast Asia with base in Singapore. And to the inconvenience of InMobi, Millennial Media robs them of their executive, Robert Woolfrey, to lead the new Singapore office.