Mobile Advertising Networks

Mobile advertising is big business. In fact, U.S. mobile local advertising revenues are expected to grow from $1.2 billion in 2012 to $9.1 billion in 2017 according to a recent forecast from BIA/Kelsey.

This rapid growth is likely due merchants trying to reach mobile customers in hopes of bringing them into their brick-and-mortar stores. Mobile advertising can also be used to send customers to digital properties or entice them to download apps. But where is a merchant to turn when they want to launch a mobile ad campaign?

While the first platform to come to mind is typically Google, many other ad networks specialize in mobile, specifically, and provide advertisers with a large audience, robust targeting options and diverse mobile ad formats. Check out eight of these platforms below:

Millennial Media

Mobile advertising and data platform Millennial Media offers a variety of ad formats for brands, including video ads, tablet units, 360-degree rotating formats, a landing page unit, multiple banner formats as well as unique formats that enable advertisers to showcase numerous products in one advertisement. Millennial Media also provides robust targeting options based on an array of factors including gender, age, household income, behavioral characteristics, mobile content, device, carrier, location and more. All of these factors are considered in real-time when an ad call is executed by the company's mobile ad server. Furthermore, brands can also manage their own mobile campaigns with Millennial Media's self-service ad tool.

Jumptap

Jumptap offers a real-time bidding (RTB) ad network that allows advertisers to target consumers with engaging and cross-platform mobile ads. For example, advertisers can create targeted campaigns that reach audiences across mobile devices, including tablets, as well as traditional desktops. The Jumptap network reaches 51,000 applications and websites on Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Symbian mobile devices. Moreover, the company has worked with advertisers across a variety of industries, including automotive, consumer packaged goods, retail, travel and entertainment, consumer technology, finance, restaurants and politics.

Smaato

With the Smaato network, mobile advertisers can target audiences based on time and day, devices, carrier, location, unique user ID and more. Advertisers can also set hourly and daily budgets, optimize ad delivery in real-time and set priority and delivery rates. The platform allows users to manage their campaigns through one interface, which also gives them the ability to batch upload multiple banners at once.

Mobclix

This real-time bidding mobile ad exchange works with more than 18,500 mobile publishers to deliver ads on some of the most popular mobile apps. This allows brands to launch their campaigns on well-matched apps, which can also help protect a brand's reputation. MobClix offers a variety of ad formats, including standard display, rich media slider and expandable units. Moreover, ads delivered through the Mobclix platform can reach audiences on the iPad, iPhone, Android and Windows 7 devices, as well as on the mobile Web.

Greystripe

Advertisers who leverage the Greystripe platform can launch captivating mobile ad campaigns, because this platform provides users with full-screen ads that leave no room for distractions. Greystipe offers numerous formats that take up the entire screen of a mobile device (including tablets) so that consumers have no choice but to pay attention to the ad's content (however, they can opt-out of the ad if desired). Additionally, Greystripe allows advertisers to target audiences across devices and based on demographics, location, content, device and carrier.

Zumobi

Big-named brands like Macy's, VW, Mercedes-Benz and American Express, to name a few, have leveraged the Zumobi platform, which offers a variety of unique and engaging ad formats. The formats can include video, social features, feed-driven content and more. Consumers can even download Zumobi ad campaigns to their homescreens as free-standing apps. Advertisers can leverage a variety of targeting options including, location, time of day, day of week, application preferences, device, network, carriers, etc. .

Flurry

Advertisers that launch campaigns through the Flurry platform have the ability to reach more than 250 million consumers per month. Plus, due to the company's audience data that it has collected over time, advertisers have access to robust targeting options, including demographics, location, device, operating system, language and Flurry Personas, which is interest-based targeting. Flurry Personas are customer segments that are grouped by interest, based on recent and repeated app usage. Flurry also offers a variety of ad formats, including expandable rich media units, as well as display, video and acquisition units.

Mojiva

Brands that choose to advertise on the Mojiva platform have the opportunity to reach more than a quarter of a billion unique devices in the U.S. and more than 1.1 billion unique devices worldwide every month. Advertisers can launch video ads through Mojiva, as well as unique ad formats that enable consumers to click to open a form, an image gallery, start a phone call or social interaction and more. The platform has been leveraged from brands within the automotive, clothing, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, movies and television, restaurant, retail and travel industries.