Why Are Mobile Ads So Cheap?
Mobile may be the future, but right now mobile ad units still command a lower price point on average than print and web advertisements.
Earlier this year, the renowned venture capitalist and former Wall Street analyst Mary Meeker gave her much-watched annual presentation on Internet trends, during which she revealed a startling statistic based on her own research: The effective cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for desktop web ads is about $3.50, while the CPM for mobile ads is just $0.75.
More recently, leading mobile ad platform Opera Software broke down the average cost for mobile ads by device, and found that even the iPhone, which has the highest average CPM for mobile ads of any smartphone, at $2.85, still falls short of that CPM for web ads on a desktop. Importantly, Opera’s mobile ad estimates likely skew higher because its business focuses on mobile display ads rather than mobile search ads, which tend to have a much lower CPM.
Print ads, by comparison, can command rates of as much as $100 per thousand impressions.