Mobile’s position on the media market and in the business strategies of companies in the new reality – report

The digital advertising pandemic has been kind. While others were losing, for the first time in history online ad spend exceeded 5 billion PLN, and mobile was one of the driving forces behind this growth. Do these numbers translate into the real mood in the industry?? The answers lie in Spicy Mobile’s latest report. “Change and People”.

Spicy Mobile annual report is the most comprehensive publication on mobile market in Poland. This year’s fifth edition, prepared under the theme of “Change and People”, outlines the position of mobile on the media market and in the business strategies of companies in the new reality. The report presents, among other things, the results of a survey conducted by Spicy Mobile among media planners and buyers. Replies were received from 114 people, most of them representing media houses. The aim of the survey was to capture the current mood of the advertising industry, the position of mobile and the upcoming trends. Comparison of this year’s results with data from the first wave of the survey in 2020. is a kind of barometer of the situation on the media market in difficult pandemic times.

Mobile budgets higher than last year

2020. showed that even in times of global crisis, mobile is developing at a pace unattainable for other media. According to the study by IAB Poland/PwC AdEx, in 2020. mobile’s share in the advertising cake increased by 21% compared to the previous year and amounted to 33.5%, i.e. over PLN 1.7 billion, and nothing indicates that this segment of digital advertising will stop. In comparison, the overall digital advertising market (including mobile) grew by 5% to over PLN 5 billion, largely thanks to a very positive year-end.

The Spicy Mobile study also shows that mobile budgets are growing faster than other media. The share of respondents who declare to increase advertising spending on mobile grew from 48% in the first wave of the survey in summer 2020. to 73% in 2021. On the other hand, budgets for the Internet increased in the opinion of almost 59% of those responsible for media planning and purchase in 2020 and 84% of those surveyed in 2021.

Mobile share in the media mix is steadily growing

This translates into the position of mobile in the media mix. Over 70% of respondents believe it has improved in 2021 (including 12.6% who believe it has definitely improved). In comparison, a year ago every second respondent assessed it as better (53.6%), and a definite improvement was noted by a single person (4.1%).

Budgets are chasing traffic

Interesting conclusions are also provided by the comparison of advertising expenditure on mobile with traffic from mobile devices. It is natural to assume that as traffic increases, ad spend increases. Over the years, mobile traffic has grown much faster than budgets. Currently, advertising budgets are chasing traffic, which, according to Gemius, has stabilised at over 60% of page views from mobile devices (phones and tablets together) and compared to 2020. grew slightly.

Meanwhile, according to the results of the Spicy Mobile study, the opinion of people responsible for media planning and buying is that mobile traffic has increased (86.6%), with one in five respondents viewing this increase as decisive (21.4%). In comparison, a year ago these figures were as follows: 68% i 13,4%. The perceived traffic is therefore much higher than the actual traffic, which is probably due to the shift of some advertising budgets to mobile and the development of mobile services (mobile apps, payments) in connection with the reorganization of many businesses by pandemic.

On top of programmatic and social media

The study also examined which types of mobile advertising media market representatives consider to be the most promising. Similar to last year, respondents most often mentioned programmatic (72.8% of indications), social media (66.7%). Interestingly, the percentage of indications for ads based on geotargeting increased significantly (from 44.3% in 2020. up to 57.9% in 2021.) and display advertising (from 32% to 40.4%), while video advertising (39.5%) and mobile app promotion (22.8%) fell.