Smartphone Users Tuned into Mobile Ads for Purchases

Smartphone users are more likely to make mobile purchases if a product or service advertisement is placed within phone applications. And iPhone owners may be the most receptive to these mobile ads.

40% of the people who download and use mobile applications consider the embedded ads relevant and useful when making purchase decisions, according to a survey conducted in April 2010 of more than 1000 smartphone owners in the U.S. 70% of those surveyed believe mobile ads are a fair price to pay for getting a free application, even though the ads may interfere with their enjoyment of the apps, notes the research.

The study included a variety of participants, ranging in age from 13 to 54, who are members of KnowledgeNetworks' KnowledgePanel and its Home Technology Monitor Service that tracks ownership and use of new and traditional media devices and services

One key finding of the research is that smartphone users are twice more likely to purchase from mobile advertisers than those who cruise the social media networks using desktop and notebooks PCs (32% vs 16%). The effectiveness of mobile ads also beat out their counterparts on HDTV (19%), the study points out.

Apple's iPhone users click and make use of these adds more often, most likely because the typical user has 29 apps installed on his or her phone, compared with 19 for Android OS-based devices and only four for BlackBerry devices. iPhone users are also about three times as likely to have paid apps as compared with non-iPhone users, the study reveals.

Apple and Google have rival services that enable developers to embed advertising into mobile applications.

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