New research from Millennial Media points to the growing need to include more engaging features including mobile video, click-to-call and click-to-download in mobile advertising.

In its latest Smart report, Millennial took an in-depth look at the company?s mobile advertising in 2011 and found that a solid chunk of campaigns running on the ad network included interactive features. The study also looked at which industries were particularly active in mobile advertising over the past year.

Mobile industry
Thirty-two percent of Millennial?s clients used a mobile advertisement to drive application downloads, showing how marketers are aiming to get apps noticed via an ad campaign.

Click-to-call campaigns were used by 31 percent of campaigns, and 23 percent of campaigns included a store locator function. Thirteen percent of campaigns included a mobile commerce element. This shows that although there has been an increase in sophisticated mobile advertising, simple features are still best to include in campaigns.

In particular, the technology industry saw a 698 percent year-over-year increase. This shows that as mobile technology evolves, more technology companies are taking advantage of the medium to reach consumers via their handsets.

The finance industry also grew its mobile advertising by 314 percent from 2010 to 2011 and was the No. 1 advertising vertical by spend, which helps prove how mobile banking has picked up speed in the last year. 

Mobile advertising for consumer packaged goods brands increased by 199 percent, and retail and restaurant campaigns grew by 193 percent, per the report.

Other top industries included entertainment as the No. 3 vertical by spend. Entertainment campaigns increased 133 percent year-over-year. Entertainment advertisers used mobile in 2011 for new movie and DVD releases. These ads also included click-to-download features for television apps.

The study also looked at the several big trends for mobile advertising in 2011.

More companies used mobile advertising with location attached and moved away from traditional media campaigns, according to Millennial.

However, the company also saw an increase in mass market campaigns, which included different components that are meant at targeting bigger groups of consumers such as social media.

Thirty-one percent of advertisers using Millennial Media?s network said that having a sustained market presence was the No. 1 reason why they used mobile advertising. The other top reasons included lead generations, product launches and brand awareness.

Mobile example
Millennial signaled out Westin Hotels & Resorts as an example of a noteworthy campaign for its use of rich media. Users could shake their mobile devices to view pictures and a play a game that let users pop balloons to promote the company?s line of Heavenly bed products.

Millennial?s report also looked at where advertising campaigns directed users to. A whopping 53 percent of ads took consumers to a mobile site, 25 percent directed to a mobile app download and 22 percent took users to a mobile landing page.

Mobile ads that promoted gaming apps grew 16 percent year-over-year and was a No. 1 mobile app category. The second app category was music and entertainment, which doubled its number of impressions year-over-year.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York