Advertisers from verticals such as government services, retail and restaurants are pouring money into mobile advertising, according to a new report from Millennial Media.

In Millennial Media?s latest Smart report, the mobile advertising network looks at how marketers are increasingly moving money into mobile advertising. The report also breaks down the top goals of marketers using mobile advertising.

?We saw 12 different verticals grow their spend in mobile by more than 100 percent year-over-year, with four verticals growing spend by more than 450 percent,? said Marcus Startzel, general manager of North America at Millennial Media, Baltimore.

Mobile spend
According to the report, government services were the top industry to increase their mobile advertising spend year-over-year. Spend from government services increased a whopping 860 percent.

Spend from employment marketers increased 523 percent, and travel marketers upped their mobile advertising spend by 495 percent.

Rounding out the top five verticals of increased spend were personal and home services and fitness and wellness health campaigns.

The other verticals that increased their mobile advertising spend by more than 100 percent were the telecommunications, retail and restaurants, real estate, energy and power, entertainment, automotive and consumer-packaged-goods brands verticals.

In particular, retail and restaurant brands were the No. 1 vertical on Millennial?s platform in 2012 and accounted for 16 percent of total brand advertiser campaigns. Spend on these campaigns increased 106 percent year-over-year.

The entertainment vertical claimed the No. 2 spot for top category and claimed a 12 percent of all brand campaigns.

Mobile end goal
Marketers turn to mobile advertising for a variety of different goals.

For example, video viewing was used in 64 percent of mobile advertising campaigns that were used for product launches or releases.

Additionally, 46 percent of entertainment-focused campaigns used social media.

On the other hand, 40 percent of spend from consumers-packaged-goods brands used location-based targeting to drive in-store traffic and sales.

Similarly, 21 percent of all mobile advertising campaigns on Millennial?s platform included either a store locator or map feature.

Thirty-seven percent of campaigns used an app download, and 29 percent of advertisers leveraged a site search as a post-click action.

Gaming, music and entertainment, social media and communication apps were the top four application categories from 2012. The popularity of these apps remained the same year-over-year.

Nineteen percent of marketers used mobile advertising to trigger mobile enrollments or to get a consumer to sign up for a program.

When it comes to driving commerce, 16 percent of marketers tied their advertising campaign to a mobile commerce component.

The top three groups of consumers that marketers used advertising to influence were IT decision makers, gadget geeks and in-market auto buyers.

Top goals of marketers using mobile advertising include keeping a presence in the industry, building brand awareness and driving site traffic.

?Advertisers are using our mobile audience solutions to reach specific groups of consumers, and whether they are targeting IT decision makers, moms or in-market auto intenders, mobile is a channel that can work for basically any vertical,? Mr. Startzel said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York