Mobile continued to be one of the big stories in Internet advertising last year, with mobile ad revenues jumping 111 percent and accounting for 9 percent of the total digital ad spend, according to a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Mobile ad revenues achieved triple-digital growth for the second year in a row in 2012 to reach a total of $3.4 billion compared with a total of $1.6 billion in the previous year. Overall, growth in digital advertising revenues continues to outpace other media and increased 15 percent from the previous year for a total of $36.6 billion.

?This really was the beginning of the year for mobile,? said Linda Gridley, CEO and president of investment banking firm Gridley and Company, New York, during a Webinar held by IAB to discuss the results.

?We?ve been waiting for a long time but finally advertisers are starting to play a catch up game with consumers,? she said.

?We?ve been saying for a long time that the consumers were basically 18 months ahead of where advertisers were in terms of the use of mobile devices.?

Consumer behavior shift
The fourth quarter in particular was strong for digital advertising revenues, delivering a total of $10.3 billion, up 14.9 percent year-over-year and up 11.6 percent from the previous quarter.

Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, also continues to be one of the big growth categories, driven in part by growing video consumption on mobile devices.

Overall, digital video brought in $2.3 billion in ad revenues, up 29 percent from the previous year.

?We are seeing a shift in consumer behavior, where they are starting to stream more videos on mobile devices,? Ms. Gridley said. ?We are seeing that explode in a big way."

Multiple screens
The results point to marketers? growing understanding of the important role that multiple screens play for effectively reaching consumers.

The ability of mobile to deliver personalized messages that are geotargeted will continue to attract more marketers and bigger budgets, especially as mobile adoption continues to grow and wireless networks get faster.

Other factors also point to continued strong growth for mobile ad revenues, including that mobile shipments are expected to outpace desktop shipments this year and that a broader array of quality video for mobile devices is becoming available.

Still another trend supporting mobile ad revenue growth is the way that the mobile app environment continues to grow and expand in terms of business models and use cases.

?Mobile apps are really pervasive, whether it is payments or social,? Ms. Gridley said. ?It is not just about advertising. It is not just about games.

?Clearly, there are much broader implications than you saw three years ago,? she said. ?This will open up new advertising opportunities.?

Strong underlying dynamics
Also supporting mobile?s burgeoning role is the growth in social media to the point where it is becoming pervasive.

Other key findings from the report include that overall search revenues were up 14.5 percent year-over-year for a total of $16.9 billion or 46 percent of 2012 revenues while display-related advertising revenues totaled $12 billion or 33 percent of 2012 revenues, up almost 9 percent from the previous year.

Additionally, retail advertisers continue to represent the largest category of Internet ad spending, accounting for 20 percent of ad revenues. The financial services segment follows with 13 percent of the year?s revenues.

?Fundamentally, there are really strong underlying dynamics behind mobile that we expect to see continue,? Ms. Gridley said.

?Mobile has become this very unique opportunity based on whether in it?s a native environment like you are starting to see with Facebook and Twitter or whether it is engaging the consumer with rich media, location based targeting or geotargeting,? she said.

?Clearly it is opening up some really exciting opportunities in terms of advertising. It is very exciting to watch that in terms of the brand perspective and the creative opportunities for brands to target consumers directly.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York