Advertiser interest in tablets is not as strong as expected, with marketers and agencies planning to allocate only 39 percent of their mobile budgets to tablets compared to 61 percent for smartphones, according to a new report from Advertiser Perceptions.

Much has been made of the advertising opportunities offered by tablets, which have bigger screens than smartphones and are typically used for longer periods of time. One possible reason for why marketers are not spending more on tablets is because of the growing fragmentation in this category.

?Advertisers are a lot less bullish when it comes to tablet advertising than was originally thought/expected,? said Frank Papsadore, vice president of marketing at Advertiser Perceptions, New York.

?Advertisers in general are optimistic about smartphones, native advertising and programmatic spending in the next six months,? he said. ?And the near-term future (next 6 ? 12 months) for programmatic buying is higher than the current rate of spending.?

Market fragmentation
The iPad initially dominated the tablet space, but has seen its share erode as a growing number of less expensive tablets enter the market for Android, Windows and BlackBerry operating systems.

Confusion over which platforms to invest in could be one reason marketers are not funneling more of their budgets towards tablets.

However, with consumers spending more time consuming content on these devices, marketers risk missing out on opportunities to reach them by not having a presence in tablets.

For the most part, marketers have not kept up with the shift to smartphones and tablets and continue to disproportionately spend on traditional media.

Native advertising
Part of the issue is that marketers are looking for ways to seamlessly interject ads into mobile and tablet content that does not interrupt the user experience, such as native advertising, another area of interest for advertisers, according to the latest Advertiser Intelligence Report from Advertiser Perceptions.

Approximately two-thirds of digital advertisers say they are somewhat or very likely to spend on native advertising and content creation in the next 12 months, according to the report.

Native advertising has drawn interest from marketers because it offers brands a less-disruptive way to deliver a message on a smartphone's small screen.

For example, Facebook ads that appear in-stream in the mobile newsfeed are popular with advertisers because users can view a message without having to leave the Facebook app.

As a result of the strong interest in native advertising, a growing number of publishers are coming out with their own native inventory for advertisers.

Programmatic buying
Among agencies, 51 percent are somewhat likely to spend on native advertising and content creation in the next six months while 15 percent are very likely to do so.

Among marketers, 48 percent are somewhat likely to allocate budget to native advertising, and 17 percent are very likely to do so.

The report also reveals marketers are planning to direct more of their budget towards programmatic buying than they currently do and will allocate only 40 percent of their digital advertising budget to programmatic buying and 60 percent to direct buys.

?Most mobile spending will be focused on smartphone advertising,? Mr. Papsadore said. ?And furthermore, marketers should be reviewing, evaluating and considering programmatic buys if they aren?t doing so now.?

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