Please click here to download Mobile Marketer's Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising

Welcome to the fifth edition of Mobile Marketer?s Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising.

In the five years since the guide debuted, the world of mobile advertising has changed from one of discussions about simple tile banners to now also encompass rich media executions, bar codes, linked SMS messages, MMS videos, page takeovers, video ads, augmented reality, sophisticated local paid search, geotargeting and fencing, social media and analytics to make sense of this pastiche.

That?s where this guide steps in. The world of mobile has become infinitely more complex. Advertisers? expectations are way up because of the whiz-bang smartphones and tablets debuting with regular frequency. The presence of mobile-friendly content and commerce too has changed the perception of the medium.

Indeed, marketers have no option but to take mobile seriously. Their customers are.

Click truths
Marketers will increasingly have to shift ad budgets to mobile for branding, lead-generation and customer acquisition and retention purposes. Publishers will have to figure out how to make money from mobile ads ? in addition to subscriptions ? in a battle for their very existence. Retailers will have to deploy mobile ads that link directly to mobile commerce destinations for transactions. Agencies, for their part, can no longer pretend that mobile advertising does not exist.

Where there is an identifiable audience, there is an identifiable advertising and marketing opportunity to inform and educate them. This is the promise of mobile advertising done smartly.

While numbers are hard to verify in mobile for the lack of a clearing house, eMarketer has gone on a limb to extrapolate from available public research that mobile advertising in 2013 will reach $7.19 billion, up 77 percent from $4.06 billion in 2012. The projection for 2014 is $11.14 billion, a 55 percent anticipated increase from the previous year.

On message
The campaigns and programs covered in Mobile Marketer are proof of advertiser interest in marketing to consumers where they are ? on mobile sites and applications, searching for local needs, scanning for more information and clicking on opted-in SMS messages with marketers with whom they have a relationship.

As the 20 articles in this guide show, the mobile advertising landscape is evolving rapidly to the point where marketing is a constant learning process. Industry experts have taken the time to spell out the issues and opportunities in this book. Thank you to them for their time and insight. Feel free to tap their expertise on page or even reach out to them.

A big thank-you to Mobile Marketer associate editor Rimma Kats for assembling these submissions and for laying out the Classic Guide. Many thanks to team members Chantal Tode and Lauren Johnson for their reporting and to Jodie Solomon and Kristina Mayne for sales and events support.

Please read this guide cover to cover. Reach out to the experts. Better still, apply the tips to the next mobile advertising campaign planned or already in place. Now is the time to be where the consumer is: on mobile.

Mickey Alam Khan

Please click here to download Mobile Marketer's Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising