For the many pundits who anxiously forecasted the ‘Year of Mobile’, 2012 has provided some relief. Figures released by the IAB in October, showing a 132% increase in ad spend on mobile, suggested that advertisers are shifting from experimenting with mobile to making it an integral part of their media spend; but what are the key trends and developments that will affect mobile advertising in the year ahead? Here are five suggestions:

1. I expect to see further strong growth in mobile advertising. Figures from First Partner support this view, suggesting that mobile ad spend in the UK will reach £831.3m in 2013, up 63% on this year, with search and display continuing to dominate. This growth in revenue will come not only from advertisers investing more in mobile, but also from increasingly switching their ad budgets away from online and more traditional media budgets. According to the most recent IAB/PwC digital ad spend study, digital ad spend (online, mobile and tablet) now accounts for 30% of the total ad market, and while mobile alone still accounts for around 2% of total ad spend, this will start to change rapidly. As a result, the chasm between mobile usage and ad spend will narrow considerably.

2. There will be greater emphasis on multi-screen campaigns as advertisers try to follow consumers across the increasing number of screens they access during the day with compelling, relevant advertising. While each different ad medium will continue to compete for share of ad budgets, there is already growing recognition of the need for different ad media to work together to deliver integrated solutions that deliver ROI for advertisers across multiple channels.

3. Driven by the rollout of 4G and the meteoric penetration of smartphones, rich media ads will become the must-have format for a growing number of advertisers who want to move away from static display ads and allow consumers to physically interact with their brands. Already in the first half of 2012 mobile rich media formats accounted for 20% of standard display ad spend, up 10% on the previous year**.

In reality, as a sector, we are unlikely to experience the impact of 4G until late 2013, as more networks start to roll-out their 4G services. However, when it arrives, the increased capacity and faster connections it delivers will enable mobile ads to feature much higher quality audio and video, as well as more enhanced interactivity. This, in turn, will usher in a golden era of creativity in mobile ads, as creatives exploit the enhanced functionality of rich media and the capability of smartphones to deliver ever more original types of immersive and entertaining ad experiences for consumers.

4. The rise in rich media location-based apps and services will provide new opportunities for retailers to engage with consumers on the go, by optimising campaigns featuring creative that targets consumers’ location in real-time. To maximise the opportunities location-based targeting presents, we will see ad networks develop advanced targeting capability via multiple means. When it comes to advertisers capitalising on geolocation services, we will see increased emphasis on analytics so that retailers can really understand how consumers are interacting with their brands and which aspect of location-based marketing strategies are really working.

5. As well as a increased growth in advertising on mobile, in 2013 we are also likely to see more mobile ad inventory become available, as more publishers optimise their sites for mobile and release new inventory. As more inventory becomes available and more money is spent on the medium, we will see growing demand for much greater transparency from advertisers over where their ads are served. This is especially the case when it comes to the use of blind networks, with advertisers and agencies wanting much greater visibility over where a campaign has run and how individual sites have performed. Real-time bidding models for trafficking will continue to grow and become the dominant way of buying mobile media.

6. Next year will bring more alliances between niche providers and increased consolidation. Fragmentation of our industry, and its resulting complexity, has proven a real deterrent when it comes to encouraging mobile advertising spend in our sector. There is a growing realisation of this and we are seeing companies that previously only solved part of the problem for brands, such as ad networks, ad exchanges and rich media providers, increasingly working together to deliver a seamless experience for clients. I predict that in 2013 we will see a growing number of alliances between niche providers, as well as further consolidation along the lines of Inmobi’s acquisition of Sprout, as our sector matures and takes shape.

Looking ahead, the real answer to driving growth in mobile as an ad medium lies in keeping things simple. I think in 2013 we will see more emphasis on solutions that streamline the process of campaign delivery for brands. While alliances between niche providers are a good interim option, increasingly we will see growth in integrated systems that use data-driven real-time optimisation to deliver better results than can be achieved in systems that aren’t integrated.

* Figures from First Partner
** Figures from IAB/PwC Digital Ad Spend Report