Will the US lead in mobile advertising as they did in online advertsing 10 years ago?  If recent figures from Nielsen Mobile are anything to go by, the answer could well be yes.  According to their research 23 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers say they have been exposed to advertising on their phones in the past 30 days.  That’s 58 million people.

Importantly, thirty two percent of data users said they are open to mobile advertising. The US has a strong advertising culture so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that US consumers are so receptive.  So how do we take advantage of this opportunity.  Here’s our advice:

 1. Map the customer profile for your marketing onto relevant countries for your message.  You may need to slice and dice the market so look at which mobile networks in these countries map onto your customer profile – Boost and T-Mobile in the US and Virgin Mobile in the UK have a youth demographic.

2.  Only pay for traffic that you can convert so check your ad network can target by your chosen operator, country and device.

3. Then use Bango’s free mobile analytics tool to measure your ROI as it’s the only way you’ll know if you are hitting the right demographic with your message.

Bango stats show that 54% of people surfing the mobile web come from outside the US and Europe.  With the rapid rise of China into the mobile web surfing charts, the need for well targeted mobile advertising that reaches the intended consumer profile is as important as ever.