If you and your target customer aren’t occupying the same space when spend decisions are being made, how can you expect to do successful business? Global data suggests that  shared space, more than ever before, can be found in the palm of your customer’s hand. We mentioned in a previous blog that today there are more mobile phones than toothbrushes. Click here and find out how digital advertisers have begun overhauling their core strategies to meet the challenge.

Worldwide mobile ad spending will cross the $100 billion line in 2016, and for the first time it will account for more than 50% of total digital ad spending.

We see this eruption of mobile advertising happening in the two largest digital advertising categories – Search and Display. Knowing how, when and why a target audience accesses the Internet is key to success. The strategy to solve that puzzle must be both holistic and device-agnostic.

You can expect to see global mobile ad spending reach a quarter of all media ad spending by 2019, four years hence.

Here is a breakdown of total worldwide media ad spending. It demonstrates the speed with which mobile ad spending is catching up.

Ad spending in 2014

The same in 2016 (Projected)

The US and China account for almost 62% of worldwide mobile ad spends.

This table shows mobile ad dollars eating into traditional media ad dollars, and even digital ad dollars.

So all you advertisers out there: it’s time to  devote a major chunk of your advertising budget to the mobile form factor. That’s where all the action is today and at least for the foreseeable future.