As consumers flood to their smartphones, so advertisers follow in their wake, looking to catch their attention and, ultimately, prise open their wallets.

If comScore's latest report is to be believed, they're doing a pretty good job of it, too.

The firm's look at US mobile advertising across a three month period ending in March concludes that the number of advertisers using mobile display ads has more than doubled in the last two years.

Moving up on mobile

"Although mobile advertising is still in its relative infancy, it is quickly gaining importance as new advertisers come into the fold," said comScore VP Hans Fredericks, revealing mobile content and publishing accounting make up half of all products pushed on mobiles.

"The acceleration of mobile media consumption, driven by adoption of smartphones, 3G/4G networks and unlimited data plans, provides a ripe environment for advertisers looking to reach consumers through a variety of platforms including mobile browsers, apps and SMS.

"As consumer usage and technology continue to advance, look for advertising to play an increasingly important role in the development of the mobile ecosystem."

In-app apptitude

Most interesting for developers, however, is that 27.5 percent of all smartphone ads spotted by consumers are found in-app.

That's significantly up from the 5 percent rate on feature phones.



"Smartphone users were far more likely to see web or in app ads [than feature phone users] due to their heavier usage of mobile browsers and applications and were also more likely to respond to SMS ads," comScore said in its report summary.

"With 31 percent of mobile users now owning a smartphone device, up from just 20 percent a year ago, the opportunity to reach consumers through the mobile channel continues to improve."

[source: comScore]