Smaato points to Windows Phone 7 and Symbian as best performing for mobile ad click throughs

Developers looking to monetise their apps with advertising are having to deal with an increasingly complex market, where there's no guarantee the network they plump for will deliver.

That's the conclusion drawn from Smaato's Q1 Mobile Metrics report, which claims a rise in the number of ad networks, combined with a jump in monthly ad request volumes, is making it increasingly hard for the industry to deliver stable fill rates.

Indeed, with fill rates ranging between 69 percent and 1 percent from one network to the next, sticking with one ad provider simply isn't an option anymore.

Smaato's survey is based on 150+ million unique monthly users and 80+billion ad requests through over 60 connected ad networks.

Spreading their base

"The process of monetising mobile advertising is increasingly more fragmented and high fill rates are harder to achieve with only one single ad network," says Smaato in its report summary.

"As such, app developers and publishers of mobile websites that seek to monetize their mobile inventory need to enlist multiple ad networks in order to achieve higher fill rates."

The average fill rate across networks sits at 20 percent, down from Q1 2010's figure of 28 percent, while monthly average ad request volume has leapt from 6 billion in April 2010 to its current total of 30 billion.

As a result, Smaato believes developers looking for a possible 100 percent fill rate would need to implement five different ad networks simultaneously a view that sits in line with Smaato's business of multiple ad networks aggregation.

Windows Phone 7 ads up

Networks aside, performance also varies wildly from one OS to the next.

While both iOS and Android are perceived by many to be the only platforms worth supporting for developers, when it comes to advertising, Windows Phone 7 actually offers the best performance.

Comparing each platform's click through rate (CTR), Microsoft's OS leads the line with a rating of 143, ahead of Symbian, iOS, BlackBerry, and Android at the bottom of the pile.

"Windows Phone shows a significantly better performance than the average smartphone OS," Smaato concludes.

"Apple iOS and the Android operating system are all over the news as the leading smartphone OS when based on number of apps and number of sold units.

"However, there is an important factor to consider when planning a mobile ad campaign: performance. Smaato’s Q1 2011 Metrics report that Windows Phone 7 and Nokia’s Symbian OS rank as the top performing OS in mobile advertising."

[source: Smaato]