SMS remains the most effective mobile advertising method in Western Europe, reaching 43.6% of users in September compared to 25% for Web ads, comScore has revealed.
Around 100 million of the 230.5 million users in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy received some form of mobile marketing message during the month, with over half of those – 57 million - recalling seeing an advert while Web browsing or using an application, the firm said.
The most common SMS adverts were product, service or brand information, which some 60 million users recalled, while 9.7 million remembered receiving ads for charitable donations in the three months to end-September.
“While the majority of mobile adverts are still effectively distributed via SMS and good response rates indicate acceptance among mobile phone owners, the growing smartphone adoption across all EU5 countries continues to enable the emergence of richer mobile advertising,” said comScore’s European mobile vice president Jeremy Copp says.
The firm’s research revealed that smartphone users are twice as likely to encounter mobile ads as regular phone users, with half of the 64.3 million smartphone users remembering web or in-app adverts.
comScore also found that 82.1% of consumers in the five countries used SMS during September, with Web browsers used by 27.7%, and downloaded applications by 26.2%.