Post contributed by Ashley Logeman -
The amount of time people spend on tablets is ridiculous. Tablet advertising is still a new concept, because advertising agencies are having a hard time measuring traffic. Should tablet users be compared to smartphone users, television users, or online users? According to AllVoices, “Tablet owners are far more likely to tap on an ad compared to smartphone users. Approximately 24 percent of tablet users and 11 percent of smartphone users clicked an ad on their device to learn more about the product.” Tablets are more like portable computers, though, right? So what should advertisers expect? Should tablet advertisement be simply “added value” before metrics can prove anything? Interactive and rich media advertisements are much more effective than traditional advertisements, but media buyers want the number-crunching evidence.
Sources - Tablet advertising: Which metrics matter? Ellie Behling's Blog on eMedia/Vitals
State of Smartphone and Tablet Advertising, All Voices
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The explosion of tablet adoption and use certainly makes it a medium that advertisers want to look at, even if at this point, like much online advertising, there's no clear-cut measure of reach or effectiveness. Still, there are enough tablet users out there that we're getting some idea of use and impact, and two aspects may prove very desirable for advertising. First, that tablet users consume media differently on tablets than virtually any other device, and part of that comes from the ease and immediacy of interactivity on tablets (reflective in the greater tap-though noted above). Second, that tablet use is also highly social, and traditional media outlets are seeking to use that to build stronger relationships with consumers. That can mean more reliable and highly targeted audiences for tablet advertising.
These are strong reasons to consider advertising on tablets, and to creating tablet-specific ads that exploit their distinctive feature set and usage patterns. Still, advertisers have an ever-increasing choice of outlets for their ads, and they want to use whichever is most cost effective. And that means having widely accepted, reliable, and valid metrics for reach and effectiveness.
---Benjamin Bates