Dive Brief:

• Google, Facebook and Twitter are outpacing other publishers, ad brokers and services in mobile ad revenue.
• In a time when industry insiders describe a "mobile gap" – where publishers are seeing large numbers of mobile readers, but not the corresponding ad revenue – the three social titans are bridging that divide.
• And despite insiders' warnings, one trend that should make mobile more attractive for advertisers is that mobile devices are much less likely to have ad-blocking software installed than work or home computers.

Dive Insight:

Publishers face what industry insiders call the “mobile gap” where mobile traffic is quickly rising, but ad revenue is not keeping pace. Reasons for this include it’s difficult to deliver a high volume of mobile ads; formats that have been successful, such as banner ads, aren’t effective on mobile devices; and it’s difficult to target and track mobile ads.

But three companies in particular appear to have the mobile ad business figured out – Google, Facebook and Twitter. In 2014 Google accounted for 37% of all U.S. mobile ad spending, Facebook 18.5% and Twitter 3.6%. Google does sport a built-in advantage over publishers and other mobile ad brokers in that the majority of its mobile ad revenue came from spending on mobile search. To illustrate the issues facing publishers, The New York Times gets a majority of its traffic from mobile devices according to its chief revenue officer, but mobile only accounted for 15% of its ad revenue in Q2.

There is one reason why advertisers should be thinking of how to tap the mobile audience – ad-blocking software. Recent research on ad-blocking software found that while 24% of respondents use ad-blockers on home and work computers, just 3% use the technology on smartphones and tablets.