2018 was a landmark year for digital advertising, as it was the first time that digital ad spending exceeded TV ad spending. Video advertising was a significant reason why the industry achieved this milestone. With users spending more time streaming content on mobile devices, brands are shifting their advertising dollars away from TV to reach users on their mobile phones. It's looking like 2019 will be another big year for video advertising. With that in mind, here are a few major trends to look out for this year.

Taking place a short walk from Smaato's Hamburg office, the Hamburg Summit 2018 brought together Chinese and European leaders from politics, business, and academia to discuss the main trends regarding Sino-European business.

The main goal of the summit is to create an open dialogue between Europe and China as a way to improve economic relations and mutual understanding.

With location data continuing to quickly gain traction in the advertising world as we head into 2019, Smaato is constantly improving the data quality on our exchange and enriching it with accurate location data to support the needs of our clients and their location-based mobile advertising campaigns. As an Account Manager, I work closely with my clients to ensure that they have access to transparent and accurate in-app inventory. By doing that, we can empower them to reach users at the right time and the right place — and deliver on their campaigns objectives.

Out of all the fast-growing countries, none have the advantages that China does when it comes to mobile advertising or increasing app monetization. Advertisers and app publishers from around the world are looking to China to unlock new levels of growth.

It's for good reason that China has become so desirable in the mobile world, as no country offers such favorable numbers in this category.  

The holidays are a magical time in the mobile industry, with consumers' app usage at its highest all year as they browse, shop, and play on their mobile devices. This increased time spent with mobile is good news for mobile publishers and app developers, as advertisers are spending an increasing amount of their holiday budgets on attracting consumers’ attention while they are in-app.

One of the big stories in the digital advertising industry right now is a recent report from Buzzfeed about a mobile ad fraud scheme involving more than 100 apps. At Smaato, we take ad fraud on any scale very seriously and work proactively to create a clean, protected mobile advertising marketplace. With that in mind, we wanted to share in detail how we handled this particular instance of fraud.

The holiday shopping season is the most wonderful time of the year for the mobile advertising industry. As people around the world get ready to splurge on new purchases, brands and advertisers are working their hardest to get noticed. And with consumers spending more time than ever in-app, mobile is the place to be for buyers throughout this high-spend period.

China is the world’s largest mobile app market by just about every measure. And with China expected to grow to almost 740 million smartphone users by 2019, the country’s power within the mobile industry will only continue to strengthen.¹ This means that Singles’ Day — which is the biggest online shopping day within both China and the world — should be on the radar of advertisers all around the globe.

It's expected that China will become the world's largest economy in less than 15 years.¹ Today, however, China is already the world's largest app economy. The opportunities within China are enormous for both app publishers and advertisers. However, with these opportunities come challenges unique to the Chinese market.

Our new whitepaper, "Inside China: Key Insights for Unlocking This Mobile-First Market," takes a deep-dive in what's needed to find success in China. Download it today.

Music apps are one of the most popular categories on smartphones, as users around the world are looking for a way to listen to music while on the go. Another strength of music apps is that user retention rates are among the highest of all app categories. With those advantages, music apps offer publishers strong opportunities for monetization. Let us show you how to leverage the power of your music app and make your revenues really rock.