Mobile milestone: 51% of digital ad spending in 2016

Mobile advertising accounted for more than half (51%) of digital advertising spend in 2016, according to a new report out from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Data: Interactive Advertising Bureau; Chart: Lazaro Gamio / Axios

Why it matters: Mobile spend has finally caught up with mobile consumption rates (which officially outpaced desktop last year), because of the increased dominance of mobile-only or mobile-majority social publishers, like Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook. In the past, many traditional digital publishers have been unable to sell enough mobile ads based on that demand, largely because screen sizes allow for fewer ads per page on mobile compared with desktop and mobile CPM (cost per thousand) rates tend to be cheaper than desktop.