Users of Symbian-powered phones, which are mostly made by Nokia, were the most likely to click on ads, followed by users of “regular” mobile phones with internet access. Uers of Apple iOS devices were nearly exactly average in their ad-clicking rates. In contrast, Android, Microsoft and Blackberry users were all ad-clicking laggards.

That’s according to stats for August compiled by Smaato, a mobile-ad service that helps show more than 16 billion mobile ads monthly for more than 7,000 mobile apps and websites. Rather than selling ads itself, the company helps app developers pull ads from multiple ad networks around the world in real time, rather than just signing up for a single one.

The stats are a bit different for all of 2010, as you can see in the following graph.

Harald Neidhardt, co-founder of Smaato, says he can only speculate on why the rates differ for different OSes.

“Symbian click-through rates could be something about the displays or maybe their demographic is drawn to coupons or incentives,” he suggested.

As for Android’s fall from its high click-through rates in January?

“Maybe it’s because Android was new and you had users more excited because they had switched from a feature phone,” Neidhardt ventured. (A feature phone is industry lingo for a non-smartphone, even if it has internet access).

How are mobile apps and mobile websites doing at getting enough ads, known as their fill-rate?

The stats show that different ad networks vary enormously in being able to provide ads — with the top network serving up ads 41 percent of the time the network is queried by an app using Smaato. Others clock in as low as a measly 5 percent, though this includes fledgling networks around the world.

The worldwide fill average so far this year is a bit over 20 percent, but that will likely be boosted by the advertising rush at the end of year.

As for response times of its more than 50 ad networks, they range from a blazing fast 20ms to more than 616ms (more than a half-second). Smaato’s system figures out the most likely profitable ad network, queries it, and then, if the answer is no and time remains, it can ask additional networks for an ad.

Oddly, click-through rates also vary significantly when comparing the United States to Europe. European users of Windows Mobile-powered phones are far more likely to click on ads than their U.S. counterparts. But on either side of the Atlantic, iPhone and Touch users are above-average ad clickers.

All illustrations are courtesy of Smaato.

Follow us for disruptive tech news: Ryan Singel and Epicenter on Twitter.

See Also:

• Click-Happy Android Users Flock to Mobile Ads
• iOS Still Receives Majority Of Independent Mobile Ads
• Feds Laid Foundation for Apple/Google Mobile Ad Feud
• Mobile Advertising Needs Transaction Spur
• FTC Blocking of Google Mobile Ad Acquisition Would Be Misguided
• Apple’s Control Issues Hamper iAd Rollout

Authors: Ryan Singel

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