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Will Mobile's Massive Growth EverEqual Real Revenue?Media Companies Once Lamented That Ads Worth Dollars Offline Were OnlyWorth Dimes on the Web. It's Even Worse on MobileBy: Jason Del Rey Published: October 01, 2012Three years ago Andy Wasef, head of mobile and emerging platforms at media agencyMEC, sat on a panel exploring how to drive mobile ad growth. He issued a charge to hisfellow panelists -- executives at ad agencies, marketing trade groups and publishers: Let'slearn from the mistakes of how advertising appears and is measured online and notduplicate them on mobile phones.So much for that."Despite our best efforts, the industry has mostly just followed the online model," saidMr. Wasef. "And so much of what is offered from publishers is really an onlinereplication, but at a poorer level."Poorer is the key word. If publishers once lamented that offline dollars turned into"digital dimes" as content and audiences moved to the web, here's what might be keepingthem up at night: Digital dimes are turning into mobile pennies. The effective cost perthousand impressions on the desktop web is about $3.50, according to data crunched byMary Meeker, partner at Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers. On the mobile internet? A whopping 75¢.That should be of particular concern to publishers, given the rise in media consumptionvia mobile devices.In interviews, media companies from Condé Nast to Gawker Media say visits frommobile phones and tablets have more than doubled in the past 12 months and nowaccount for 20% to 30% of the overall traffic to their content. In many cases, this growthhas caught publishers unprepared, with sales staffs often lacking the necessary training orclear strategies to monetize mobile audiences. Some media companies are taking a waitand-seeapproach. In a rush to cash in on this shift, others are often relying on what theyknow best: the banner ad, which is proving to not be much better.The ad experience on mobile phones is challenging for a number of reasons. The smallerscreen sizes make most ads unattractive, privacy settings restrict targeting and short usersessions make providing more than one ad in front of a user nearly impossible.Meanwhile, encouraging readers to pay for mobile content has been an equally toughbattle for many media companies. "There's no easy way to push 300 by 50 [pixel] ads and175