open ad management company for multiscreen campaigns, Sizmek, has released the its Mobile Index.

The report examines trends and growth in mobile inventory, the changing brand landscape, and the performance of mobile ads compared to desktop and laptop environments.  The report also analyses mobile defaults – ads that serve static images in place of rich media when the Flash-based ad format isn’t supported – and uncovers a considerable industry problem that has resulted in 5.35 billion wasted rich media ad impressions on mobile devices in the first quarter of 2015 alone.

The report also indicates that while mobile ads tend to get more clicks than desktop, the interaction rate (the total number of interactions out of the total number of served impressions) for desktop ads is nearly five-times higher than mobile. This can be attributed primarily to Flash mobile ads defaulting to static ads, where a click is the sole opportunity for interaction.

“Advertisers are using more rich media on mobile to reach potential customers, but they’re wasting a lot of opportunities,” said Andy Kahl, director, research at Sizmek. “By converting rich media ads to HTML5, brand advertisers can ensure that their ads are seen as intended, thus increasing return on their ad spend.”

Key findings:

• HTML5 ads outperformed Flash ads by 400 percent in terms of interaction rate.
• While rich media ads that relied on Flash defaulted over 98 percent of the time, those in the HTML5 format only defaulted at a rate of 8.3 percent.
• 12 percent of advertisers never served a successful rich media ad to a mobile device.
• The rate of rich media failure was much lower on desktop inventory, where 60 percent of advertisers default at a rate of less than 3 percent.