Nanigans is one of the biggest buyers of Facebook ads, and this conclusion was reached based on a study of more than 200 billion mobile Facebook ads.

The study looked at both desktop as well as mobile advertising, and focused on retailers. On the desktop, during 2013 clickthroughs were up by 375%, and the overall ROI was 152%.

In the world of mobile, the numbers are quite different and vary greatly according to which type of phone the ad is served to.

According to the report, “Retailers are realizing significantly greater return from audiences on iOS than audiences on Android. For the first three quarters of 2013, RPC [revenue per click] on iOS averaged 6.1 times higher than Android and ROI [return on investment] on iOS averaged 17.9 times higher than Android.”

According to Nanigans’ SVP Dan Slagen, “Audiences cost more on iPhone, and the reason is that it’s worth it. Typically, we’re not looking to acquire one-time customers, we’re looking to invest over time … so we pay more up front for better long-term results.”

The difference in ROI is truly amazing, with the data showing in fact a negative return for Facebook ads run on Android!

The company does point out however that these numbers are focused on the retail sector, and results for other sectors are different. For example, the gaming and e-commerce markets did not have the large disparity between iOS and Android.

Seeing this data, the natural question would be how are retailers allocating their budgets between the two platforms. The study reveals that the portion allocated to iOS has in fact been growing quite rapidly, from below 20% at the beginning of 2013 to over 60% by the end of Q3.

The full report has much more information. To download a complete copy, go to the Nanigans website.

Apple’s iOS came top of the list for eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) with an average of $2.85, above Android’s $2.10 and far beyond Windows Phone at just $0.20.

Very impressively, while iOS holds a share of 46.53% of traffic, its share of the overall revenue is a much larger 61.41%.

The study also found that rich media ads drive click through rates (CTR) and carry a much greater customer engagement, especially those that leverage the capabilities of more sophisticated mobile devices. Advertisers seem to have come to understand the power of rich media and video mobile ads, and these two ad types are growing rapidly.

The research uses data mined from the Opera worldwide network of more than 35 billion ad impressions. One overall conclusion is that for maximum profit and reach, advertisers must use more than one ad network, due to the varied performance over short periods of time.

For more information, visit the Opera State of Mobile Advertising website.

Developers will now receive 70% of the revenue generated by ads on their apps, up from 60% before.

As a further indication of iAd’s continuing troubles, the minimum spend to initiate a mobile advertising campaign on the platform has again been lowered to $100,000. This compares to last February, when the minimum spend was five times that amount, and when iAD was launched in 2010, companies were asked to pay at least $1,000,000 to kick things off.

Launched almost two years ago after Apple bought mobile ad specialists Quattro Wireless, iAd was widely expected to compete with Google’s AdMob, although so fare it has struggled to gain traction.

Also see:

• iAds Greatly Outperform TV Ads
• Apple Brings iAd To iPad – Launches With Disney’s TRON
• First iAd Campaigns Come To iPhone

Now things have changed, and according to recent reports in Bloomberg, Apple has radically revamped their pricing.

The original price of $1million did not initially seem to be a barrier to advertisers, with major names such as Walt Disney, Citigroup, Nissan, AT&T, Unilever, Target, and Best Buy being some of the early adopters. Apple claims to have launched more than 100 campaigns in 7 countries in their first year of operation.

However, iAD can only serve ads to devices that run the iOS platform from Apple, and so they miss a large and growing sector of the consumer base. Especially as the Android platform grows and less expensive smartphones proliferate, there is an ever expanding base of non-iOS consumers.

“You’re cutting your potential audience in half by focusing on a single platform,” said Dane Holewinski, head of marketing at Greystripe, which was acquired by ValueClick. “Advertisers don’t care about platform. They care about audience, performance and engagement.”

So Apple has taken moves to make the platform more competitive. In the area of pricing, Apple has cut the minimum ad purchase from $1 million to $500,000, and it’s offering agencies deals for as low as $300,000 if they bring together multiple campaigns, Bloomberg reported.

According to one industry insider, “Apple’s closed ecosystem may have been interesting in the short run for advertisers, but in the long run they priced themselves out,” said Thom Kennon, senior vice president of strategy for the Young & Rubicam ad agency in New York.

In addition, an early requirment for iAD was that Apple had to be involved with the production of the ad. Several months ago Apple launched iAD Producer, an online design product intended to help agencies design ads more quickly.

To read more about Apple’s iAD platform, read the following MobiAD articles:

• A Big Month For Apple: The Future of iPhone & iAd

• First iAd Campaigns Come To iPhone

Inneractive is a premier mobile ad mediation provider, with coverage in over 200 countries. They have put together a very informative infographic which compares the specific performance of mobile advertising on these two leading platforms.

When thinking about where to run your mobile advertising campaign, it is not only the total number of devices that is important, it is also how the consumers with those devices react to mobile ads. Click thru, average CPM, longevity, all of these are critical to a campaign’s success.

Take a look at the infographic below to get some real life information on how these two platforms perform for mobile advertising.

For more information on Inneractive, click below.

Winning companies included Coca Cola, AKQA, Shazam, CBS, Apple, RIM, Velti, Ericsson, and Hungama.

See the complete list of all winners here.

This year the winners were selected after five days of judging by representatives from over 40 companies, publications and analyst houses (including Jim Cook from MobiAD News.). Now in their eighth year, the 2011 MEFFY submission highlight the most innovative and successful apps, services, content, business models and technology from across the globe,

Best Ad Campaign
The Coca Cola Company for Sprite Slam Dunk 2011

Best Blockbuster App
Research In Motion for BlackBerry Travel

Best Brand on Mobile
Velti and Ericsson IPX for A&N Mobile CRM

Best Content
AKQA for Nigella Quick Collection

Best Content Discovery & Personalisation
Shazam for Shazam for TV

Best Game
Electronic Arts for Dead Space on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch

Best Innovation in a Mobile First Market
ForgetMeNot Africa for their Message Optimiser

Best Innovative App
Onavo for Onava Data Shrinking App for iPhone and iPad

Best Innovative Business Model
Hungama Mobile for Vishal & Shekhar Mobile Music Concert

Best M-Commerce Service
Eagle Eye Solutions for Karen Millen Mobile Gift Vouchers

Best Mobile Connected Device
Apple for iPad2

Best Mobile Website
CBS Interactive for CBS.com

Best Music Service
Aspiro Music for WiMP

Best Social Media Service
Movellas for Movellas

Best Technology Innovation
OnStar for Onstar Mobile App

Best TV & Video Service
Saffron Digital for Media Hub

According to research company Canalys, Android sold 32.9 million devices during Q.4 2010, overtaking Symbian, which sold 31 million.

This represents a 615% year on year sales increase for Android, and gives it a market share of 32.9% compared to Symbian’s rise of 30% and market share fall from 44.4% to 30.6%.

“As we look forward, we’re going to see a lot of growth coming from Android,” Canalys principal analyst Pete Cunningham told StrategyEye. “Its launch timing was really opportune, because vendors were looking for a platform to compete with the iPhone and neither Symbian nor Windows Mobile offered that. Plus it’s very scalable – you can develop high-end or sub-hundred dollar products.”

This growth is the result of manufactures such as Motorola, Samsung and HTC all opting to use Google’s open source platform in their bids to launch rival Smartphones to Apple’s iPhone.

Android, which was announced in November 2007 and made its debut on a device in October 2008, has steadily been gaining market share over the past few years, and this announcement will not come as a surprise.

At the end of its first year it had a little over 7% of the market share. For it to go from this position to overtaking all their main rivals (Symbian, iOS, Blackberry’s OS and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile) in its second year shows how much it has developed in 2010.

Android is also gaining traction in the tablet market with a recent report from Strategy Analytics showing that while Apple had accounted for 77% of global Tablet shipments during Q4 2010, Android tablet devices represented 22% of global shipments. The Apple share was down from 96% in the previous quarter, with Android taking up almost all of the growth.

All of this is worrying news for Nokia, the once undisputed leader in mobile phone hardware and software, which is losing market share in both domains.

“The important thing is that Nokia is still a market leader, it’s still growing fast, just not as fast as the overall market,” says Cunningham. “CEO Stephen Elop has got a big job on his hands. I think what they may well be doing is looking for a radical move to break into the US market. They could bring out an Android phone, but that brings it slap bang in direct competition with Samsung, Motorola, HTC. Maybe there’s more opportunity with Windows Phone 7.”

Now a recent survey of UK consumers by YouGov has shown that nearly a fifth of iPad owners say that they own more than one tablet in their household, and another fifth are considering buying additional tablets.

The main reason that people gave to explain buying multiple devices was that other family members where using their device. In about a third of the cases the iPad owners say it is their partner who uses their iPad. In 14% of the cases it is their child who is using it.

Good news for Apple

While currently there are 17% of iPad owners who own a second device, this figure should increase in the future. According to the survey, 19% of single device owners stated that they are considering buying a second device.

And the news is especially good for Apple, as it seems that brand loyalty is high. Among existing owners of iPad’s with 71% saying that if they buy another device it would be an iPad and not one from a rival.

Full study data