Going mobile now will land your business ahead of the curve when it comes to video advertising and social media sharing.

A few months back, I posted about why making your video go viral isn’t always the answer. To recap – “unless all you care about is your video being watched, it’s important to remember numbers aren’t everything”.

However, for advertisers looking to go mobile with video ads, numbers ARE everything. Recent projections suggest that mobile video ad revenue will reach at least $4.4 billion by 2018, growing almost five-times faster than desktop video ads.

As mobile advertising surpasses desktop, display and video will be the fastest-growing digital ad formats. Search and social media will account for the largest percentage of mobile revenue, with mobile video and display ads being easily viewed by larger screens – making multi-channel advertising strategy far more lucrative and cost effective.

The relationship between virality and native advertising is ironic in that more people are likely to share native ads, increasing the likelihood of a creative video ad going viral. Native advertising spend is expected to reach $5 billion by 2017, with most budget going toward social media in-app channels such as Facebook and Twitter. As in-app ads continue to outperform web ads, it makes sense for video ad spend to follow suit.

Desktop native ad formats have become essential for successful video marketing and promotional strategy. With mobile native ad formatting becoming even more critical, marketers and advertisers will be forced into re-evaluating their digital initiatives and allocating their funds appropriately. And with in-app sharing continuing to prevail beside the expected domination of mobile data traffic, going viral may no longer be a possibility unless your video ads are mobile compatible.