It’s been a while since Google went on an acquisition drive, but last week saw the search giant make one if its most significant purchases – picking up mobile advertising leader AdMob for $750 million.

We’ve discussed the potential of mobile for what seems like years, but with the proliferation of smartphones, the mobile space is on the verge of finally realizing its potential for advertisers.

Google already dominates the online advertising space via its AdWords and Doubleclick offerings, so mobile was the logical next step. The purchase of AdMob is the perfect avenue for them to get the jump on any potential competitors.

AdMob is a mobile advertising platform that has established itself as a key player in the iPhone marketplace. This will help Google tap into the burgeoning iPhone user base – which is valuable exposure for advertisers, given the huge uptake of iPhones.

According to a letter from the CEO of AdMob:

AdMob will work with Google to accelerate the pace of innovation in mobile and do an even better job for you. We believe this deal will benefit our advertisers, developers and publishers by:

• Increasing our investment in building innovative and engaging ad units across platforms and to further improve targeting and tracking.
• Building even more powerful relevance and optimization capabilities, and more powerful technology and tools to monetize mobile traffic.
• Increasing the effectiveness of display advertising on mobile devices by leveraging Google sales team, infrastructure and relationships.
• Improving the already high level of service and support we deliver to our advertisers, developers and publishers.

While Google already offers access to mobile users via its mobile search and AdWords platforms, AdMob will give it penetration via the growing number of apps being used on smart phones. Google had this to say in their Acquisition announcement post:

“For advertisers who want to reach users when they are engaged with mobile content, this deal will bring better, more relevant ads and greater reach. It will also mean more interesting, engaging ad formats.”

Image courtesy of TechCrunch

So it seems the future casters might right in their predictions that 2010 will see the Mobile advertising market take its fair share of marketing budgets. And as has been the case for the last decade – Google is positioned to dominate the space.

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