A survey of nearly 1,000 agencies, brand advertisers and publishers suggests that 2010 could be a break-out year for mobile advertising, but that publishers are struggling to participate in the upside of the latest media ad boom.

When asked to compare individual average client mobile ad budgets in 2009 with budgeted spending in 2010, client spending was pegged at $143,000 on average last year and $260,000 this year. This represents an 80 percent increase in spending. Asked to estimate a specific percentage by which their client spending would increase, agencies projected a more modest 65 percent jump for 2010.

Brand respondents predict that 2010 mobile advertising spending will more than double in aggregate, from an average budget of $269,000 in 2009 to $679,744 in 2010. Asked, "By what percent will your mobile marketing increase this year from last year," the most popular choice for these brand managers (at 23 percent) was between 10 percent and 20 percent. The next most popular choices were less than 5 percent increase, but the same number of managers predicted an increase of at least double and in some cases more than triple their 2009 mobile spending. Some 10 percent said their mobile budgets would more likely decline.

Most mobile publishers support their efforts with advertising (49 percent) or advertising and subscription sales (30.6 percent). More than 67 percent of publishers sell mobile separately, but for an overlapping 65 percent, mobile can be either bundled or included as a value-add in other media sales. However, only 25 percent of mobile publishers sell out more than half their inventory.

Well more than half of publishers (58.1 percent) participate in a mobile ad network, and ad networks contribute nearly 60 percent of publishers' ad sales. When comparing return on investment, 71 percent of publishers say their return for mobile advertising is higher from internal ad sales than it is from a mobile ad network. Another 18 percent say mobile ad sales are comparable and 10.6 percent say mobile ad network ROI is higher.

The flow of first-time mobile marketers continues, with more than 20 percent of non-mobile marketers who responded predicting that they'll spend more than 10 percent of their total 2010 marketing budgets on mobile. As for where they'll get the money to take the plunge, 32 percent of these marketers say it will be "incremental spending," while the next most popular choice of funding was from online budgets at 26 percent.