Facebook's mobile ad revenue forecasted to skyrocket in 2013

Facebook's focus on upping its mobile ad presence over the last year seems to have paid off. Literally.

The social network is expected to make nearly $1 billion from mobile ad revenue in 2013, according to a report released today by market research firm eMarketer.

"Facebook, the No. 2 mobile ad publisher in the country, accounted for 9.5 percent of mobile ad revenues in 2012 and is expected to take 13.2 percent this year," eMarketer wrote in a blog post today. "In the mobile display market, however, Facebook is on top, projected to grab nearly three in 10 dollars this year."

Despite Facebook making leaps and bounds on its previous mobile ad revenue figures, it is still dwarfed by Google. The Web giant dominated 93.3 percent of U.S. mobile search ad dollars in 2012; and for 2013, eMarketer predicts Google will get more than 50 percent of all mobile ad revenue.

Twitter has also done well with mobile ad revenue over the past year -- coming in fourth place after Google, Facebook, and Pandora, respectively. Last year was the first year the microblogging site offered mobile ads and it took off with 7.3 percent of mobile display ad revenue.

"Both Facebook and Twitter have benefited from their use of so-called native ad formats that are seamlessly integrated within the core user experiences of their respective products," eMarketer wrote. "The resulting ability for both companies to deliver mobile ad impressions at much higher volume than many traditional ad publishers has helped them capture market share very quickly."

Overall, U.S. mobile advertising grew by 178 percent last year hitting a total of $4.11 billion, according to eMarketer. And this is expected to rise by 77.3 percent to $7.29 billion this year. By 2017, eMarketer predicts that $27.13 billion will be spent on mobile advertising, making up 13.8 percent of the entire ad market.