One third of respondents who noticed mobile ads reported clicking on at least one of them in the past 30 days according to a new report from the Mobile Path-to-Purchase Study from xAd, the global location marketplace, and Telmetrics, the call measurement technology provider. Results were compiled by Nielsen from an online survey of 2,000 UK smartphone and tablet users focused on the retail, insurance and telecoms categories.

By using data such as consumer shopping behaviour patterns and real-time location, brands are serving ads that are more personal, relevant and timely. Overall UK consumers are 76% more likely to find mobile ads informative and helpful than they did last year.

And people’s awareness of the trade off between free content and advertising is growing. As revenue generated by ads means sites and apps can produce free content, the majority of survey respondents said that they prefer a free website with ads to paying for an ad-free subscription — up 41% since 2013.