Marketers Shift Spending to Mobile

In 2013, Mobile, Social Lead Shift From Traditional Media to Digital. Mobile and social media were the two categories expected to see the most increased attention in 2013. In fact, more than eight in 10 of those polled named mobile media as a target for increased focus, while just over three-quarters of respondents said the same for social media. Read more

 

Marketing Research Chart: Top Mobile Marketing Objectives

Whenever marketers begin to investigate the implementation of a new tactic, it’s likely that the first questions asked are, “Why should I do this?” and “What are our goals in doing so?” Mobile is no exception.

When asked about their top objectives, 63% of respondents indicated they hoped to increase sales conversion, followed by increasing lead generation (55%) and lead nurturing (50%). As we learn — somewhat unsurprisingly — in subsequent charts in the Benchmark Report, sales conversion was the top choice for B2C companies, while their B2B counterparts focused on lead generation.

If you’re a B2B marketer, do you see mobile as a viable lead nurturing channel? What types of lead nurturing tactics have you employed in your mobile marketing? What restrictions, if any, have you faced in nurturing leads through mobile efforts?

Despite the fact that increasing sales conversion was a top mobile objective for 63% of marketers, improvement of the customer service experience was a low-ranking category, at just 19%.

Has your company used mobile to improve the customer shopping experience? How have these efforts paid off for your company? Does your company’s approach reflect these findings, or do you feel focusing on the lowest-ranked categories might benefit mobile efforts?

 

 

 

 

Mobile Apps: We Interrupt This Broadcast

In the month of November, we measured over a trillion events from over 250,000 applications created by more than 85,000 developers.  Events are actions completed by consumers inside apps such as completing a game level, making a restaurant reservation or tagging a song.  In November, we also measured over 60 billion sessions, which is the start and a stop of an application on a mobile smart device.  The chart below shows the growth in events tracked since May of 2008, when we first made our analytics service available to developers.  This growth reflects the growth of the app economy. Read More

In-Store Mobile Users Want Information, Experiences, & a Buddy

As we move into the holiday season,and marketers put their hair on fire over how much smartphones are hijacking their retail business, in most cases, mobile shoppers are using their phones to get validation of their purchase decision, not a deal that saves them just a few bucks but makes them wait days for delivery.  To be sure, comparison shopping is not dead, with 54% of the 1,000 mobile shoppers surveyed saying they have done so with their devices in-store. But almost as many (51%) also say they have looked up product reviews. In other words, retailers have an important opportunity to capture these information-hungry shoppers with their own branded content. About a third (33%) of in-store mobile users have gone to that store’s mobile site, for instance, for more information. And 28% have actually used that retailer’s app in the same store.

Among these connected shoppers, the most common in-store mobile activities included:

  • 54% Compared on a competitor’s site
  • 51% Looked up a product review
  • 45% Scanned a QR or barcode for product information
  • 33% Researched a product on the store’s site
  • 28% Used a company’s app in the store
  • 19% Checked in with location-based services
  • 18% Purchased a product from the store’s Web site
  • 17% Sent a text message for more information
  • 15% Purchased a product from a competitor
  • 14% Sent a text message to subscribe to a list

Read more 

Why You Need a Mobile Website

The mobile web is a fast-growing online arena. Home to more than 4 billion connected smartphones, statistics show that mobile use will overtake desktop traffic by 2014. This means that no matter what kind of business you run, your audience is on the mobile web, and you should be reaching them.

There is a particular behavior on mobile visits that’s quite different from a typical web visitor. Mobile searchers who land on your site are typically visiting your business or researching a purchase that they’re going to make. AlchemyViral has put together this incredibly informative infographic on mobile optimization.

Mobile Overtakes Email And Social For Ad Spend

This year, spend on mobile paid advertising and search surpasses email and social and will rocket at a 38% CAGR to $8.2 billion by 2016 because:

  • · Marketers will create more relevant mobile ads. Today, marketers primarily re-purpose online ads into mobile search and display. But as mobile analytics firms like Bango mine more smartphone data, and mobile ad servers like Crisp Media mature, advertisers will spend to create user-centric mobile ads through better ad targeting and dynamic content. Already, mobile ad network AdMob can geo-target Volkswagen ads to German BlackBerry and iPhone users. Next step: layering in behavior or intent data to fine-tune the targeting.
  • · Tablets — along with their expensive ad units — will become mainstream.  Tablets contribute to mobile marketing investment due to their rapid adoption, but also because of the innovative — and expensive — ad formats they enable. For example, Livestand, Yahoo’s digital newsstand for tablets, allows advertisers to interact with users through rich, customized, immersive content experiences.
  • · Buyers will embrace mobile commerce and the advertising that drives it. Advertisers enamored by the mobile commerce outlook — mobile commerce will top $31 billion in five years — will buy ads to promote more mobile transactions. More mobile commerce will in turn further mobile ad investment. For example, Intercontinental Hotels is ramping up its location-based marketing since its room bookings from mobile devices increased 1,000% in the first five months of 2011. And the coming explosion of tablet adoption will only amplify this virtuous cycle; already 47% of tablet owners have shopped and bought on their devices.  Source: Forrester Research.