“Research shows 60% of Mobile Web users had a problem in the past year when accessing a website on their phone”

In a study by IDC 494.2 million Smartphone units were shipped in 2011. During 2012, worldwide shipments are forecasted to grow 33.5% and at a average growth rate of 18.6% through to 2016 ^[1]. The rising demand for Smartphone’s is causing a fundamental shift in the way  people are accessing the internet. As the world moves more towards mobile devices and away from desktops, an important question that all businesses and organisations are having to address is: “are you maximising your mobile opportunity?”.

If the mobile opportunity is something relatively new to you or something you want to discover more about, then this post is for you. The following outlines five [5] key steps for getting your business/organisation presence in the mobile space by first understanding current trends in mobile user behaviour, particularly in terms of direct mobile-attributed conversions (i.e. purchase) and testing your mobile-friendly site.

Mobile user Behaviour

Below are some of the key findings related directly to mobile internet usage and mobile generated conversions published in a study conducted by Google – “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” ^[2].

• 27% of Smartphone shoppers purchase via Mobile Websites.
• 74% of Smartphone shoppers made a purchase as a result of using a Smartphone.
  • 76% in-store.
  • 59% online using a computer.
  • 35% Smartphone.
• 95% of users have looked for local information and a result, 88% of users took action within the same day of which; 77% contacted the business and 44% had purchased.
• Among various types of websites, search engine websites were ranked as the most visited website.

From a conversion point of view, these findings suggest people are highly likely to take action as a result of using their Smartphone. In addition to this, given the growing popularity of using mobile payment systems like Google Wallet and PayPal Here, we’re likely to see a growing trend in purchases made via mobile (Smartphone) devices.

From a search perspective, the results suggest people typically engage the same type of behaviours as they would if operating a desktop when searching for information (but in some cases more localised). In turn this is likely to mean that the majority of your non-direct mobile visitors are arriving to your website via a search engine. But just how many of website visitors are mobile visitors? Below we outline steps in Google Analytics to discover how much of your traffic is attributed to mobile.

Analyse

1. Generate a report in Google Analytics (GA) to identify the trend in mobile visits to your website. In GA you can do this by following the steps below:
   1. Navigate to ‘Standard Reporting’.
   2. Click the ‘Audience’ tab.
   3. Click ‘Mobile’ then ‘Overview’.
2. Set a date range you would like to see traffic and/or conversion data for. Depending on how long you’ve had Google Analytics installed on your site, we suggest looking at relatively long time periods i.e. six or twelve month periods. Then,
3. Choose the type of metrics you wish to compare in the chart i.e. Visits vs. Transactions (if you have an eCommerce site).
4. Reviewing & Analysing the mobile data:
   1. If you want a visual overview of the percentage of mobile attributed visits contribute to total website visits for the date range your have set, click either the percentage icon
      or the performance icon.
      From the menu in the top right hand of the table.
   2. In the Mobile Overview Standard Report, the Primary Dimension should be set to Mobile with two line items in the table below with No and Yes. To see only mobile data, next to the search filter click Advanced and enter the following filter settings and click Apply.
      
   3. You should now only see traffic for mobile data only. In the chart, you will be able to see whether or not mobile data (i.e. visits and conversions) have increased.To drill down a step further, include as a Secondary dimension – Operating System.
      
   4. To drill down a step further, include as a Secondary dimension – Operating System.
5. The purpose of this report is to identify what type of mobile devices/operating systems are being used to access your website (e.g. iPhone, Android, and Windows powered mobile devices).

Website Optimisation for Mobile Devices

1. Purpose: Is a move to add/include a mobile site version into the mix a good idea and why? Are you able to state and clearly justify the benefit a mobile version of your site will bring to your business and to your users? [1] Identify a clear purpose for why you think a mobile site will be of benefit and what reliable data can back this up?
2. Objectives: Before adding or optimising your website for mobile traffic, it is important to determine what exactly  the objectives for the mobile version are. For example the objectives might be to improve number of conversions attributed to mobile traffic, to increase number of mobile visitors to the website, or to simply improve website experience for mobile users. By determining what the specific objectives are, you should then be able to put in place a strategic plan of action towards achieving those objectives.
3. Make it super simple: Compared to a PC, mobile devices are smaller; therefore display screens are smaller and perhaps with that so are the patience and attention spans of your mobile visitors. Cramming a content filled page fit for a PC-sized web browser into a smart phone display is not much fun for many. So when optimising your site for mobile, based on the objectives for the mobile version, simplify the navigation, minimise the content (text and images), and only put what’s absolutely necessary. The easier your mobile site is for users to use the more likely they will use it.
4. Call to action: If your mobile site is geared towards increasing online conversions, ensure the call-to-action signals are clear and obvious to users.
5. Mobile redirects: Whether a visitor from a mobile device is redirected to your website via a search or is referred to as direct, speak to your developer about implementing automatic redirects to the mobile version of your site. Implementing this function will also avoid the effects of either carrier or Google Transcoding your webpages and the possibility of a user having a poor experience with your site through their mobile device

Other alternatives:

If you don’t want to invest significant time/resources into developing a mobile-friendly site, there are a number of hosted platforms you can use to help you stay up to date and manage all the devices and technology for you (e.g. Mobistro.com and Unitymobile.com).

Tracking mobile site activity

It’s important to note, from a tracking perspective, mobile devices essentially fall into two different classes. These can be referred to as “low-end” (i.e. mobile phones with WAP enabled browsers) – mobile devices that do not support JavaScript and “high-end” (i.e. Smartphone’s with full HTML browsers) – mobile devices that support JavaScript.

• When tracking visitor activity on your mobile site, if your site has the standard ga.js script and _trackPageview calls then GA should be able to collect data from high-end mobile users. If however you want to ensure your mobile site also tracks activity from low-end mobile users, you will need to implement custom script depending on your server-side language. For details on this see the Google Analytics for Mobile Websites help page.
• Whether you decide to have the mobile version of your site on its own .mobi domain or as a sub-domain, and in particular have links on the mobile site to the full site, given the way GA is designed to track single domains, you will need to implement cross-domain tracking.
• Submit Mobile Sitemap to Google Webmaster tools.

Resources for testing your site for mobile traffic

• GoMo: A Google driven initiative,  provides a free tool for testing how your mobile site renders on a Smartphone device. The full report also provides useful advice for further optimising your mobile site.
• Mobile Emulators: Test whether or not your current site renders properly using the Gomez Mobile Readiness Test.
  • Android SDK (testing for Android powered devices only) device emulator shows how your site will appear on Android devices.
• W3C mobile checker: is a useful resource for checking how mobile-friendly a specific URL is. The detailed report provides a comprehensive breakdown in order of severity of particular errors that occurred with recommendations to fix the issue.

Take action

The mobile movement is picking up momentum. It’s no doubt with the growing number of mobile/Smartphone devices being activated everyday so will website visits from these devices. If you’re interested in finding out more about how mobile visits are contributing to your overall traffic volume, including understanding mobile visitor behaviour and interaction with your site, speak with us.  We can help with providing an in-depth mobile Web Analytics analysis with actionable insights tailored to fit your digital marketing strategy.

Sources:

• [1] IDC – Worldwide Smartphone 2012 – 2016 Forecast and Analysis.
• [2] Google, Think Insights – “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users”.

Related Posts:

• Are You Taking Mobile Marketing Seriously?
• Mobile Advertising – Is Mobile Marketing in New Zealand Worth the Effort?
• Travel Insurance – Digital Marketing Insights 2012
• iPhone App Marketing: How To Market Mobile Applications

On the 8th of March 2011 Google launched the new Instant Previews feature on mobile devices (for Android and iOS for now), making it even easier and faster to find what you’re looking for. And that was just a few days after announcing their new Maps Navigation App and their improved Google Docs for Mobile.

By enhancing the users experience on mobile devices, there’s no doubt Google is getting it right!

And here are a couple of reasons YOU should care about mobile users, too:

Internet Mobile Usage Continues to Grow

In December 2010, 47% of US mobile subscribers are now considered mobile media users – they browsed the mobile web, accessed applications, downloaded content or accessed the mobile Internet via SMS. That is a growth of 19% in just one year. In Europe, the growth rate is 23% for the same segment of mobile media users.

This booming growth in the consumption of mobile media has been made possible thanks to the continuous growth in smart phone adoption, 3G/4G device ownership, as well as unlimited data plans offers.

We can safely conclude that online mobile is no longer reserved for privileged people alone!

And even if the 18-24 year old segment gets the highest propensity of mobile usage, in a very early-adopter country like Japan, this repartition amongst this age group is much more balanced and serves as a likely prediction of what will happen in other countries in few years.

Online Mobile Activities are Varied and Focused on Local Content/Services

What does that mean? Well, quite simply more people use their mobile to access Internet content and especially local-oriented services (weather, maps, location-based social networks, etc.). Mobile browsers are now indeed the first access method to access local information in the US with 20.7 million users per month.

As shown in the chart on the opposite, people do pretty much everything on their mobile and every category commands double digit growth.

Mobile devices have become a real means of online searching and surfing.  There are no further barriers, except maybe for some websites that aren’t adapted for mobiles yet… – oh, and of course the NZ mobile plans that are still not as cheap as they could be.

Another interest stat: 80% of searchers research online before purchasing in a 10-20 miles radius.  Even more intersting: 42% of people use their phone to search…at home!

So you better make sure you are found on Google, anytime, anywhere! (SEO for mobiles is still SEO).

Online Mobiles Enable Real Life Experiences

As social networks become more local-focused, there are now many choices for mobile users to see what happens on the street corner or find out who is nearby. Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare,…the list is long and it would be a great shame not to benefit from these services to build a strong online-offline relationship between you and your prospects.

Indeed mobile devices allow the creation of an easy link between online life and real life. There is no need to explain why it’s important for physical businesses (restaurants, shops, etc.) but it should be also considered by businesses that have an e-commerce website as well as a physical store network. Both channels shouldn’t be viewed as rivals – but rather as complementary.

The Perfect 1 to 1 Marketing Channel

Mobiles are without a doubt the most personal device. As proof, a study from the University of Manchester has shown that mobile devices contained 500 times more bacteria than a toilet bowl!

So it’s important to use the mobile device for all its worth! Mobiles enrich the relationships between the brand and its customers. With a sound CRM, brands can now efficiently communicate at the right time and the right moment and when it’s done best will be able to anticipate their customer’s needs. What more can we ask for..?

Optimize Marketing Channels as a Whole

Because online life is not separated from real life, and also because the Internet can be accessed by different means, every marketer should analyze their marketing campaign’s performances as a whole.

This is no small feat, especially analysing the relationship between these two worlds. But fortunately, one of the main advantage of digital marketing is knowing what your visitors are doing online (assuming that you are efficiently tracking them in Google Analytics – and that they don’t delete their cookies…).

With tracking sorted you should be able to analyse the contribution of each traffic source on the final conversion and make the right decisions in terms of budgets, targeting, time planning, etc.

Mobile Marketing – In Summary

Online mobile usage is one of the fastest growing means of accessing the Internet. The particularities of this device (ultra-personal and mobile) need a specific marketing approach: Mobile Marketing.

At First Rate, we have the tools and a great team of experts to help you make the best choices, as well as increasing your online visibility, whatever the devices or digital marketing channels used.

Contact us to find out more.

OTHER SOURCES:

• The 2010 Mobile Year in Review, comScore
• http://www.orangesoda.com/blog/the-power-of-local-mobile-search-infographic/
• http://searchengineland.com/highest-use-of-mobile-search-at-home-report-69557

Related Posts:

• Mobile Advertising – Is Mobile Marketing in New Zealand Worth the Effort?
• Travel Insurance – Digital Marketing Insights 2012
• iPhone App Marketing: How To Market Mobile Applications

With over 150,000 applications on the iTunes App Store and 30,000 apps in the Android Market, it is more important than ever for iPhone and other mobile app developers to approach the marketing of their apps professionally.

Do You Have a Mobile App Marketing Strategy?

Many developers don’t have an app marketing strategy, instead relying solely on the limited marketing provided by app store operators. The iPhone App store, the Android Market and the Windows Mobile Marketplace all promote apps through ‘featured’ and ‘top’ lists.

An app can, for example, be featured on the front page of the iTunes App Store, or in a ‘Top 20’ list in its category. These spots are viewed by millions of iTunes users, which makes them highly lucrative. Getting on one of these spots could spell phenomenal success. Stories of such quick success reverberate throughout the iPhone development community – from Ethan Nicholas’ iShoot, to Joel Comm’s iFart.

However, the competitive reality is that, while getting featured is almost guaranteed to make your app successful, there is no guarantee your app will ever get featured. Of the 150,000 apps in the iTunes App Store, Apple chooses to feature only about 100 on the front page of the store at any one time. At the same time the ‘Top 20’ lists are reserved exclusively to the most-downloaded apps, which in turn earns them more downloads and thus turns this method of promotion into a self-serving cycle that’s almost impossible to break into. Getting featured sells apps, but don’t depend on it.

Mobile App Marketing – Getting Bang for your Buck

This is why it is important to devise a marketing strategy. Step one in your marketing strategy is understanding who your potential customers are, and step two is figuring out how to get your app shown where these eyeballs hang out, while optimising for minimum cost. It sounds simple: advertise your gardening app in gardening-related channels, and your game on gaming-related channels, but what about optimising this process as best as you can? This is where you really need to get professional.

To get the most bang for your buck in advertising, it pays to optimise by cleverly targeting your ads not only to the appropriate demographic, but also at precisely the time they are most likely to purchase your app. Pitching your gardening app in a poster inside the pub, for example, probably won’t work – even if the pub is frequented by gardeners – because even if a patron was interested in your app, they would likely forget about it by the time they get a chance to browse the App Store.

Targeting Mobile App Users

Here are some tips for targeting your mobile app advertising campaigns:

Try in-app advertising

Adverts are shown while users are actively interacting with other iPhone apps – and thus aren’t distracted by socialising or drinking beer! This generally makes for the most cost-effective advertising.

Try targeted online advertising

Online advertising networks such as Google Adwords can target users by keywords and/or by website placement. – You can, for example, place your gardening app ad on a relevant gardening-related website.

Try offline – if you’ve got the budget

While some apps are lucky enough to get free coverage by offline media to great effect, most app developers would have to use commission payable advertising to ever appear in a publication. Paid offline advertising generally does not result in good returns on investment for mobile apps.

That’s because using offline advertising such as Billboards, TV, newspapers is expensive and reaches consumers too far from the App Store. It is akin to advertising beer to wine lovers: Sure if your campaign is exceptionally good you might convert a few – and have them rushing to search for your beer, but why not advertise your beer to beer lovers in the first place? That is, why not target your customers when they are looking at their computer or mobile screen?

Contact First Rate

If you are an iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile or any kind of mobile app developer, we can help with effective online marketing. Contact First Rate for a no-obligation chat.

Related Posts:

• Are You Taking Mobile Marketing Seriously?

Mobile Internet usage is ‘the next big thing’ in online, with the iPhone and platforms like Google Android really starting to take off.

Having the power to browse the web, look up maps and do pre-purchase research “on the go” from practically anywhere, is a powerful concept. (And don’t forget that your phone can be used to make phone calls, too!)

Obviously, big players in the online marketing space are looking to make the most of this. Here is an example of a Google AdWords Ad appearing on a Nexus One:

Google has allowed targeting of mobile device users for some time on the AdWords platform, but this month has stepped up the targeting options.

Mobile Device Targeting

Earlier in January Google announced that they would now be allowing advertisers to specify what phones and networks they would like to target. The new AdWords device targeting options are shown in the screenshot below:

Phone types are limited to either Android, iPhone or Palm’s WebOS devices (despite the fact that Symbian and Windows Mobile users still have some of the highest ad click through rates based on recent studies in the US).

Google has not bothered to separate out between Vodafone and Telecom here as yet. (Australia is showing different network targeting options, so we imagine it is just a matter of time before they provide New Zealand specific targeting functionality.)

Click-to-Call Mobile Marketing

Based on geo-targeting, if your business phone number is located in a similar area to the mobile users location at the time of the search, your mobile ads will give the user the option to call your business. This will cost you the same as a click would, but instead of sending users to your website it sends a lead right to your phone. We will be interested to see what click through rates these are able to generate.

Mobile Usage in New Zealand

So with these new options, is it worth trying out mobile advertising in New Zealand? First Rate has carried out some brief research on aggregated statistics which has produced some interesting results.

• New Zealand “Information” websites sites generally appear to attract the most traffic from mobile devices, between 1% and 2%.
• By comparison, New Zealand “Retail/Service” websites are struggling to attract even 1% traffic from mobile devices.
• Data from this aggregated pool of websites further showed that as little as 0.5% of total Adwords originate from mobile devices.

With percentage figures this tiny, mobile advertising is not exactly going to be focus of your next large scale campaign, is it?

But why not start trialling now for when the inevitable growth does arrive here in New Zealand? We certainly think mobile marketing is important and on this basis all First Rate consultants consider this channel when devising a client’s Adwords strategy.

In-App Mobile Advertising

Let’s not forget about other forms of mobile advertising. In-app advertising, for example, is becoming a popular way of generating an income for both the Apple and Android app markets.

We are starting to see more interesting ads appearing in this area overseas, with advertisers making the most of these devices.

A great example is the following iPhone music video ad, which enables the user to interact with a music video for the new Vampire Weekend album.

We can’t help but think that the reason the uptake levels are still so low is due to the cost of having one of these high end devices: Both the outright purchase cost, as well as the ongoing data charges. Both of these are very high in New Zealand, especially when compared to other countries.

Conclusion

Google are putting a lot of time and money into developing this market, and with good reason!

Search is still one of the most used functions on these phones, and in 2011 Google see mobile search volume surpassing that of desktop levels in 2007.

The purchase of AdMob, the new targeting options and even the release of “The Google Phone” (the Nexus One) and the Android operating system itself, these are all indicators that Google knows exactly just how important this market is going to be.

We would also be willing to bet Google are only just getting their head around how different the mobile user is to their desktop-bound relative, so we can’t wait to see what happens when they really start to get good at targeting this new breed of user. Google Analytics is, once again, your best friend!

Mobile Advertising is obviously an area where First Rate is going to be keeping a close eye on. We have already started trialling some campaigns in this space – If you are interested in targeting mobile users cost effectively, then make sure you contact us.

Related Posts:

• Are You Taking Mobile Marketing Seriously?