The amount of time that consumers spend accessing the internet through their mobile and tablet devices has surpassed the amount of time spent online using laptop or desktop computers, according to a recent study completed by Jumptap and comScore. One finding that is particularly interesting is that women ages 25 to 49 use their smartphone or tablet to access the web more than 60% of the time.
This means any marketer targeting this demographic needs to have a cross-device advertising strategy and, from what I can tell, most marketers realize this. The industry expects one-third of digital media budgets to be allocated to cross-device campaigns this year, up from 24% in 2012 and 19% in 2011. Yet I find myself wondering: "is that enough?" because the opportunity in mobile seems so enormous.
Consumers don't go anywhere anymore without their smartphone and it's always on. It has geo-location tracking and features a seemingly endless number of ways to interact with consumers (voice, texting, social, email, search, apps, etc.). According to a Google/Nielsen study, three out of four mobile searches trigger follow-up actions, whether it be further research, a store visit, a phone call, a purchase or word-of-mouth sharing. Search Engine Watch suggests that while direct mobile conversion may not be very impressive, mobile search may be the key to driving multi-channel conversion.
I would also hypothesize that mobile search may have higher intent. I personally find searching on my mobile phone to be much more cumbersome than searching on my laptop due to the smaller screen, iPhone keyboard and slower page loads. Furthermore, there are plenty of other activities to engage in on a smartphone like social media and apps, leading me to believe that if a user is taking the time to search for a product or service on their smartphone, he or she must really want it.
It's likely that marketers realize most, if not all, of these points and probably want to do more in mobile, but I think there are at least a couple of challenges holding them back. First, measuring ROI becomes much more challenging when you have to link an in-store or online purchase to a mobile search 40 minutes earlier. Second, mobile is so dynamic, that it can be difficult to figure out how to do it well. Marketers would ideally like to know how their target consumers are using mobile, whether for research or purchase, etc. and then be able to design their campaigns accordingly, but that information isn't necessarily that easy to find. Lastly, there is a concern about how much personalization is too much personalization. Do consumers really want Starbucks sending them a message every time they walk past a Starbucks?
Once marketers can figure out how to navigate these challenges, they'll be able to design effective mobile and cross-device marketing campaigns.
Consumers don't go anywhere anymore without their smartphone and it's always on. It has geo-location tracking and features a seemingly endless number of ways to interact with consumers (voice, texting, social, email, search, apps, etc.). According to a Google/Nielsen study, three out of four mobile searches trigger follow-up actions, whether it be further research, a store visit, a phone call, a purchase or word-of-mouth sharing. Search Engine Watch suggests that while direct mobile conversion may not be very impressive, mobile search may be the key to driving multi-channel conversion.
I would also hypothesize that mobile search may have higher intent. I personally find searching on my mobile phone to be much more cumbersome than searching on my laptop due to the smaller screen, iPhone keyboard and slower page loads. Furthermore, there are plenty of other activities to engage in on a smartphone like social media and apps, leading me to believe that if a user is taking the time to search for a product or service on their smartphone, he or she must really want it.
It's likely that marketers realize most, if not all, of these points and probably want to do more in mobile, but I think there are at least a couple of challenges holding them back. First, measuring ROI becomes much more challenging when you have to link an in-store or online purchase to a mobile search 40 minutes earlier. Second, mobile is so dynamic, that it can be difficult to figure out how to do it well. Marketers would ideally like to know how their target consumers are using mobile, whether for research or purchase, etc. and then be able to design their campaigns accordingly, but that information isn't necessarily that easy to find. Lastly, there is a concern about how much personalization is too much personalization. Do consumers really want Starbucks sending them a message every time they walk past a Starbucks?
Once marketers can figure out how to navigate these challenges, they'll be able to design effective mobile and cross-device marketing campaigns.
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