Device, OS fragmentation contribute to slow proliferation of mobile sites
More than two in five mobile users will go online from their phones each month, eMarketer estimates, but many websites have been slow to make their content available in mobile-optimized formats.
Research from mobile site detection API provider Company Data Trees found that in January 2011, 14.32% of the top 10,000 sites on Alexa had a mobile version, and 14.67% of publishers (defined as websites with advertising) had one. The percentages have grown since then, to around 24% and 26%, respectively, as of September. That growth represents a 75% increase in mobile adoption among publishers and 66% among all websites over the course of approximately nine months.
Yet while more publishers are optimizing their sites for mobile, most are still not serving mobile ads. In September 2011, more than 61% of the publisher sites studied by Company Data Trees had no mobile ads.
David Engel, CEO of Company Data Trees, told eMarketer that publishers were leaving ad revenues on the table—especially since mobile ad networks exist, and many publishers already have a mobile-optimized site with inventory going unused.
“Publishers should pay more serious attention to this, and to creating a mobile website,” said Engel. “So much weight is put on apps, but the real opportunity is for the mobile website.”
Buyers of high-end goods are highly engaged with online visual and mobile tools
Affluent consumers are tapping into mobile and online tools to support purchase decisions more frequently than the general population, research indicates. This gives marketers more opportunities to reach them through newer digital channels.
According to a survey conducted by the Affluence Collaborative, the majority of affluent internet users who earn more than $200,000 a year conduct product research on a weekly basis. And about a quarter of the highest-earning affluents (those earning at least $500,000 a year) research products and services every day.
The survey also indicates that more than half of online affluents use the mobile internet on a weekly basis—and about 40% do so daily. Given the high penetration and usage of smartphones among wealthy consumers, mobile video may be an opportunity to reach affluent or luxury product shoppers.
An automotive study by Google, Compete and Polk supports this. The research found that 30% of luxury car shoppers watched videos on their mobile phones prior to a purchase. And luxury car shoppers were twice as likely as volume car shoppers to watch consumer-generated online video on their PC and on their mobile device.
Data from an Ad-ology Research complements these findings. In the firm’s survey of auto purchasers, more respondents said that online photos and videos were integral to the purchase process for luxury and sports cars than for other types of cars.
Luxury automaker Land Rover knows that mobile and video are two crucial tactics to reach its target audience. According to Ken Bracht, marketing communication manager at Land Rover, a high percentage of its customer base uses smartphones, so the brand has taken “calculated risks” in mobile for several years now.
During the pre-launch of its 2012 Range Rover Evoque, Land Rover introduced a mobile app called Pulse of the City and also created an online interactive movie in hopes of entertaining and informing its early-adopter, tech-savvy target audience.
The videos have returned higher-than-average engagement. “It’s difficult to get anyone to spend more than 120 seconds with your content,” Bracht told eMarketer. “But we’re seeing an average of 7 minutes.”
Sharon Knitter is responsible for the strategic management and development of Cars.com’s consumer automotive buying and selling channels on the Web. In addition, Knitter has led the site’s mobile initiatives, working to bring the best of Cars.com to shoppers on the go. She spoke with eMarketer’s Noah Elkin about Cars.com’s mobile initiatives and the importance of aligning mobile strategy with identifiable user behavior and needs.
eMarketer: What are you doing with mobile?
“Our goal was that all of our consumers be able to access our content in a mobile environment, no matter what kind of device they have.”
Sharon Knitter: We have two mobile offerings with more on the way. First, we have our mobile Website, which we launched in 2007. It’s optimized for everything from touchscreens down to feature phones. Our goal, and the most important thing for us, was that all of our consumers be able to access our content in a mobile environment, no matter what kind of device they have.
As our next initiative, we created an iPhone app, which has been extremely successful. Even though prior to launching the app we had quite a bit of traffic from to the mobile Website from iPhone users, with the creation of the app we’ve seen very high levels of traffic and page views in the iPhone app. It’s so successful in fact that we’re going to be tweaking and re-launching another version probably in the next two or three months.
eMarketer: Can you outline the decisions that went into choosing the iPhone platform first? Was that just a factor of the percentage of traffic that came from iPhone users?
Knitter: Absolutely. It was all about market share. When you think about the iPhone, it was really the first sort of important application platform. That said, the other important thing there is the distribution aspect. In order to be in front of all the folks who are looking for apps, you need to be in the App Store.
eMarketer: Does the app offer additional functionality that’s not available on the mobile site?
Knitter: Yes. We wanted to use the native functionality of the phone. So you can save to your favorites and other things that are very iPhone-oriented.
“Taking our Website and dumping it into a mobile environment isn’t very helpful.”
I should say that we also think pretty carefully, with both the mobile Website and the app, about what from the Website goes into our mobile offerings. A lot of us come from a newspaper background and we learned from that. Taking the newspaper and putting the entire thing onto the Web was not a Website. Taking our Website and dumping it into a mobile environment isn’t very helpful either. So we do actually think pretty significantly about what types of information is important, and we only include that information. But we’ve found from the consumer research we’ve done that we’re hitting on the right amount of content.
eMarketer: Can you give an example of some type of content that is on the full desktop Website but not on the mobile site or vice versa?
Knitter: On the Website we’ll do very, very lengthy reviews about all the specs and type of information about a new vehicle. An automobile is still a pretty considered purchase, and we don’t believe that people will do all of their research in a mobile environment today, on a phone especially. So we might not include the very long reviews, but we might include a truncated review for someone to be able to get essential information.
We know from our research that about 40% of the folks who use the mobile Website are actually on a dealer’s lot. And what are the types of things they want in that situation? They want to be able to search listings for other cars, they probably want a dealer locator, they might want to know how much their car is worth as a trade-in, so it’s very tools- and functionality-based with some reviews of at a higher level.
eMarketer: Do you plan to expand the app to other platforms?
Knitter: Absolutely. Android will most likely be our next version, and then we’re talking about BlackBerry and the iPad. We get some traffic already from iPad users, but it tends to go to our regular Website as opposed to the mobile site. These are all expensive decisions, so I’d still like to understand a little bit more how iPad users are using the iPad. It would be different if there were no cost involved or if you could create once and use many times.
eMarketer: How are you marketing your mobile assets—the site and the app?
“Our mobile site has always played a very significant role in our consumer television ad campaign.”
Knitter: Our mobile site has always played a very significant role in our consumer television ad campaign, especially for the last two years, including our Super Bowl commercials. That is a huge way to reach folks. At the end of each spot, we don’t actually come out and say, “Hey, check out our mobile site!” It’s much more subtle than that. At the end of each spot we feature a protagonist accessing the Cars.com ad campaigns through their mobile device.
In the 30 days following the Super Bowl, the mobile site experienced a 42% gain in average daily unique visitors compared to the same time last year.
What you’ll see in the future from us is again weaving mobile into a wide variety of our promotional offerings. We find this communicates to consumers that we’re an innovative brand. It demonstrates the breadth of our offering, of which mobile is a part.
eMarketer: What are your objectives longer term from both a brand building and also a direct-response perspective for your mobile assets?
“We are very fortunate in that consumers do submit leads to dealers through their iPhone or other mobile devices.”
Knitter: I have to say we are very fortunate in that consumers do submit leads to dealers through their iPhone or other mobile devices. It’s possible to either click to call and enable e-mail leads. That’s our major revenue stream: from dealers. Our site functionality supports our dealer partners well. And national advertisers have really embraced our mobile offerings. The first two months of the iPhone app were sold out immediately, and we have a lot of interest going forward.
“We want everyone to use Facebook. We’re well aware there are ~1billion people without access to websites. We have an increasing number of users who have only accessed facebook from a mobile phone”
Less than half of homes in most countries have broadband so there are a lot of people that cannot get to view a website on a PC---- yet they can view a mobile website.
The screens on new phones coming out are larger
It is easier to connect to the mobile internet
It has become MUCH cheaper to view mobile websites, a lot of 'packages' offered allow for a sizeable amount of viewing mobile websites free
Statistics show people DO open links sent to them on their mobile phone
WHEN ADVERTISING YOU SHOULD BE SENDING PEOPLE TO YOUR MOBILE WEBSITE
The Operators have spent fortunes and are geared for this wave and encouraging it strongly
