BII MOBILE INSIGHTS: Are Retailers Approaching A Mobile Cliff?

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Mobile Cliff Coming For Retailers On Black Friday? (Keynote)
The 2012 holiday shopping season is anticipated to be the year for mobile, as large numbers of holiday shoppers use their smartphones for research and purchasing. But retailers may not be ready. Keynote predicts that slow site performance will leave many retailers and mobile shoppers crying in their eggnog.

Online retail sales are forecasted to be $68.4 billion, 15% over last year. (Forrester)
20% of online sales predicted to come from mobile devices. (IMRG/Cap Gemini)
Four in five mobile device owners will use their devices in some way to assist with shopping. (Google/Ipsos)

Meanwhile a Keynote User Study found that user expectations for site performance across smartphones and tablets are high:

64% of smartphone users want an under four second page download
60% of tablet users want an under three second page download

So are online retailers ready to give the gift of mobile website performance and delight their customers looking to compare and buy online? Right now average response time is over 11 seconds.

Merry Mobile Shopping (Clickz)
From all appearances, it seems that Santa's sleigh bells are ringing in 2012 as the year that holiday shopping went mobile. In comparison to 2011, research is predicting that we'll be seeing twice as many consumers using their mobile devices to buy holiday gifts this year. It's no wonder. According to recent findings explored in the IAB's second annual Mobile Shoppers study, U.S. smartphone ownership took a sharp uptick since 2011, rising to 68% of consumers owning a smart mobile device versus 57% last year. And mobile shopping is on the rise. If Santa's sleigh bells can be heard around the globe, I think we can expect to hear the sounds of consumers collectively tapping on their mobile devices to make sure there is something under the tree.

Mobile Email Marketing: Tips For The Holiday Season (Marketing Land)
Even if you haven’t been able to transition your emails into a responsive template or you’re waiting to roll out that new mobile strategy in 2013, there are still a few mobile-smart techniques at your disposal:

Set to scale for iOS devices
Optimize your pre-header message
Prioritize for holiday shopping activity
Adjust for touch
Design for short attention spans
Make it easy to read

The holiday season can be a challenging time to try new things, but now you have a few simple tips to help your messages grab attention in the mobile inbox.

Effectively Measuring Lead Performance In Mobile Is Essential (Search Engine Watch)
If you’re like most digital marketers, you engage in advertising to achieve one of two goals – either to generate or increase awareness or to generate new leads or customers. The metrics used to measure each of these goals vary dramatically, both in type and complexity. Lead measurement on the other hand is often very complex for the simple fact that every business measures them differently. Despite this fact, the most common metrics used in the digital world to measure this type of performance are clicks and calls. In mobile, there is a new engagement metric that is largely overlooked by marketers new to the space that is just as valuable, if not more valuable as a qualified lead measure, a call or completed forms: The access of map and driving directions. These actions are of great value, as the act of clicking through to view map and driving directions demonstrates a high level of user intent to convert through an offline visit to a store or business location.

SEO For The Mobile Web (Webdesigner Depot)
With the explosive expansion in the use of tablet computers and smartphones for web searches, why are so many SEO experts unable to look beyond desktop development? Is it because developers do not feel the need to duplicate their efforts, or does the answer lie in the clients’ and employers’ unwillingness to swallow the extra expense? If more users are searching for businesses while on the go through their smartphones, don’t we need a recommended practice for attracting them? Actually, there already is one: SEO. Google has already taken steps to consider how to rank pages tailored for smartphones. The mission of Googlebot-Mobile is "to increase … coverage of smartphone content and to provide a better search experience for smartphone users." If you are planning a mobile specific version of your site, you must ensure that the content delivered is genuinely different from the desktop site.

Adoption Of Marketing Attribution Driven By Social And Mobile (Econsultancy)
The rise of social media and mobile usage has led to an increased interest in marketing attribution, according to the latest Econsultancy/Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing. The survey finds that marketing attribution has moved past the 'early adopter' phase, and is now used in some shape or form by the majority of respondents. The proliferation of mobile devices, and their potential to provide a link between online and offline, makes the task of attribution more difficult. Just under half (49%) of client-side respondents agree that mobile has increased the focus on marketing attribution, as they need to find ways to calculate the value of the channel. Impact of mobile and social on attribution:

mobile marketing attribution

Social has also been instrumental in building the momentum of attribution marketing, with 58% of agency and 43% of client respondents agreeing that social media has increased focus on attribution.

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