Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Most consumers (85%) globally say that they have used their smartphone in-store, according to the DigitasLBi Connected Commerce study.

This is an increase from 72% just a year ago.

And it’s not only using a smartphone in a store but the rather the impact it’s having.

The majority (55%) of smartphone users say the Internet and smartphones have changed the way they shop in a store.

Perhaps more significantly, 77% of Internet users have been influenced by mobile during the purchase process....

More than $101.37 billion will be spent on ads served in 2016 to mobile phones and tablets worldwide. That’s a 400 percent increase from 2013. From 2016 to 2019, mobile ads will nearly double again, rising to $195.55 billion. That figure will account for 70.1 percent of all digital advertising as well as more than one-quarter of total media ad spending worldwide.

It’s all about the number of consumers adopting mobile devices. As that number soars, marketers are chasing consumers into mobile markets. Next year, eMarketer estimates, there will be more than 2 billion smartphone users worldwide, more than one-quarter of whom will be in China.

Eyeballs have been shifting aggressively to mobile in recent years but the bucks - at least for ecommerce - remained anchored to the desktop. That is now changing according to a new study by Criteo.

The advertising optimization platform analyzed individual transaction data covering over $130 billion of annual sales across more than 3,000 online retailers and travel advertisers recently and discovered that across its extensive network mobile now accounts for almost 30 per cent of ecommerce transactions.

And the company predicts that it will reach 50 per cent in the US in the near term.Criteo also outlines what it sees as five new mobile shopping trends....

The holidays are almost upon us, and recent surveys confirm what many business owners have suspected: social commerce, and the use of mobile channels, is increasing and will have a huge impact on 2014 holiday shopping behaviors. The shift toward social shopping highlights trends that impact both business-to-consumer and business-to-business (B2B) purchasing.

As reported by MarketingLand, mobile and social channels will play a significant role in holiday shopping this year. In an online survey of 1,000 smartphone owners, sponsored by MarketLive.com, one in three shoppers stated they plan to make more than 50 percent of purchases via mobile devices. Thirty percent of respondents reported having made a purchase as a direct result of “engagement with a social networking site” within the past year. This is up from 18 percent the previous year.

And, as consumers become increasingly web and mobile-savvy, and vocal in their online reviews of their likes and dislikes, we will begin to see what some are describing as the “consumerization” of business-to-business purchasing behavior. So, while not all consumer shopping activities translate to the B2B purchasing model, many do....

We are spending 2 hours 51 minutes a day on our mobile devices. The only other media we spend more time on is TV at 4 hours and 21 minutes.

This amount of increasing attention for mobiles has some big implications for advertising and marketing budgets.

This mobile momentum is also partly driven by two technologies that have intersected that are both addictive and compulsive.

Social networks and mobile devices.

This is one of the reasons Facebook bought Instagram for future mobile advertising. Mark Zuckerberg has also stated that Facebook would continue to focus on growing its mobile advertising and with 62% of its revenue in Q2 of 2014 now coming from mobile ads, that goal is being fulfilled....

Following years of speculation about the demise of desktop-based search, Google is officially announcing today that for the first time, more searches come from smartphones and tablets than from laptops and desktops.

Smartphones account for more than half of searches in 10 countries—including the U.S. and Japan—according to Google, which didn't release exact percentages or a full list of countries. But it is playing up mobile at its annual AdWords Performance Summit, being live-streamed this afternoon.

"The purchase funnel is officially dead," proclaimed Jerry Dischler, vp of product management at Google. "What we're seeing are these short bursts of activity that we're calling micro-moments. We see the new challenge for marketers is to be there at those moments anytime, anywhere....

“According to the data, consumers are not spontaneously window shopping online stores or casually browsing product pages,” said Jim Davidson, head of research for Bronto Software. “They are utilizing multiple devices to extend their shopping experience and influence purchase decisions, creating a nonlinear path to purchase that today’s marketers need to understand and embrace.”

The report found that the majority of smartphone shoppers prefer mobile device browsers (61% of respondents) over apps (39% of respondents), which was also the preference of tablet shoppers by more than two to one (69% vs. 31%)....

Brands with both a physical and digital presence make almost 30% more in revenue. Consumers report a higher level of satisfaction with brands that have both a brick-and-mortar and online store, according to a recent study. Legacy brands who once hailed shopping malls as their “mecca” are now having to close shop, and once-startup, online-only brands, including Warby Parker and Birchbox, are moving in and opening their doors. Department and chain stores, in an effort to remain relevant, are spending upward of $4 billion on ecommerce platforms, redesigns, loyalty programs and in-store technology to keep consumers connected at all times.

There are plenty of ecommerce sites running fully functioning, profitable operations sans a physical footprint. And, there are also plenty of boutiques, even legacy luxury brands, whom avoid the ecommerce industry, focusing instead on offering a local clientele exclusive, one-of-a-kind products.

What is it then that makes multi-channel retailers of all sizes more successful than their solo-channel counterparts? Simple: a consumer-wide shift in shopping habits....

The conventional wisdom is that women account for the lion's share of consumer spending, including online purchases. But it turns out that men are the power shoppers when it comes to purchases made on smartphones and tablets. 

In a new report, BI Intelligence breaks down the demographics of U.S. online and mobile shoppers by gender, age, income, and education, and takes a look at what they're shopping for, and how their behaviors differ. It's important for retailers to know who their potential customers are online in order to market to them effectively....

How highly does mobile optimization feature in your list of holiday marketing priorities? Mobile and m-commerce is no longer just a trend on the ascendance. It’s now the norm.

It’s beginning to look a lot like m-commerce

The strongest evidence that the retail market is at a tipping point in terms of mobile usage comes from the fact that in July 2014, 56 percent of time spent with U.S. online retail occurred on a mobile device. (Source, comScore).

comScore’s annual research into retail sales revenues and attribution over the holiday period predicts that mobile devices will account for 30 percent of global retail e-commerce spending by 2018, up from 15 percent in 2013....