As the application market continues to grow, marketers are increasingly looking to rank well in smaller subcategories as a way to stand out in app stores.

New ad formats such as video and a focus on finding a lifetime value for app users are growing in importance for marketers. Marketers should also start [...]]]> By Lauren Johnson

As the application market continues to grow, marketers are increasingly looking to rank well in smaller subcategories as a way to stand out in app stores.

New ad formats such as video and a focus on finding a lifetime value for app users are growing in importance for marketers. Marketers should also start gearing up for expected changes with Apple’s iOS 7.

“As the App Store gets more crowded, success within a category or subcategory is becoming more important,” said Craig Palli, chief strategy officer of Fiksu, Boston.

“Subcategories tend to produce higher-value users than overall listings, and it’s more affordable to generate the paid downloads needed to climb up the ranks of a subcategory than a major category or the top 25 overall,” he said.

Mobile rankings
Both Apple and Google claim to have roughly 900,000 apps in the App Store and Google Play, making it more challenging for brands to make a dent in app stores when launching an app nowadays.

Driving downloads

Focusing on subcategories or categories helps marketers get in front of consumers who have shown an interest in one particular category and therefore might be more willing to download a mobile app.

Additionally, subcategories make it easier for marketers to tailor their app marketing initiatives because there is a smaller, more targeted goal.

Marketers looking to get the most bang for their buck should not only look at how to stand out in subcategories, but should also understand how to focus their App Store marketing around downloads, ratings and rank.

Google Play

Using these three guidelines can help brands improve organic app store downloads, which can be more valuable than racking up downloads from paid marketing campaigns via real-time bidding, ad networks or social media, per Mr. Palli.

Similarly, the ideal app store ranking is not necessarily the highest ranking. Instead, it is one that returns the optimal ratio of organic downloads to marketing dollars spent to maintain a specific rank.

The upcoming changes from Apple include tracking additional user behavior encompassing app launches with the newest edition of its operating system. This will impact how consumers discover new apps.

In particular, it has the possibility of shaking up the top-of-the-charts apps.

Keeping it fresh
New findings from Appnation last week revealed that consumers value another consumer’s opinion more than a brand’s marketing efforts when it comes to picking an app from the app store.

For example, reviews and download rank were rated as more important in driving an app download than seeing an app in the new and noteworthy section.

Even further down the list of download triggers are screenshots and videos that explain an app.

Therefore, marketers should leverage in-app messaging and social media to drive consumers to app stores to trigger ratings.

“App publishers need to leverage data they have about end-user behavior to understand who is most likely to give them a high rating and then message them to encourage them to visit the App Store and leave a rating,” said Raj Aggarwal, CEO of Localytics, Boston.

Another way that brands can leverage the app store is by frequently rolling out both major and small app updates.

For example, Rovio continuously rolls out new versions of its Angry Birds franchise games, which keeps the company at the top of the App Store.

However, marketers also need to focus on creating more sustainable marketing strategies via the App Store versus solely focusing on amassing app downloads.

“Marketers need to spend a proportionate amount of their time and effort not only on acquisition, but also on engaging existing users to drive customer happiness and, therefore, higher app ratings, which will ultimately drive stronger organic acquisition,” Mr. Aggarwal said.

Gaining scale
According to Todd Fitzgerald, vice president of sales at San Francisco-based Flurry, Gilt, Hotels.com and Bank of America are all examples of brands that have leveraged the app stores successfully for downloads.

This is because the companies have focused on scaling up their efforts to drive big numbers of app downloads but are also targeting their efforts to particular groups of consumers that are likely interested in the apps.

Similarly, being able to track and attribute downloads is important for brands to understand the lifetime value of their app users.

One of the newer ways that brands are doing is this is through in-app video ads that give consumers a sneak peek on what to expect when they download an app.

“One of the products that has rapid growth is video,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.

“The ability to show a consumer a video of your app typically delivers a much more qualified user than a standard banner creative or a text line,” he said.

Final Take

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Have you noticed how the conversation regarding HTML5 for game development has evolved over the past several months? The format discussion is still present, but we are seeing more and more developers starting to invest in the HTML5 browser-based platform because of consumer behavior. It’s no longer a [...]]]> By Peter Driessen – venturebeat.com

Have you noticed how the conversation regarding HTML5 for game development has evolved over the past several months? The format discussion is still present, but we are seeing more and more developers starting to invest in the HTML5 browser-based platform because of consumer behavior. It’s no longer a possibility but an inevitability.

With HTML5, not only can game developers create one game that works across devices, but more and more they’ll reap greater revenues from advertisers. There is a new explosion of casual game play among consumers on both mobile devices and PCs. Advertisers are recognizing the trend and turning their eyes toward HTML5.

The ad industry is still learning

Not all advertisers are quite set up for HTML5 yet, but the industry is working toward it; and they’ll get there soon–especially with the IAB’s guidelines for advertisers around the world. The organization’s press release on May 6, 2013 said, “While HTML5 ad units are intended to perform seamlessly across platforms, their development requires a distinct skill set and therefore specialized guidance.”

Clearly the IAB recognizes the trend and is working toward helping advertisers make the transition with publishers. When advertisers seek out games or game publishers to partner with, the words “mobile,” “cross-platform,” “online,” and “touch” are on their radar. Barely any Request for Proposals (RFPs) to a publisher from an advertiser lack any of these hot buttons.

Mark Trefgarne, CEO of online video ad company LiveRail, said that while much of the video ad business is still heavily reliant on Flash, the simple fact is the rest of the world has moved on. As an industry, we’ve been playing catch up, rebuilding the ad delivery ecosystem to run in the post-flash world. Luckily, this change is moving fast, and the infrastructure for HTML5 based video advertising is now close to full parity. There’s still some work to be done, but it’s getting close.

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Marketers not using search engine optimization best practices in mobile could see a dramatic decrease in traffic to their Web sites from smartphones thanks to changes Google is making in how it ranks mobile search results.

Google is taking a stronger position on mobile SEO, saying last [...]]]> By Chantal Tode – mobilemarketer.com

Marketers not using search engine optimization best practices in mobile could see a dramatic decrease in traffic to their Web sites from smartphones thanks to changes Google is making in how it ranks mobile search results.

Google is taking a stronger position on mobile SEO, saying last week that it will begin demoting sites in mobile search results if they are not mobile friendly or are misconfigured. This means that if marketers do not follow Google’s guidelines, they could see their mobile search rankings drop.

“This move highlights both the growing importance of smartphone users to Google and the difficulty Google is experiencing providing ideal search results to those users,” said Jon Maxson, senior director of SEO at iCrossing, New York.

“There are still a lot of small and large brands that either fail to provide a smartphone-optimized experience or have implemented quick solutions that don’t meet Google’s aspirations for an ideal mobile experience,” he said.

“We don’t expect misconfigured sites to drop out of Google’s index entirely, but even dropping a few positions on the first page of results can result in a heavy traffic loss since so few organic listings are visible before the user has to scroll down the page.”

Good or bad move?
The move will be good for Google if brands follow Google’s guidelines for mobile development and optimization so that users are still able to find quality sites in search results.

However, many marketers may find themselves challenged to implement these guidelines as they are wide-ranging and will come with associated costs, time and upkeep.

As a result, mobile users could be impacted if they are not seeing relevant content because it does not meet the guidelines.

“The potential of this move could be both good and bad; on one hand, this may push webmasters forward to adopt mobile best practices more quickly,” said Michael Cipielewski, SEO specialist at iProspect, Boston.

“What is more likely is that Google could potentially be demoting highly relevant sites on the basis that they cannot prepare quickly enough for an algorithm update of this magnitude,” he said.

Future of search
While many marketers have already come out with mobile sites in recognition of how mobile search is growing, this does not mean a site is free of issues that could affect its search visibility.

The problems with mobile search identified by Google extend beyond simply not having a mobile optimized site. Google will be rewarding Web masters who provide a strong smartphone search experience and do not deliver error pages, long load times or irrelevant redirects.

With the new mobile search rankings strategy, Google is raising the bar and encouraging marketers to ensure their sites are as mobile friendly as possible based on Google’s guidelines or have their rankings be impacted. The goal is to help mobile users find what they are looking for as quickly as possible.

“The future of search is in mobile experiences and interactions,” said Antonio Esposito, global SEO specialist at iProspect. “It is the strongest growing market with the highest future potential and it has yet to mature.

“Since Google provides so much traffic to sites they have found themselves in a position to dictate site design best practices,” he said.

“Google is taking this seriously and they are enforcing best practices that not only help their engines crawl your site, but make sure that search users arrive on useful and relevant content.”

Positive experiences
Marketers who adopt Google’s guidelines could see significant advantages beyond just better search placements.

Implementing Google’s recommendation could help brands drive smartphone visitors to highly relevant content experiences, reduce bounce rate and increase site conversions.

In a blog post announcing the changes, Google highlighted two of the most common mistakes that marketers make in mobile SEO.

One of these is having faulty redirects, which happens when smartphone users are redirected from a desktop page to an irrelevant page on the smartphone optimized Web site.

For example, when all pages of a marketer’s desktop site redirect smartphone users to the home page of the smartphone optimized site, users often see irrelevant content as a result.

To avoid the problem, Google recommends marketers redirect smartphones users from a desktop page to its equivalent smartphone optimized page. If there is not an equivalent, it is better to show the desktop content than to redirect users to an irrelevant page, per Google.

“Optimizing sites for smartphones does not only mean building a separate mobile site or responsive design site,” said Aarin Murray, account specialist at iProspect. “It could also mean configuring desktop sites to offer a positive mobile user experience.

“Google’s post is about fixing common mistakes on mobile sites, not rebuilding new ones,” she said. “It would first be wise to review the common configuration mistakes to make sure they do not apply to the site.

“From there, marketers can assess how a website could be altered to provide a better user experience. If it’s a website with a lot of content per page, it may be best to move to a separate m-dot site or responsive design site.”

Search shifts towards mobile
In another example, Google highlights several scenarios under which smartphone users see error messages and how to avoid this. For example, if a user is visiting a desktop page from a mobile device and the equivalent smartphone-friendly page is at a different URL, marketers should redirect users to the other URL and not serve an error page.

Google recommends that marketers test their sites on as many different mobile devices and operating systems as possible to avoid these common smartphone Web site misconfigurations and help ensure that users have a good experience.

“It could be argued that they should have known this was coming, given that mobile is looking to take over desktop search sometime in the near future,” iProspect’s Mr. Cipielewski said.

“Regardless of what webmasters should have been doing, it’s clear that the users are driving Google to respond with this new algorithm; soon we can say the market has shifted from a desktop market to a mobile market.”

Final Take

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Most people may not yet be using smartphones to pay for goods when they are out shopping, but that doesn’t mean that they are not glued to their handsets anyway. Some research out today from Google indicates that among smartphone owners, some 79% can [...]]]> By Ingrid Lunden - techcrunch.com

Most people may not yet be using smartphones to pay for goods when they are out shopping, but that doesn’t mean that they are not glued to their handsets anyway. Some research out today from Google indicates that among smartphone owners, some 79% can be classified as “mobile shoppers,” using their devices for some aspect of the shopping experience, from finding store locations through to finding goods. On top of that, among those who use smartphones for any kind of shopping or browsing, some 84% do so in physical stores. And when it comes to investing in experiences that consumers like, retailers should stick to mobile web sites: 65% of consumers prefer these to apps.

This means that while we are still slowly inching towards for one of the holy grails of mobile commerce — using devices for actual transactions at the point of sale — there are still plenty of retail opportunities to snag people along the way.

“Some stores promote their expanded inventory online or implement a price match guarantee to retain savings-hungry shoppers. Others are putting smartphones to use with QR codes that share more information about products, or apps with store maps and real-time inventory,” writes Adam Grunewald, Mobile Marketing Manager for Google, in a blog post. “Whatever tactics marketers choose, it’s clear that smartphones are changing the in-store experience, and that winning the key decision moments at the physical shelves mean owning the digital shelves too.”

And while Google didn’t spell this out, this research also speaks to how Google appears to be spending less time these days pushing its own mobile wallet solutions, and more time presenting itself as an enabler of more holistic mobile shopping experiences.

Working with retail research group M.A.R.C. Research, the Google Shopper Council surveyed some 1,500 consumers who indicated that they use their smartphones for some form of shopping activity. Apart from finding that the vast majority of them use the devices in stores, they found the average time spent on shopping-related activities devices was around 15 minutes. Within that, the most popular service was not so much shopping, as it was shopping around: some 53% of respondents said that they used their devices for price comparison searches. The second-most popular service was closely related: it was looking for offers and promotions (39%). After that it was store practicalities — finding store locations (36%) and opening hours (35%).

Google and M.A.R.C. also looked into how users were using handsets in the lead up to going to stores. As you would expect, some of those practicalities around store logistics are more popular at that time. (These results also closely mirror some of the predictions that Google made about how mobile shopping was likely to play out in the months ahead.)

In reality, retailers potentially are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to mobile commerce. Short of them gaining the expertise and making the investment to capitalize on this themselves, there are a number of third parties tackling the opportunity of targeting shoppers who use mobile devices, and capitalizing on it. Startups like Shopkick, which in January of this year told me it was already profitable, has built a business partnering with major retailers like Best Buy and Target to offer users deals on goods while they are in store, with the offers pushed to them just as they are in the vicinity of the products. Shopkick says that usage of its app contributed to some $200 million in sales in 2012.

On the other hand, there are others that are actually seizing the opportunity afforded by smartphone usage to offer users cheaper alternatives that can be found via e-commerce channels. When Amazon launched its price check app in 2011 — a way for shoppers to quickly look up items just before buying them in store to see if they can find cheaper alternatives online (and on Amazon) — Forbes noted that it “may be evil, but it’s the future.”

The Google research seems to indicate that there is a clear opportunity to target avid smartphone users, as well as to encourage people to use their smartphones more: in general people using their mobile devices for shopping turn out to be bigger shoppers in general, with those buying health and beauty products increasing their median “basket size” the most, by some 50%. (Incidentally, Google doesn’t give any breakdowns between how males and females fare in these categories.)

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Tablets are poised to bring in substantial revenue in the next few years as consumers increasingly become more comfortable paying for content, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

Juniper’s “Mobile Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategy & Forecasts 2013-2017” report looks [...]]]> By Lauren Johnson – mobilemarketer.com

Tablets are poised to bring in substantial revenue in the next few years as consumers increasingly become more comfortable paying for content, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

Juniper’s “Mobile Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategy & Forecasts 2013-2017” report looks at which types of content consumers will be comfortable buying via their smartphones and tablets. Additionally, the report looks at how carrier billing will impact mobile monetization.

“What’s particularly interesting is the way in which advertising has now become a fully-fledged content monetization model on the mobile – witness Facebook’s success in the space since it introduced advertising on mobile devices around a year ago,” said Dr. Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, Hampshire, England. “In that time it has generated around $850 million from mobile advertising – that’s an astonishing achievement.

“At the present time, smartphones outnumber tablets by approximately six to one, but within five years the ratio will be less than to three-and-a-half to one,” he said.

“At the same time, consumers are finding that tablets are far better for, say, watching – rather than snacking on – streamed video content. Hence, subscription and ad hoc revenues for video will be particularly strong here.”

Mobile revenue
Mobile content is expected to bring in $40 billion this year with the remaining $25 billion accumulating over the next three years, according to Juniper’s report.

In particular, revenue from games, videos and ebooks will all grow significantly as consumers become more comfortable buying digital content.

All three of these types of content point to increased tablet ownership as well as consumers using their tablets for longer periods of time.

In fact, 65 percent of handsets in the United States were used to access mobile entertainment services in 2012, according to the report. Forty-seven percent of handsets in Western Europe were used for the same reason.

Additionally, 75 percent of mobile devices in the U.S. and 65 percent of handsets in Western Europe accessed the Internet in 2012.

EBooks are the biggest form of revenue on tablet revenue currently, according to the report.

Gaming and video is also increasingly moving towards tablets and smartphones as consumers shift away from portable gaming devices.

Fifty percent of all mobile revenue currently comes from video and music, according to the report. This shows how the majority of mobile content is still being driven by small, incremental purchases such as a paid app or a music track.

Additionally, the growth of social and gaming is contributing to significant post-download monetization opportunities, such as in-app payments for game currency.

Fragmentation and visibility will remain a challenge for marketers with the increased mobile usage, according to the report.

Mobile payments
The report points to an opportunity with content monetization through carriers.

Revenue from direct carriers exceeded $2.3 billion in 2012 and will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 41.4 percent over the next three years.

Revenue from direct carriers will total $13.1 billion by 2016, according to the report.

The report then splits up the expected direct carrier revenue into eight key markets, with Western Europe as the No. 1 area where revenue will come from.

The Far East and China and the rest of the Asia Pacific region will also contribute to large portions of revenue from carriers.

While credit and debit cards will remain the primary billing system for over-the-top services, storefronts such as Google Play and BlackBerry’s App World are turning to carrier-based billing to drive revenue.

Operator billing also presents a few new opportunities for monetization.

For example, the payment method helps storefronts enable payment across a wide and diverse user base.

Additionally, direct billing can be helpful for developers and marketers to reach younger demographics that have lower credit card ownership.

Direct carrier billing is also effective at triggering spontaneous, quick purchases.

“Storefronts such as Nokia and BlackBerry have seen a huge increase in conversion rates when carrier billing is introduced,” Dr. Holden said.

“It means that the consumer doesn’t have to register a credit card, making it ideal for impulse purchases, while also allowing the unbanked demographics to purchase content,” he said.

Final Take

Trade organization the Mobile Marketing Association has commissioned a new study that projects the mobile marketing to add $400 billion in incremental output and nearly a million jobs to the U.S. economy by 2015.

While the findings are meant to induce marketers to spend more [...]]]> By: John McDermott – adage.com

Trade organization the Mobile Marketing Association has commissioned a new study that projects the mobile marketing to add $400 billion in incremental output and nearly a million jobs to the U.S. economy by 2015.

While the findings are meant to induce marketers to spend more on mobile, the study is also part of the MMA’s lobbying effort to illustrate the job creation prospects of mobile marketing and in turn, head off potential regulation.

“Asking a bunch of people who are unfamiliar with mobile marketing to set up digital policy might inhibit innovation,” MMA CEO Greg Stuart said. “Let’s not stifle job growth.”

Conducted by consulting firm mLightenment, the study predicts the number of mobile marketing jobs to increase from 524,000 in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2015. Mobile marketing spending is also predicted to increase, jumping from $6.7 billion in 2012 to a nearly $20 billion in 2015 for a compound annual growth rate of 52%.

The study projects sales via mobile devices will increase from $139 billion in 2012 to more than $400 billion in 2015.

While the overall spending and sales growth rates are predicted to correlate, the study also found that the return on mobile advertising spending will decrease slightly through 2015 as the smartphone market diversifies. The ratio of sales to spend will drop from $20.77 per dollar spend on marketing in 2012 to $20.25 in 2014.

To date, the smartphone market has skewed toward young, high-income consumers. As lower-income consumers become smartphone users for the first time, returns are likely to experience a small drop, the study predicted.

The findings that returns will decrease seemingly contradicts the study’s findings that mobile “defies the law of diminishing returns.” Per the report, the industries that spent the most on mobile also experienced the highest return from the channel.

“Historically, spending in all other mediums eventually flattens out and declines. We don’t see that curve in the data that we have,” Joe Plummer, professor of marketing at the Columbia University School of Business and one of the lead researchers in the study, said. “We looked at the sales of high-end and low-end spenders in mobile, and while the correlation is not 1.0, it was in a positive direction.”

Mr. Plummer said the study drew upon federal agency research, academic journals and primary research such as interviews and surveys. You can find the study in its entirety below.

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As marketers continue to hunt for ways to make mobile more contextually-relevant, the growth of voice recognition points to significant opportunities for marketers to tailor experiences at a more granular level.

Publishers, financial institutions and travel companies are all verticals that have recently leveraged [...]]]> By Lauren Johnson – mobilemarketer.com

As marketers continue to hunt for ways to make mobile more contextually-relevant, the growth of voice recognition points to significant opportunities for marketers to tailor experiences at a more granular level.

Publishers, financial institutions and travel companies are all verticals that have recently leveraged voice recognition to create personalized mobile applications. Additionally, voice recognition presents marketers with a way to break up advertising with unique mobile-only elements.

“For mobile advertising in general, it is unclear how well it is working,” said Peter Mahoney, chief marketing officer at Nuance, Burlington, MA.

“People are taking creative from other formats and shrunken it down – as a result, consumers haven’t interacted to the level that advertisers had hoped for,” he said.

“By giving people a way to have a dialogue, it is an actual way to interact with an ad in a format that is somewhat challenging on a smaller screen.”

Building a two-way conversation
One of the reasons that voice recognition is beginning to play a more prominent role in marketing is because marketers are increasingly getting a better understanding of consumers through data.

Per Mr. Mahoney, voice recognition requires that marketers not only have a significant amount of data about their consumers, but also that consumers have a strong understanding of the brand.

Voice recognition also has particularly strong implications for direct response advertisers to cut down on the number of steps required for a consumer to take.

Take an entertainment company, for example. Instead of directing consumers to a mobile landing page to buy tickets to a movie, a marketer could use voice recognition to let consumers directly buy a movie ticket from an ad.

Nuance recently rolled out a new voice-activated mobile ad format for marketers to create a two-way conversation with consumers. Nuance has partnered with agencies and ad companies including Digitas, Jumptap, Millennial Media and OMD to help bring advertisers on board with the technology.

A demo of Nuance’s voice-activated ad

“What these voices ads allow you to do is dynamically drive a personalized conversation and the ability to gather more data,” Mr. Mahoney said.

“You can calculate gender and say that it’s a man or woman to personalize the ad towards,” he said.

“You need to ensure that you have segmented your audience – you need to define offers and messages that are relevant to those segments.”

Lead by example
There have been a few interesting recent uses of voice recognition from financial institutions and publishers that are all geared at creating more personalized mobile content.

For instance, Hearst Corp.’s Esquire launched an app that solely relies on voice-recognition to help users find the right piece of style, fashion and drink content (see story).

The Talk to Esquire iPad app

Financial institutions and insurance companies that depend on users filling in multiple fields of information to access their accounts or file claims also have a big opportunity with voice recognition to streamline the mobile experience for consumers.

ING Direct Canada, for example, is experimenting with voice recognition in its apps so consumers can speak into their devices to complete banking transactions (see story).

Both of these examples point to voice recognition as being used as a part of more contextually-relevant messages, which is key according to Ron Croen, CEO/founder of Volio, San Francisco.

“In terms of technology, marketing through such experiences is not just about voice recognition – the transcription of words or the listening – but also about language understanding – what the user means or the understanding and about the response to what is heard and understood,” Mr. Croen said.

“When combined with an image of a real person, the interaction is more human and realistic. Users respond to such applications with more interest, cooperation and openness,” he said.

“As a result, in the future it will be used in applications for information sharing and gathering, customer service, product information, education, advice and coaching.”

Mobile challenges
Personalized, contextual experiences are the end goal for marketers nowadays.

However, few marketers are leveraging the core built-in capabilities of mobile devices such as voice to do this, especially on mobile sites.

A new report from Monetate and Econsultancy found that only 14 percent of marketers are personalizing their tablet sites, and 13 percent of marketers are doing the same with their mobile sites.

To compare, 43 percent of companies offer personalized experiences for desktop users.

Despite the lack in executions, 94 percent of companies surveyed in the report agreed that personalization is critical to current and future successes.

Part of the reason that marketers are wary about investing more heavily in digital with personalization comes from brands not getting significant ROI from Web, per the report.

“Consumers expect a consistent experience from a brand across all touch points, such as tablet, smartphone, in-store and desktop, although different devices serve different purposes,” said Marifran Manzo-Ritchie, spokeswoman for Monetate, Conshohocken, PA.

“When it comes to smartphones, consumers look for in-the-moment content that responds to their current situation,” she said.

“Mobile marketers that don’t tailor Web experiences for smartphones and tablets run the risk of alienating or losing customers.”

Final Take

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Gartner Research is reporting mobile CRM apps will grow 500 percent by 2014, another sign of a shifting market that has more to do with work getting done in the cloud more so than from a server behind the firewall.

This is buttressed by Gartner’s news that SaaS providers [...]]]> Alex Williams – http://techcrunch.com

Gartner Research is reporting mobile CRM apps will grow 500 percent by 2014, another sign of a shifting market that has more to do with work getting done in the cloud more so than from a server behind the firewall.

This is buttressed by Gartner’s news that SaaS providers will represent more than 50 percent of profits in the CRM market by 2016 and the steep decline in PC shipments that Gartner  reported yesterday.

Gartner reports there are 200 apps now in app stores. By 2014, there will be 1,200. Mobile apps will come in a variety of flavors, attacking specific aspects of the CRM experience. Gartner, citing a CIO survey of more than 2,000 people, predicts that vendors will need to build mobile apps around their specific strengths.

Gartner also reported that Salesforce.com remains the No. 1 CRM vendor with 26 percent growth and $2.5 billion in revenue last year. In contrast, Gartner states SAP grew 0.1 percent year-on-year and totaled $2.3 billion in CRM revenue.

That is a huge difference but reflects why consulting companies like Deloitte are focusing more on Salesforce for CRM integrations. The money is in hooking up SaaS environments to old-school legacy systems.

The rise of mobile apps comes with a decline in PC shipments. According to Gartner, “worldwide PC shipments totaled 79.2 million units in the first quarter of 2013, an 11.2. percent decline from the first quarter of 2012. Global PC shipments went below 80 million units for the first time since the second quarter of 2009. All regions showed a decrease in shipments, with the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region showing the steepest decline.”

Mobile’s rise also reflects the growing momentum for SaaS.

In 2012, almost 39 percent of the CRM software market revenue was delivered by SaaS. Gartner forecasts the market to increase 42 percent by the end of 2013. During 2016, more than 50 percent of the CRM software revenue will be delivered by SaaS.

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The overwhelming majority of retailers surveyed by mobile experience management platform Artisan say they expect mobile commerce to grow at a faster pace in their organisation than online commerce once did.

Of 200 retail executives working in the mobile marketing and mobile commerce areas of their [...]]]>

By Steve Smith – mediapost.com

The overwhelming majority of retailers surveyed by mobile experience management platform Artisan say they expect mobile commerce to grow at a faster pace in their organisation than online commerce once did.

Of 200 retail executives working in the mobile marketing and mobile commerce areas of their company, 84% said they anticipate the growth curve of mobile commerce to outpace the historic growth of e-commerce. More than half — 56% — say they were are investing more this year in mobile development and mobile marketing than they did in 2012. And a strong majority — 71% — say their native mobile app development will be the strongest touchpoint for engaging consumers in the next one to three years.

There is an ongoing debate, of course, among mobile marketers and retailers over where to focus efforts — the mobile Web or native apps. Mobile Web sites traditionally have been especially strong in acquiring new customers, because they are discoverable via search engines, and end-users themselves tend to look for brands by typing in the brand as a dot-com address in a mobile browser. Native apps, on the other hand, have proven to be much stickier than mobile Web sites, engage the loyal user more deeply, and offer a more seamless path to conversion and the sale.

Among the 200 retailers surveyed here, 72% agreed that investing in their mobile app experience would be among the top three priorities this year. Artisan, of course, is a company that develops a platform for mobile apps, and so the research is focused on this aspect of mobile marketing.

In their plans for managing and developing native apps, 67% of retailers said they would like to further personalize the experience, while 60% said they would like more capabilities for collecting user analytics.

Most mobile users prefer using apps over mobile sites for speed, convenience and ease of use. Specifically, 85% of smartphone and tablet users globally favored apps over mobile sites, according to more than 3,500 smartphone and tablet users globally.

That Compuware finding underscores the enduring consumer [...]]]> By Mark Walsh – mediapost.com

Most mobile users prefer using apps over mobile sites for speed, convenience and ease of use. Specifically, 85% of smartphone and tablet users globally favored apps over mobile sites, according to more than 3,500 smartphone and tablet users globally.

That Compuware finding underscores the enduring consumer embrace of apps, despite long-standing predictions that they will give way to an ascendant mobile Web. People are spending nearly two hours a day with apps — almost twice the amount of time compared to two years ago, according to app analytics and ad firm Flurry.

The mobile Web for most has not transformed into the fast, reliable experience promised by the emergence of technologies from 4G networks to HTML5. “That’s predicated a lot on the spread of HTML5 development, and responsive design elements, and those aren’t evolving perhaps as fast as people expected,” said Stephen Pierzchala, technology strategist at Compuware’s APM Center of Excellence.

As an example, he pointed to Facebook abandoning an HTML5 version of its mobile app in favor of building better-performing native apps for platforms like iOS and Android. That helps explain why global revenue from app stores is expected to climb 62% this year to $25 million.

But that doesn’t mean people don’t have issues with apps. Almost two-thirds reported a crash, freeze or error using an app, while 47% have experienced slow launch times, and 40% have tried an app that failed to open altogether. Most people (79%) will try a problematic app only once or twice after it failed to work the first time, according to the study.

The vast majority of users (78%) also expect apps to launch as fast or faster than the mobile version of a Web site — within two seconds. If not happy with the performance of an app, almost half (48%) would be less likely to use it again.

When it comes to choosing an app, the study showed that ratings are highly influential. Some 84% said user ratings posted by users in app stores were important in their decisions. “It takes a long time perhaps to overcome a serious influx of poor comments about a bad version. Even after the new version comes out, it may take a bit longer for people to trust that app,” noted Pierzchala.

In sum, the Compuware report advised that app developers focus on providing a core utility rather than “stunning visuals” to offer customers long-term value. Its survey covered mobile users in five countries — the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, India and Japan. Men made up 60% of respondents, and women, 40%. The largest segment (41%) had incomes between $50,000 and $90,000.