The path to purchase: marketers are still insecure about mobile

The fact that marketers lack confidence and remain insecure about mobile was, perhaps, the rather surprising over-arching finding from our joint study with the Mobile Marketing Association of how 300 senior marketers feel towards mobile advertising. It will certainly provide encouragement for those who thought they were struggling alone.

I think it represents a perfect illustration of the confusion that still exists about the role of data in marketing. The industry talks incessantly about the flood of new data being produced and this is certainly the case with mobile, as people do more things on them, but the simple truth is most marketers simply aren’t confident of exploiting it adequately. For instance, although the vast majority of marketers in our study (80%) agreed the rise of mobile has significantly increased the amount of data and signals at their disposal:

• 66% admitted they’re not confident they’ve identified the most critical signals in their customers’ journey
• 61% aren’t still fully confident in their ability to find new profitable customers
• 58% are not fully confident in their re-engagement efforts to prevent customer churn
• More than 50% aren’t confident in their ability to acquire new customers and re-engage lost ones.

So, what do marketers see as the biggest challenges and most valuable signals when it comes to data?

The biggest challenges in harnessing data
One needs to look at this through two different lenses – branding and driving sales. In terms of using data to improve branding, marketers cite “knowing where consumers are on their journey” as their biggest challenge (cited by 38%).

For driving sales, it’s “knowing what the most important customer interaction points are” (also 38%).

O2, for example, are masters in harnessing data. Through their sponsorship of the England Rugby team they’ve becoming leading experts in understanding data around the sport’s biggest annual tournament, The 6 Nations. They’ve millions of people using their apps so tracking downloads, engagement and post-install activity in their apps is vital. They gather all this in-app engagement data in one place so it can be applied programmatically in real-time to campaigns.

From an app-tracking point of view, they’ve tied everything up under one platform to give a deeper understanding of how rugby fans, or consumers in general, engage with their marketing activity and what leads them to start downloading their apps.

Like O2, other brands should be capturing app interactions to use as a foundation for audience intelligence across other marketing activities, including user acquisition and re-engagement. In other words, capturing in-app user engagement data means you can identify and target high-value consumers both within apps and beyond. It’s particularly powerful when combined with cross-device ad platforms so campaigns can work as hard as possible across many screens.

The most valuable signals

Again, this will differ depending on whether your mobile campaign goal is branding or direct response.

Marketers cite content sharing from apps, mobile site visits and app installs as the most valuable signals for improving mobile branding. For mobile direct response, it’s purchase data, geo-location and bookmarked content.

Fast-food restaurant KFC provides a great example of using geo-location data to reach their audience at the right place and the right time with the right message to drive awareness and visits to KFC stores. They did this by targeting people who were located near competitor stores and serving them tailored ads which included the distance from their current location to the nearest KFC store. The campaign drove over 18,000 more visits to KFC stores during the campaign, with the ‘proximity’ ads having the highest click-through rates for banner ads.

A leading barbecue brand also successfully trialled geo-fenced ad messages near to retail outlets to drive footfall and sales. Location data was combined with data on users who’d shared or engaged with content relating to BBQ, food or culinary content. This mobile-only campaign was so successful that the brand sold out of charcoal BBQ briquettes.

Travel operator Thomson took location data one step further by factoring in the weather. Partnering with the Weather Channel app, users in places with bad weather were served branded backgrounds featuring that bad weather – snow, rain, cold, etc – which slowly transformed into an image of a sunny exotic location. The idea being to give people the perfect cue to start thinking about booking their summer holiday through Thomson.

Mobile and weather was a similar theme harnessed by ITV to increase awareness and engagement around their TV drama ‘The Durrells’. The campaign also served creative based on the user’s current weather. However, what really proved effective was that people could use their finger to swipe away the drizzle effect on the mobile screen. Overall, the engagement rate was 142% higher than industry benchmarks.

Obviously, driving purchases on mobile has, historically, been a challenge compared to desktop, so brands that want to increase mobile transactions should focus on the in-app experience – from having a simple UI, easy-to-access content and sharing features, and an easy way to buy.

Diamond jeweller De Beers did this to great effect by enhancing the in-store experience via apps to generate sales. The app gave an ordinary customer the ability to view each diamond through the eyes of an expert using the De Beers ‘Iris’ to showcase the life and brilliance of each diamond. Customers could create a shortlist of their favourite styles, share designs with others and reserve their final selection – all through the in-store app which was integrated with De Beers’ backend system. The app paid for itself in just two weeks and generated 300% ROI in the first five weeks post-launch, before being rolled out across seven currencies and five languages.

Insecure about mobile? Focus on three takeaways:

So, according to what our research showed that marketers see as the biggest challenges and the most valuable signals around mobile, they need to focus on three key areas:

• Identifying the right consumer signals of interest
• Building accurate predictions 
• Then activating these to increase ROI

Based on the level of understanding at the moment and the complexity of data and its sources, it’s very unlikely this expertise will be available in-house, so it’s important you focus on finding the right partners who can help you get all the mobile plumbing in place to connect the dots and help you exploit mobile to its full potential.

 Read also:

Understanding the customer experience journey internally

Five tips for making a mobile app for your business