Choosing the Right DMP – Part Three of Three

Yesterday’s post focused on analyzing and actioning data and audiences. Today we’ll discuss the need for available analytics and account service, and finish with some conclusions.

SERVICE

1. Does the platform offer custom analytics services to support my internal marketing and analytics teams?

It’s probably no secret to you or your organization that experienced big data analysts and statisticians are in short supply these days. As more and more companies have embraced the importance of data-driven marketing, the demand for data experts has increased far more quickly than the supply. It is very valuable to have a data management partner with experienced staff to help make up for any resource shortfalls you may have as an organization.

2. Does the provider offer enterprise-grade service and support during both implementation and on an ongoing basis?

Your DMP should empower you and your team, and having smart and knowledgeable platform experts available to assist you is important. You’ll need a strong implementation team, excellent training resources, thorough documentation, and ongoing enterprise-grade account management support to get the most from your platform. Ask for specifics here, so there are no surprises after you sign the contract.

CONCLUSION

Choosing a DMP is a decision of profound importance – one that requires that we take a methodical and informed approach. We hope that is short list of questions helps make your process simpler and more effective.

As with many things in life, the key to taking the right action is not in having the answers so much as it is in asking the right questions. While it makes sense for you to have tech experts involved in your decision-making, thoughtful queries from strategic marketing generalists can also play a valuable role in driving the best choice.

Thanks for reading.

To Read Post One, Click Here

To Read Post Two, Click Here

Choosing the Right DMP – Part Two of Three

In yesterday’s post we provided some topics and questions to help you consider DMP alternatives as regards their ability to collect and organize first party data. In today’s post, we’ll provide some questions and ideas on how to evaluate alternatives based upon their abilities to analyze and action data, customer profiles and audiences.

ANALYZE

1. Does the platform allow for data to be transformed and exported to external platforms, including as audiences?

Data is as data does, meaning that your objective in having a DMP isn’t just collecting and organizing information but actually putting it to good use. The DMP you choose should make it easy to analyze your data, create cohorts and audiences, and make them available to your other platforms and partners for use in improving your marketing effectiveness. Most DMPs do fine on this score, but make sure and ask. Audiences are also valuable inputs for lookalike modeling, a tactic that media companies use to find more people “like” your best responders.

2. What kinds of packaged/out-of-the box analytics does the platform offer? Will technical experts be able to explain how they chose the methods of analysis, and why they’re appropriate? Does the platform enable custom analytics so that additional types of analysis beyond the out-of-the-box methods can be quickly and efficiently conducted?

The power of a DMP is in doing more than creating audiences, although that is a very important task. If you think about a DMP as a living organism for a moment, imagine that audience export is like a reflex action. Absolutely critical to survive and thrive. It is analogous to the question – what happens when I do X. But strategic marketing leaders are at least as interested in the whys as they are in the “whats.” For what reasons do these sorts of customers act in these ways? What are the drivers of my business? Are there ways to innovate to power even more rapid growth? Many DMPs have built-in reports and analyses, which can be useful in getting value from your platform quickly, but it’s important to understand the basis of these analyses – is the methodology sound?

ACTION

1. Can the platform automate the process of connecting audiences and profiles to my marketing platforms and partners of choice, or does it require manual integrations?

Most marketers have (or have heard) tales of platform integration challenges. A recent survey of leading retailers showed that they were working with an average of 27 platforms and media partners, which perhaps explains why integration is both important and challenging. Your DMP should simplify this process, with pre-developed integrations that your brand can literally plug into.

2. Can the platform ingest actions and export data in real-time to drive individualized marketing experiences?

The best DMPs combine an ability to deliver data to other platforms periodically (in batches) or in real-time. Real-time data sharing is increasingly valued by marketers because it enables a brand to capitalize on perfect moments of opportunity. Brands can take action immediately when consumers take “trigger” actions. Perhaps the easiest to understand example here is the cart abandon. If a customer uses your app or estore and places items in a cart, and then fails to make a purchase, real-time data sharing would enable you to use marketing automation to send a push notification or email to incent the customer to finish their transaction. Studies show that the sooner after an abandon that you can reach the customer, the more likely they are to take the desired action.

TOMORROW – GETTING THE CUSTOMER SERVICE LEVEL YOU NEED, AND SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS

Choosing the Right DMP – Part One of Three

So you’ve decided you need a DMP. Congratulations on making a really smart decision – to put data and customers at the center of your strategy and programs! Now the key challenge is to choose the right platform for your business. You have a number of choices in DMPs – each with its own unique sets of strengths and features. As with all platform decisions, making the right choice will have a big effect on the amount of value you ultimately derive from a DMP.

Because a DMP is a complex piece of technology, it can feel daunting for a marketer to thoughtfully evaluate alternatives. That’s why we’ve created these posts – to help strategic marketing generalists understand some key things they should look for as they weigh their alternatives. In essence, to help you have the right questions so you get the answers you need.

The discussion questions in this document fall into five broad categories, each one of the core capabilities for a robust DMP. Each capability area contains just two questions to help you focus on the most important discussions with your potential partner:

• COLLECT: Data collection and ingestion
• ORGANIZE: Data management and profile development
• ANALYZE: Ability to examine, transform and export insights and audiences
• ACTION: How the platform integrates with your preferred set of partners and platforms
• SERVICE: Critical component of any enterprise technology offering

The balance of these posts will review the questions and the rationale for each.

THE QUESTIONS

COLLECT

1. Can the platform collect or ingest ALL of the first party data types you wish to unite, including mobile app, mobile web, PC web, website interactions, estore activity and purchases, and email CRM interactions?

Your DMP is supposed to be the source of record for all of your data and customer intelligence. That means it needs to be able to collect or ingest all key first party data sets, including mobile app, mobile web, pc web, CRM interactions, site analytics, estore data and any other key data sets you might have. Most DMPs find mobile app data very hard to collect, process and associate with anonymized customer profiles. And given that mobile apps represent more than half of connected customer time, that’s a big issue.

2. Can the DMP work with all of the data collection partners you currently use, including your web analytics solution, ad server, email solution provider, estore platform, and mobile app attribution platform?

Your data platform should conform to you and your brand, not the other way around. Make sure that your DMP can ingest data from all of your preferred partners, so you keep implementation as simple as is practicable.

ORGANIZE

1. How does the offering unify and standardize all of the disparate datasets into anonymized profiles? What partner are they leveraging for device matching, and how accurate is the matching?

Perhaps the most critical task of a DMP is creating 360 profiles that encompass data from all sources. It’s important to ask questions about how each vendor does that. There are two big things to consider here – their adherence to digital privacy principles and practices, and the methodology with which they connect cookie data to other types of data. It probably makes sense to involve a tech expert in this part of the evaluation. There are a variety of companies in the business of device mapping today, and they vary with regard to the scale of matches they can provide, coupled with the accuracy of those matches. Ask about both. Make sure you are satisfied with the quality of their answers. And if you already have a partner of choice in this area, ask if they will work with them.

2. Can it offer additional contextual or 3rd party data as an enhancement to the first-party data that you bring to the platform?

First party data can help you understand customers and predict their needs better than any other type of data, but it can also be very beneficial to enhance your customer profiles with third party data including demographics, lifestyle and life stage, psychographics, and more. A good DMP will have preexisting relationships with leading third party data companies to make the process of enhancing your profiles in this manner easier.

TOMORROW’S POST: ANALYZE AND ACTION

Mobile: $1Trillion in Retail Purchase Influence, Says Deloitte Digital

Most of us are aware that digital’s influence on offline retail purchases is strong, and getting stronger. How strong? Well, a study entitled Navigating the New Digital Divide, from Deloitte Digital, puts it well into the 11 digit range.

According to the report, all of digital influenced more than $1.7Trillion in retail sales in 2014, with mobile influencing a strong majority of that total, at $970Million.

The report points out that digital’s influence varies by category, with industries like electronics having the highest influence exerted by mobile and digital, and food coming in at the low end. The study also offers this thought-provoking grid on the many ways digital and mobile devices are used within the retail buying process.

Studies like this are important because they provide quantitative data – hard figures that underscore the need to take mobile seriously as a sales and influence channel. And that underscores the need to ensure that we understand the actions that people take with their phones and the signals that those actions can give us. There’s lots more info available in the report, which you can download here. A related study, entitled The Dawn of Mobile Influence, is available here.

So What’s a Mobile DMP? We’re Glad You Asked

It’s Time to Think Mobile-First

The terms “mobile DMP” and “mobile-first DMP” are being used in digital with increasing frequency. This trend reflects the growing importance of mobile in many brands’ customer contact plans, as well as increasing marketer awareness of the need for capturing and leveraging mobile data. There are a range of definitions for these terms being used by various solutions providers in the industry, which can make it confusing to understand what these terms SHOULD mean.

At Apsalar, we use a strict definition that reflects:

• Mobile time now represents some 60% of total connected time in the US (and more in other countries) and that apps now represent 52% of total connected time (both comScore.)
• All of mobile behavior must be reflected in customer profiles, including both mobile app and mobile web activity.
• Brands need an omni-channel approach to data management to capture the richest possible customer view.

In our view, a mobile DMP uses mobile behavior data as the foundation for omni-channel customer profiles. Mobile data is combined with data from other marketing channels in order to create a 360 customer view. The DMP then enables both the analysis of those profiles for insights and the grouping of profiles into high performing audiences that be exported to all of a brand’s digital marketing partners and platforms. Let’s organize all that into three core capability “buckets” and discuss each one.

Collect and Measure

Many companies have effective ways of collecting all major forms of first party data, EXCEPT mobile. That’s because collecting and measuring mobile actions is harder than gathering information from many other consumer touchpoints, given that cookies are problematic in mobile environments.

Years ago, omitting mobile from your data and modeling wasn’t a huge issue because only a small portion of consumer connected time took place on a phone. But now, mobile represents the majority of customer time. Yet for most brands, collection of mobile data is in its infancy. Some brands have a means of collecting at least some activity from the mobile web, but very few have visibility into all of their mobile web and in-app customer behavior.

A mobile DMP should have the capability of collecting and/or ingesting all forms of mobile customer behavior data. This includes both mobile web and mobile app data. Most mobile data collection is done via attribution platforms purpose built for that task, like Apsalar Attribution. Apsalar Attribution is part of the Apsalar Mobile DMP.

Unite and Manage

Since a DMP is to be the source of record for ALL forms of first party data, it must ingest and organize data from all channels, including mobile web, CRM, website visitation, estore and more. From that list, you can see that mobile data is a necessary component of a true DMP, but it is by no means sufficient.

Once all of the data is ingested, it must be cleaned and united into individual customer profiles that represent the total behaviors of one anonymized individual. Mobile data is actually an ideal foundation for multi-channel or omni-channel profiles because:

• Mobile activity represents more than half of connected time, as we mentioned earlier
• Mobile data is usually associated to a device ID, which is a far more permanent anchor than transitory third party cookies
• Mobile devices tend to stay with their users throughout the day, which makes it easier to reliably link all of someone’s devices to their anonymized profile

A mobile DMP should also enable you to easily enhance your profiles with third party data. Then it must enable analysis of customer behavior, as well as the creation of audiences for future marketing.

Export and Optimize

Insights and audiences from a DMP are only valuable if they can be actioned. A mobile DMP should make it easier to export audiences and data to your choice of platforms and partners. Exported information helps optimize and focus marketing efforts on key tasks that have been shown to be of value in the DMP. In addition, the DMP should offer two-way sharing with all of your marketing platforms so you can drive ongoing improvement in your marketing effectiveness.

Conclusion

Ultimately a mobile DMP must perform the same functions as any DMP. Thus a mobile DMP is by no means for mobile data only. Instead it ensures complete mobile information is the foundation of an omni-channel customer and business view. If you’d like more information on why mobile matters so much for brands today, click here to download our whitepaper.

mCommerce Conversion Rates Catching up to PC eCommerce

There’s some really interesting data available today in an article on eMarketer entitled Smartphones Are Closing the Retail Ecommerce Device Gap. The data compare the conversion rates on different devices for digital commerce. From the piece:

Smartphones have the lowest conversion rate of any device—at 1.0% in Q1, it was just half the rate on tablets and even lower compared to desktop or laptop PCs. But it has also more than doubled since the same period the previous year, even as PC conversion rates fell and tablet rates climbed by just 18.1%.

That indicates a growing comfort level with transacting via phone, which could relate to waning concerns about data safety as well as improved check out experiences. Average revenue per visit also increased in a big way between 2014 and 2015, up even faster than mcommerce transaction rate increases. AOV gaps are also closing, albeit more slowly.

It’s clear that mcommerce is growing even more quickly in the US than many expected, which underscores the need to reliable and accurate mobile behavior data collection, as well as customer profiles that are just as well informed on mobile-based transactions as PC-based transactions. If your business relies on digital transactions, its clear that you need to close the mobile data gap – a data “hole” that afflicts virtually every major brand.

As Retailers Embrace Programmatic, Harnessing ALL First Party Data Grows Even More Important

An interesting article on eMarketer today outlines how retailers are increasing their investments in programmatic media as a means of connecting with individuals with consistent messaging across channels. The data come from a study by WBR Digital and MediaMath, and reveal among many other things that more than two thirds of retailers who had tried programmatic would increase their programmatic spend this year.

Success in programmatic is all about precise and accurate targeting. It follows that more and more relevant data improve precision and accuracy. Which is why we believe it is so important to unite ALL your data from across channels and devices into rich profiles. And further, that analytics are best conducted with a complete cross-channel data set as well. The post goes on to outline how rare it is that companies have a unified analytics view. From the article:

However, while retailers using programmatic were seeing its value in everything from brand awareness to ROI, multichannel campaign analytics had some way to go. Just 8% managed such metrics on a single platform and had great visibility into performance.

Further, the article’s conclusion makes the situation even clearer:

While programmatic marketing is useful for retailers throughout the purchase funnel, those that lack a single analytics strategy will struggle to tie together customer data from various channels, limiting their ability to act on insights from multichannel programmatic efforts. 
More arguments in support of the idea that united data and analytics are fast becoming table stakes in consumer marketing. If you’d like more information on the challenges and Apsalar’s approach to solving them, download our free whitepaper.

Planning for Today – and Tomorrow – in Your Customer Data Strategy

The pace of change in digital marketing is staggering. Which gives marketers a serious challenge in that they must create programs and identify platforms that will work today while also paving the way to capitalize on the future consumer media environment. How people will connect tomorrow.

Some changes and time horizons in digital are very hard to predict. Ask an industry pundit to describe the consumer media world five years from now, and you’d probably get some statement to the effect that five years is simply too long for such an exercise because so many digital fundamentals will likely be disrupted during that period.

But just because you can’t predict EVERYTHING about the future, doesn’t mean you can’t feel very secure predicting SOME THINGS. The rapid and continued ascendance of mobile as our primary means of connecting seems a very safe bet. In markets like the BRICs where there were relatively low rates of PC ownership in the past, mobile absolutely dominates. And in markets like the US, Japan and EU where PCs have a strong presence, we’re seeing mobile’s share of total connected time rise every month. Not, interestingly enough, because PC is losing minutes of connected time, but rather because we use phones to be connected for so much more time than we were before.

If you agree that mobile is and will likely become even more the dominant means of consumer connection, then it follows that your customer data strategy should be mobile first. Understanding consumer actions in mobile environments – and particularly in apps – is as critical thing a brand can do to capture and interpret the signals consumers send us about what they want. This is important to accept because collecting data from in-app actions is very different from using third party cookies as in the PC web.

If you don’t have a data management infrastructure yet, make sure you’re thinking mobile first as you plan. And if you do, ask some questions about how your current toolset is capturing and action mobile data – in particular mobile app behavioral data.

Learn more about the importance of mobile app data and how to make it a part of your customer DMP and modeling by downloading our new whitepaper, “Is Half of Your Data Missing?”

mCommerce in the Mall

There’s an interesting piece this week from Mobile Marketing Daily about how mobile apps are figuring into the new in-person shopping experience in malls. We all know that mobile devices have become a keystone of many American consumers’ shopping strategies – and indeed became so long before retailers were taking aggressive steps to capitalize on this activity. In the early days, many brick and mortar stores feared the rise of showrooming and in-aisle comparison shopping. But things have changed on that score and one of the keys to making in-store mobile activity work FOR your business is leveraging your data advantage.

Many research studies show that the majority of customers are using their phones while in stores — at least some of the time. But it’s not just for price comparisons. They are seeking advice, visiting a retailer’s site for more info, taking selfies to get opinions on a new outfit, keeping track of their kids as they wander, or getting the best deals via iBeacon-triggered coupons. Wi-Fi is increasingly expected inside stores.

Today’s retail customers are constantly connected and that has made them savvier about price comparison and information gathering. They’ve also completely reset expectations for engagement with, or about, a brand. Radical shifts in consumer behavior are shaking up the industry in profound ways. Far from creating only problems, however, these new customer dynamics are creating more opportunities for savvy retailers to drive connection and sales.

When a retailer understands its customers, it has many means to compete for a sale. While price shopping is certainly more prevalent these days that in decades past, we know that “fit” with a customer can often trump rock bottom pricing. When a retailer can provide the information that the consumer seeks, and present them with a solution for their specific needs, they not only create an opportunity for a sale – they also help cement a bond that can contribute to a profitable long-term relationship with a customer.

Ultimately, what makes all this possible is data – mobile app and mobile web data that reveals preferences and intent. When a company takes a holistic approach to data by combining mobile data with PC web, site visitation, CRM and other types of first party data, they can capitalize on opportunities – in the aisle and everywhere else, around the clock.

What’s unfortunate is that most companies – even those that consider themselves very progressive with regard to data-driven marketing — don’t yet have the means to understand customer behavior in apps. Which is sad because they could easily remedy the problem.

Missing in-app customer signals might not sound like a huge deal until you realize that according to comScore 52% of connected customer time takes place. You hear that and all of a sudden the need for understanding in-app behavior becomes quite clear.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can start collecting mobile data and uniting it with all of your other first party customer information, and then leveraging that for real competitive advantage, please get in touch.

In addition, we have a whitepaper on the subject available now for free download. Click here to get it.

After all, what better way is there to live the adage, “the customer is always right” than to understand and act upon all the signals they are sending you and your team.

It’s YOUR Mobile Data! How to Take Control of It and Put it to Work ~ Part 2

We’ve discussed the issues. These are challenges facing many companies active in the mobile space but whom have not yet taken control of their mobile data, specifically their mobile app data. Now let’s take a few moments to discuss Apsalar’s approach to the challenge.

Apsalar Mobile DMP is a flexible set of data management offerings enabling direct marketer brands to enrich their customer profiles and audience targeting with insights from user behavior in mobile apps and across other marketing channels. Richer profiles and insights in turn contribute to increased ROI.

The Apsalar Mobile DMP has been productized into three interlocking solution sets, making it easier for clients to begin the process of understanding all of their customer behaviors while shaping the integration to fill their most pressing needs.

• Apsalar Attribution: Purpose built for the tracking and measurement needs of mcommerce, Apsalar Attribution measures customer behavior and mobile marketing performance in apps and on the mobile web.

• Apsalar Audiences: Apsalar Audiences unites your mobile and cross-channel data and makes it actionable by managing customer profiles, enriching them with third party data and creating high performing audiences for future marketing programs.

• Apsalar DataSync: Apsalar DataSync streamlines the process of safely sharing customer insights and audiences with a brand’s marketing partners and platforms. Clients define business rules for data sharing right from the Apsalar platform. The company has a large and growing number of pre-existing integrations with marketing analytics, app monitoring, marketing automation, tag management and PC web DMPs.

Apsalar Mobile DMP was designed to be flexible – to be deployed in multiple ways so it can supplement any of the highly variant data infrastructures present at different companies. Clients can deploy all three elements at once, or engage sequentially based upon their needs and legacy data infrastructures. In addition, clients can choose to use the Apsalar platform to analyze their data and create audiences, or receive a feed of customer data or profiles that can be analyzed and interpreted in the platform of their choice.

CONCLUSION

If you’ve already made a commitment to data-driven customer marketing, you know how important it is to understand what people are doing in digital channels. Website browsing, PC third party cookie data and CRM interactions, for example, reveal important insights into what a consumer is likely to want and do next. But without access to in-app customer data, you’re really missing out on so many of the signals that should be powering your marketing.

GET MORE INFORMATION

For more information about Apsalar and how we can help you fill the in-app gap in your data collection strategy and profiles, visit our website atwww.apsalar.com or contact us

It’s YOUR Mobile Data! How to Take Control of It and Put it to Work ~ Part 1

The essence of good marketing is being customer-focused. Our field is all about understanding consumer needs and aligning products and communications to reflect and address them.

Today, many companies are working hard to collect and unite their customer behavioral data across channels into rich individual profiles – profiles that reveal insights into what people want. The “Data Management Platform” category has been created to provide platforms that can bring together information and make it actionable in future marketing programs.

First party data – whether collected on the PC web or on mobile devices in apps – is an incredibly valuable asset. Yet most brands squander it by not working to collect and control it themselves. Leaving others to do so – and garner the benefits.  While many brands aren’t working to control their data at all, a growing number have begun the process of asserting their ownership rights over PC data. But far, far fewer are doing so with mobile app data.

Years ago, US marketers might reasonably postpone addressing this challenge because in-app time represented only a small proportion of total connected consumer time. But time spent in apps has grown rapidly and now represents 52% of connected Americans’ time, according to comScore.

Pause for just a moment to consider that statistic. It means that without visibility into what your customers do in apps, you are blind to a majority – A MAJORITY – of their digital behavior.

In the US, mobile mcommerce is expected to represent about 10% of total ecommerce sales in 2014. While that might not sound like a huge number, a 2014 comScore study also reported that mcommerce is growing almost twice as fast as ecommerce as a whole, and 23 times as fast as all retail sales.

In addition, mobile INFLUENCES far more purchases than those that are made via a phone. According to a 2013 study from Google and IPSOS, two thirds of us begin purchase considerations on one device and complete purchases on another. Mobile accounts for the vast majority of those starts. In total, Deloitte estimates that more than $593B in purchases were influenced by mobile searches and utilities in 2013. Making reasonable growth assumptions, that figure now likely exceeds $1Trillion.

Net, if you aren’t collecting in-app behavior data and including it in your customer profiles, you’ll likely fall short of making your marketing customer-focused and –driven.

Another way this affects a brand is that most interest-based (behavioral or BT) and retargeting is based upon the amount of content a person consumes related to a particular topic. If more than half of a person’s connected time takes place in app environments, it’s clear that you need access to information about what you customers do during that time in order to truly understand and reflect consumer behavior in your marketing.

By saying that, we are not implying that PC web data isn’t important as well. Actually, collecting all of it – taking control of all of your data across devices – is essential to driving the best ROI for your marketing efforts.

But if apps account for more than half of connected time, doesn’t it make sense to START there?

TOMORROW: HOW YOU CAN TAKE CONTROL AND GET BETTER RESULTS

Forrester: mCommerce to Reach 10% of Total eCommerce in the US This Year

Over at MediaPost today, there’s a nice rundown of a new Forrester report outlining ecommerce and mcommerce trends in the US. According to the article, about $34B in mcommerce sales are expected this year. The article also identifies some interesting trend info about ecommerce in general. Purchasing via digital channels, for example, has reached 69% adult penetration, an impressive figure to be sure.

There’s also a healthy reminder in the piece – that online and mobile sales are by no means the total story with regard to purchase INFLUENCE. The article states that more than a trillion dollars in sales are influenced by online and mobile research.

One thing that US marketers should consider – given the far higher percent of connected time via mobile in the developing world, countries like India, China and Brazil are good places to look if you are trying to predict what will be true in the US in a short while. Overseas we see more and more big companies abandoning PC-web stores to focus on their apps only. Of course, most US sellers wouldn’t do that given current mcommerce development here. But it provides some great fodder for the need for great commerce apps along with a rich understanding of customer actions taken in the app.

It also points to the elephant in the living room with regard to data collection and customer profiles – far too many companies are profiling their customers without collecting and incorporating mobile app behavior data in their mix. With research demonstrating that more than half of US connected time takes place in apps, omitting in-app behavioral data from your customer insights and targeting models is short-sighted.

Android Dominates in Smartphones and Tablets in LATAM

For some time Android has been the dominant operating system in Latin America for smartphones, likely in part because of the lower price points for some Android phones. But eMarketer reports that a study from IMS and comScore shows similar Android dominance in tablets throughout the region.

The study, which encompassed six different markets in the region, showed Android tablet market share ranging from 59% in Mexico to 74% in Argentina, with a regional average of 68%.

According to the article, experts predict Android share will increase in Mexico in the coming months because “the country’s education bureau, Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP), set out to distribute 700,000 Android tablets to students and teachers in five states and the Federal District (Mexico City). The decision not only impacts immediate market shares but may also contribute to long term platform growth by giving users experience with Android tablets first.

Get all the data and analysis here.

Millennials Relying on Phones for Auto Shopping

From Edmunds.com comes this fascinating infographic about how Millennials use their phones for shopping. A little factoid to whet your appetite:

• 80% of Millennials use their phones for an auto shopping task
• Just 46% of older people do

There’s lots of other data which we encourage you to check out. This is yet another sign of the increasing centrality of the smartphone in its users’ lives. While Millennials tend to adopt mobile behaviors earlier than older audience groups, if past patterns hold it won’t be long before pretty much everyone uses their phone as a critical auto selection and buying tool.

As auto makers continue to beef up their mobile offerings, it seems clear that understanding user behavior in those apps will be an absolutely critical element of deciphering (and influencing) the customer journey.

eMarketer’s Mobile Content and Activities Roundup Now Available

Periodically the eMarketer team publishes a “roundup” document summarizing a great deal of research on a particular topic, and this US mobile roundup is a great example.

Inside this great publication, which is presented by HP, you’ll find tons and tons of data relating to mobile usage, favored content types, app statistics, and more. Two of the most eye-popping stats are that by 2019 mobile ad spending will constitute 78% of total digital spend, and that in-app ad spending will run 160% higher than mobile web ad spend in 2015.

Another interesting section relates to the number of app buyers versus installers on both tablet and smartphone.

The data show a greater willingness to BUY apps among tablet users.

Docs like this are a great way to evangelize for mobile within your organization. Get this report free by clicking here (reg required.)

In-Store Mobile Shopping Data

We’ve all seen it and done it. Using our mobile phones at retail to compare models, prices, get product ratings, and the like. Over at Mobile Marketing Daily, this Shop Talk piece reviews a host of mobile in-store shopping metrics.

Here’s a tease to whet your appetite:

Of those who use their phones in a store, here’s what they do:

• 61% — Compare prices
• 52% — Maintain shopping lists
• 49% — Take/share product photos

Lots more thought provoking stats about in-store mobile shopping – all from a study by InReality.

Who’s Using App Data to Power All of Their Marketing?

Most of us know that time in apps now represents more than 50% of US connected time, and the figures for countries like India, Brazil and Japan are much higher. Given the high levels of marketer interest in powering marketing and customer experience with a 360 view of the customer, you’d think that many companies would be including app data in their DMPs and models.

The latest data from eMarketer show that while a small number are, most aren’t. According to the study, which was fielded by Econsultancy, just 9% view their app data collection capabilities as strong, while 68% say their capabilities are weak or nonexistent. In fact, the study showed that only small number of marketers rated ANY of their data collection capabilities as strong. From the eMarketer article:

In addition, Econsultancy’s polling demonstrates another angle from which data-related efforts could improve. When client-side marketers worldwide were asked to rate their capabilities in various data-related areas as “strong,” “average” or “weak,” no activity rated a “strong” from more than 18% of respondents. And the strongest areas both involved collecting data from online sources. When it came to integrating, modeling or otherwise using data, respondents were even more likely to say they were merely average—or worse.

There’s lots more interesting info in the piece. Find it here.

The landscape of mobile app attribution and measurement is changing rapidly as more mcommerce players enter the field. Once the near-exclusive province of gaming companies, mobile apps and event measurement have become mission-critical for businesses like retailers, etailers, travel, personal finance and on-demand services providers. Apsalar has been at the forefront of mcommerce data management and attribution since the space emerged. Every day our clients demonstrate that mobile app data can be an incredibly powerful ROI driver. Find out how to collect and measure your mobile app customer activity and put it to work powering 360 customer profiles and optimized marketing efforts.  To learn more about our offerings, visit this page or contact us now.

Generations and Mobile

Everybody loves an infographic…and Adweek published an interesting one this week, using data from a recent Millward Brown Digital survey of more than 1,000 consumers in three generations (Millennials, born after 1980; Generation X, born 1965-1980; and Boomers, born from 1946-1964.) The focus of the research was to understand device penetration and usage for the three groups. Not surprisingly, the data show higher mobile device penetration among younger demos than among Boomers, though you might be surprised at the small size of the gaps. The infographic is here and the full Millward Brown Digital study from which the data were taken is here.

There’s some similar data available over on MarketingCharts.com – related specifically to device access among teens. The chart, which highlights data from a recent Pew Research Center Internet and American Life Project study, shows that more than 7 out of 10 teens have access to a smartphone, and almost 60% have access to a tablet. The chart is here, and the Pew study from which the data are taken is here.

Mobile and Mobile App Research from Criteo and Millennia

We want to direct your attention to a couple of extensive pieces of research and analysis that you may find interesting.

Millennial Media: State of the Apps 2015 Snapshot

The data from this study are from a Q4 2014 survey of app developers and publishers. Millennial states that their findings revolve around four core ideas or conclusions. Specifically, publishers and developers are:

• Taking their apps to more than one platform with increasing frequency
• Making their growing ad inventory available programmatically
• Focusing attention on improving the discoverability and marketing of apps
• Spending more time developing tablet-specific apps

In addition to these observations, you can get good data about the state of the developer and publisher communities. Check it out here.

Criteo: State of Mobile Commerce – Q1 2015
Criteo has examined transaction data covering approximately $160 billion of annual sales across 3,000 online retailers and travel advertisers to uncover the latest trends in mobile shopping in the US and globally. This presentation provides some fascinating conclusions including:

• US Mobile transactions grew 10% in the last 3 months and will represent a third of total ecommerce by the end of 2015
• In most countries smartphones now represent more mobile transactions than tablets
•  Japan and South Korea now see over 50% of their eCommerce transactions via mobile
• Consumers in the US view the same number of products on smartphones and desktop

Great data for those interested in demonstrating the fast growth of mcommerce to their teams/orgs. Dig into this presentation here.