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.

Brazil Mobile Ad Spending Continues to Climb Rapidly

Brazil is one of the fastest growing mobile and digital markets in the world, and this new article from eMarketer provides some great metrics to prove it.

From the article:

Brazil will boast the third-fastest-growing mobile internet ad market in the world this year, behind only Argentina and Indonesia and tied with India and Russia.

Data predict 120% growth in mobile spend this year, and 15% for digital overall.

The article also provides some interesting insights about why they expect continued fast growth from the market. Have a look by clicking here.

eMarketer’s Retail Lessons from Holiday Season 2014

A big portion of Apsalar’s business is in supporting companies active in mcommerce – specifically in the retail, etail, travel and personal finance verticals. So we are always watching for new reports about the macro state of the mcommerce industry.

There’s a strong presentation available on the eMarketer site that outlines key trends in retail, ecommerce and mcommerce for the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s 2014. A couple of highlights:

• eMarketer says that a whopping 19% of US ecommerce sales in the season came via smartphones
• There were more than 150M US mobile shoppers this season
• Researchers observed a strong correlation between phone screen size and the rate of mobile shopping, with the growth of phablets contributing to the strong mcommerce results for the period
• Responsive web design for retail sites also appears to be a significant contributor
• Retail apps have gotten better and adoption has increased

The key force slowing mcommerce growth? According to consumers, it’s the need for easier checkout.

There are lots of other interesting insights for the US retail arena in the presentation. Take a moment to check out the study here.

Welcome Raj Kandasamy & Jim Nichols to the Apsalar Management Team

Apsalar's delighted to announce the appointment of Raj Kandasamy as VP of Engineering and Jim Nichols as VP of Marketing. In their new roles, Kandasamy will be responsible for all aspects of engineering and the company’s development team, while Nichols will be responsible for all aspects of brand development and marketing for us.

Since exiting the media business in January 2014, Apsalar has made tremendous progress as a marketing technology company and has seen great success in the marketplace helping companies measure their mobile marketing effectiveness. As Apsalar continues its growth streak, it’s time for us to accelerate that growth by bringing to our management team these two highly experienced individuals.

About Raj

Raj Kandasamy brings outstanding experience in big data engineering, real-time insights and marketing technology development to our company. Raj focuses on building technology solutions that meet today’s business targets, while also anticipating challenges of SaaS platforms.

Most recently, he was VP of Engineering and Data for OpenX, a leading digital, and mobile advertising technology company. Before OpenX, he was Director of Engineering for the Aggregate Knowledge media intelligence and data management platform, now part of Neustar. At Aggregate Knowledge, he took their big data analytics platform to serving billions of requests a month, all while keeping uptime intact. He began his successful career with Intuit and Netscape. Raj holds a BS in Computer Science from the Thiagarajar College of Engineering.

About Jim

Jim Nichols brings more than 20 years of B2B and B2C marketing experience to Apsalar. His career spans advertising, CPG and software brand management, and marketing leadership for many digital media, adtech and martech businesses.

Most recently he was VP of Marketing for Conversant, where he led the rebrand of that company from ValueClick, Inc. and its six associated businesses to a single brand and company focused on personalized marketing. The success of that rebrand contributed to the $2.3B sale of Conversant to Alliance Data (NYSE: ADS) in December, 2014. Before Conversant he led the strategy practice for Catalyst:SF, where he developed positionings and go-to-market plans for more than 40 adtech, digital media and social start-ups and established players. He began his career in brand management and agency roles for leading global holding company agencies and manufacturers.

Jim holds a BA in US History from University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in Marketing from University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Learn more about the Apsalar management team here.

Location Based Mobile: Location Location Location! What Makes Sense for Real Estate May NOT Be the Magic Bean for Mobile Advertising

Today on Chief Marketer, Conversant Mobile GM Kurt Hawks provided an important reminder that consumer insight and not location should be at the center of your mobile strategy. My favorite lines from the piece say it all:

A consumer’s purchase history and interests are the best predictors of future shopping behavior, not their location alone. Think about it. A vegan is probably not the best target for a butcher shop no matter how close that person is to the meat-slicer. Purchase and interest data give advertisers the critical insights necessary to use location data intelligently. So they can find the committed carnivores in the appropriate proximity around the store instead of the herbivores leaning against the window.

In digital we have a tendency to seek simple answers to complex questions. As Kurt notes, location can be a valuable component of a larger targeting strategy focused on genuine consumer insight.

Check out the post here.