Smartphone adoption rates are ever increasing, and this Christmas more shopping is forecast to happen on mobile devices than ever before. With this in mind, it’s important to recognise that more than three times as many sales are being made via smartphones than was previously thought. We carried out research looking into smartphone shopping and found an interesting discrepancy.
Most brands only track sales conversions when they take place within the smartphone browser. In reality, many consumers research brands on a mobile device but then pick up the phone, call and then purchase.
Our data shows that on average 0.4% of smartphone browsing results in a transaction. But when you include transactions made via a phone call, this figure jumps to 1.3% - over three times higher. The graphic below shows how conversion rates on other devices are similarly impacted by adding in phone sales.
The data is significant as advertisers typically allocate online marketing spend to different devices based on the proportion of sales that can be attributed to them, suggesting that, until now, advertisers have been under-spending on mobile marketing. The graphic below shows how the mix of total sales across devices is impacted by adding in phone sales.
Sales made after a smartphone user has opted to call a business are typically not tracked as it has previously been difficult to attribute a phone-based sale. Today it is possible to display a unique phone number to every individual person who visits a website on their smartphone. This means that when a customer makes a call it can be matched back to their smartphone web session, connecting up the on and offline journey.
Our research shows how important it is to track and analyse your telephone calls to fully understand how customers are researching and purchasing your products. Only then can you ensure you are optimising your marketing spend. We know that customers often want to speak to a real person before a purchase, but it's now clear that this is particularly the case when someone is checking you out on a smartphone. It also shows far more shoppers begin their purchase journey on a smartphone than previously thought. It follows that investing a higher proportion of marketing spend to attract their attention at that point will make sense for many brands.
By Mark Emmett, CIO at ResponseTap.
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