LocalMobileSearch

The Sexy-Shocking Number from Nielsen's Mobile Path to Purchase Study

Earlier today xAd put out its quarterly insights report. There were a number of interesting findings and datapoints. The "headline" was that the number of national-advertiser campaigns using more precise geotargeting (more specific than DMA, city or ZIP) had more than doubled over the course of the past 12 months. 

In a very general way this mirrors the movement of the market and the growing sophistication and use of location targeting by marketers. 

There was also a nice case study involving Pinkberry's introduction of a new line of greek yogurt. Pinkberry's objective was to build awareness and drive visits to local stores. It used xAd enhanced geofencing to target users and show ads within 1 mile of store locations. The were a couple of discounts and incentives (coupons) associated with the product launch. 

The display ad clicked-through to a "dynamic landing page specific to the nearest location which features these offers as well as an option to save the coupon, obtain the address, phone number, map, directions and/or more information." According to the case study materials, in two weeks the campaign goals were exceeded by 2X. 

As you can see below, the ad creative was very polished. But the success of the campaign also illustrates how effective the combination of local relevance and offers can be. Indeed, xAd's reported average campaign metrics (for both search and display) outperform the industry averages. 

More interesting than the findings in the insights report were the findings released last week in the 2013 US Mobile Path-to-Purchase study, undertaken in cooperation with Telmetrics and Nielsen, which conducted the research.

The Mobile Path to Purchase study is in its second year. The findings are based on an online survey of 2,000 US smartphone and tablet owners and “observed consumer behaviors from Nielsen’s Smartphone Analytics Panel of 6,000 Apple and Android users.”

There were a ton of data that came out of this report, and will continue to be released over time. However the single "blockbuster" finding is that across a range of purchase categories (i.e., Finance, Retail, Insurance, Convenience/Gas) 46% of survey respondents said they relied exclusively on their mobile devices (smartphones and/or tablets) in conducting pre-purchase research online. 

Accordingly, nearly half of the respondents did not use or consult PCs -- at all. I was initially shocked by this. I don't have detailed demographic information about who these people were beyond the fact that they skew younger (18 - 34). But this is a huge finding and one that should scare the stuffing out of any brand or advertiser that isn't actively pursuing a mobile marketing strategy. 

Tablets to Dominate 'PC' Sales, Low End of Market Increasingly Cluttered

According to a new forecast by NPD, tablets and touch-screen laptops (tablet-PC hybrids) will dominate the computing landscape in the coming years. More conventional PCs will be in the minority. 

Tablets are a new device category really. But let's put aside the longer debate about whether or not tablets should be considered "PCs" at all. There will be more "mobile devices" than traditional PCs (including laptops) sold in the next five years.

At best forecasts can show the direction of the market. But in this case the market's direction is clear. 

Global Mobile PC Shipments, 2012-2017

Source: NPD

Last week Acer introduced a 7-inch tablet for $169, besting the aggressive pricing of Nexus 7 and comparable Kindle Fire devices. According to one rumor the next Nexus 7 will be priced at $149. But you can already buy a 7-inch Lenovo tablet for $129 on Amazon (quality is another question). The race is on for a "decent" Android tablet starting at $99. I suspect that will come in Q4 this year or very early next.

I was recently in Best Buy and Office Depot/Max and saw the displays of tablets; there are scores of them. It will be challenging for consumers to differentiate them -- especially at the lower end of the market. There will probably be three or four broad consumer criteria for tablets: OS/brand, price, size, specs like memory or battery life. 

With the exception of Kindle, Samsung and maybe one or two others the Android tablet universe is a sea of no-name devices. Here the battle will largely be about price. Apple iPads will stand apart because of strong brand identity. However a majority consumers will be price sensitive and likely to simply go after the cheapest "decent" (Android) tablet they find. Indeed, the devices are getting so cheap they're almost disposable. 

NPD says "Windows 8 are unlikely to be a major driver of touch adoption." I agree, as presently configured, Microsoft is unlikely to sell many stand-alone tablet devices. Surface Pro tablet-PC hybrids will sell to enterprise customers but Microsoft will struggle to sell basic tablets to consumers unless it reaches that $100 threshold first.

Tablets 'Shipment' Numbers Inconsistent with Traffic Reality

I'm a big opponent of using "shipments" as an indicator of market share. It may be a directional indicator of market share in some cases. But there are times when "shipments" is simply the wrong metric. IDC's latest tablet numbers offer a case-in-point.

The firm reported the following tablet shipment figures globally for Q1: 

• Android -- 56.5%
• iOS -- 39.6%
• Windows -- 3.3%
• Windows RT -- 0.4%
• Others -- 0.2%

Basically the positions of Android and iOS tablets have reversed since last year. Shipments are put forward as a proxy for market share by IDC. However that's a dubious proposition at best. Shipments do not equal sales, let alone usage.

The following chart reflects North American tablet traffic share as of March, according to Chitika. After the iPad's 82%, Kindle Fire has a 7% share of traffic. Samsung Galaxy tablets come in at 4.3%. Needless to say these actual traffic data show a massive discrepancy vs. IDC's shipments estimates.

Below is StatCounter data from 2012 (via Royal Pingdom) -- I was unable to find more recent global traffic data. These data reflect something very consistent with the Chitika data above.

In these various geographic markets the iPad is generating around 80% or more of tablet traffic. Even if we assume iPad share has fallen by 10 points since last year, these data are still a radical departure from the IDC figures. 

Undoubtedly lower-priced tablets and the sheer proliferation of devices will necessarily diminish the iPad's "shipments share" over time. But it remains to be seen how actual usage is impacted. For the moment market share (as measured by consumer usage and traffic data) looks nothing at all like IDC's projections.

Facebook's Q1 Mobile Ad Revenues: $373.5M

Facebook announced Q1 revenues of $1.46 billion and net income of $219 million. Most usage and engagement metrics were up: daily, monthly and mobile active users. On the latter point Facebook announced 751 million mobile active users, up from 680 million in Q4 2012.

Mobile only users were 189 million vs. 157 million in Q4 2012.

Total ad revenue in Q1 for Facebook was $1.245 billion, which was 85% of total revenue. Of that $1.245 billion ad revenue, 30% was mobile. That's up from 23% in Q4. What that means, as a practical matter, is that Facebook made $373.5 million in mobile ad revenue in Q1.  

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg characterized Facebook is a “mobile-first” company and offered several examples of the company's mobile success during the earnings call. For example, she said that "3,800 mobile app developers used these ads to drive nearly 25 million downloads."

Facebook's FY 2013 global mobile ad revenues will probably land somewhere between $1.6 and $1.9 billion.  

PayPal Log-in Takes Aim at Social Log-ins, Could Be Huge for "M-Commerce"

Mobile commerce, at least on smartphones, is partly held back by the UX challenges of forms and inputting credit card digits. Amazon does well in so-called "m-commerce" in part because it has millions of user credit cards on file making the mobile check-out process nearly painless (it also has a trusted brand).

Mobile check-out is part of the larger problem of being compelled to repeatedly sign in to accounts on a mobile device. Though some sign-in credentials are remembered by mobile browsers users are constantly being asked to input usernames and passwords. It's incredibly frustrating. 

Nuance (and others) have tried to address this problem with voice authentication in lieu of manual password entry (one of the topics on the agenda at the upcoming Voice Biometrics conference in San Francisco next week). To date, however, voice authentication has seen limited adoption in mobile applications.

Separately Facebook has sought to become the universal log-in, to address the challenges of pain of creating multiple accounts and passwords -- particularly in mobile. Google is now starting to challenge Facebook in that arena, according to a recent study from Janrain. 

Many people are disinclined to use Facebook to log-in to third party websites or accounts because of privacy concerns (uncertainty over what might be communicated to their networks). Enter PayPal log-in (and its mobile express checkout solution). 

This solves a couple problems for publishers/developers and consumers. First it offers an alternative, single set of log-in credentials offering consumers more privacy than Facebook. It also offers a commerce solution that, like Amazon, avoids the "16 digit problem" of manually entering information on mobile sites. 

Amazon and Google both offer comparable and competing solutions for third party merchants. But PayPal is in a strong position to become both a single sign-on and mobile checkout leader. The eBay division needs to aggressively promote mobile express checkout to merchants and the security and privacy benefits and ease-of-use of PayPal log-in to consumers, which will be a significant marketing challenge. 

As part of that effort PayPal also needs to do something of a reintroduction of itself generally to consumers at large. Its brand needs to be "beefed up." However among "digital wallets" PayPal by far has the greatest consumer awareness, which the company can use in its argument to merchants.

Within 24 to 36 Months Mobile Internet Penetration Will Overtake the PC

The T-Mobile-MetroPCS merger is now complete. The newly combined company, which is majority (74%) owned by Germany's Deutsche Telekom, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange today under the ticker symbol TMUS. The stock was up about 6% in early trading.

Post-merger, here are the most recent subscriber counts for the four major US wireless carriers: 

• AT&T -- 105 million
• Verizon -- 99 million
• Sprint -- 54 million
• T-Mobile -- 43 million

That makes a total of 301 million accounts, not including smaller regional carriers.

There are approximately 312 million people in the US. Some percentage of the 301 million are obviously second accounts. Measurement firm comScore counts the total US wireless population at 235 million, whereas CTIA says that, as of Q2 2012, there are 321.7 million "wireless subscriber connections."

The "right" number is probably about 250 million. Smartphone penetration is 57% according to comScore and roughly 60% according to Nielsen. Accordingly the US market is closing in on 150 million smartphones. Total US internet penetration stands at 221 million according to comScore. 

Within three years (perhaps 24 months) there will be more "mobile devices" and wireless internet penetration than PC internet users. Just under 40% of total media time is now spent on mobile devices (including tablets). However current mobile ad spending is only 9% of the US digital total according to the IAB. 

Not Just 'Haters': Facebook Home Getting Mostly Negative Reviews

Facebook's "launcher" Home isn't available for any of the smartphones I own: HTC 8X, Nexus 4 and iPhone. Thus I haven't been able to "live with it."

But when I saw it unveiled several weeks ago at the Facebook Home press event I was impressed by the design. I found it very imaginative and creative. I thought also that it might represent a new way forward for some developers and publishers with smartphone software. I even suggested that Yahoo might want to emulate it.

Apparently most people who've actually used Facebook Home for any length of time don't share my enthusiasm. The app is overwhelmingly negatively reviewed on Google Play. Out of more than 14,000 ratings and reviews it gets an average score of 2.2 -- with the single largest group (7,576 users) giving it 1 star. 

This isn't merely the work of "haters" as some of the favorable reviews and comments suggest. There are significant flaws in the user experience.

While many people praised Home as a good initial release, others complained about poor performance and a negative impact on battery life. Still others complained that it made other Android apps and widgets difficult to access. And some wanted more capabilities and functionality than what Facebook is currently delivering. 

There's lots of highly specific feedback for Facebook in the comments offered. If Home is to avoid a quick death and survive the company should look closely and adopt some of the suggestions. 

Google Brings Virtual Assistant to iOS 'Now'

Whether we call Google Now "predictive search," "anticipatory search" or a "virtual assistant," the capability is highly useful and improving regularly. Previously exclusive to Android devices with OS 4.1 or higher ("Jelly Bean") Google Now is now available for the iPhone and iPad.

You'll need to download the latest version of the Google Search app to get it.

Google Now is partly Google's answer to Siri (and Passbook) and partly a wholly independent development that takes your search history, your Gmail entries, your calendar, your location and other "context" to deliver a range of personalized information without having to actively search for it.

Google Now for iOS operates in essentially the same way as it does on Android devices: users swipe up from the bottom of the screen to receive customized information cards. The cards feature weather, traffic, stock quotes, recent sports scores, local places of interest, movie showtimes and so on. Below is a complete list of the content/data available through Google Now. 

Source: Google

The cards on the chart above "missing" from iOS are newer cards that will soon come to iOS. Google confirmed this. 

Those who download and use the service will likely find themselves using it regularly (as I do). While it can sometimes be flawed or inaccurate -- if you travel a lot it will often give you information about the city you just left rather than where you are -- it offers a growing corpus of useful information. As mentioned, it continues to expand and improve. 

Google requires users to sign in to get access to Google Now, so the company will gain mobile usage data it wouldn't otherwise have in the process. It's a very effective way for Google to get iOS users re-engaged with search on their iPhones and iPads. 

A survey we conducted in June of last year (n=503 US iPhone 4S owners 18 and older) found that most people who searched Google on their iPhones didn't use the Google Search app: 

Which of the following do you use MOST OFTEN to search the web on your phone?

• I visit Google.­com to search: 44.9 percent
• I use search in the Safari toobar: 26.4 percent
• I use the Google mobile app: 19.3 percent
• I use Siri to search the web: 11.1 percent
• I use Bing and/or Yahoo: 6.6 percent

If this survey were done today we might see slighly different percentages but directionally the results would be similar. It will be interesting to see whether and how the numbers change several months from now -- and whether the introduction of Google Now for iOS has had a meaningful impact on user behavior.