Report: iPhone Traffic Still Roughly 2X the iPad in North America

Recently there have been several reports starting to show that tablet (iPad) traffic is beginning to overtake smartphone traffic. For example, a report last week from Adobe found that, on a global basis, tablet traffic now exceeds smartphone web traffic (8% to 7%).

A new report from ad network Chitika, however, says that at least in North America the iPhone still generates roughly 2X the web traffic of the iPad. The iPad dominates tablet-only traffic with more than 80% market share. 

In late February, Chitika looked at traffic distribution from "250,000+ publisher websites." The company found that "iPhone users still generate more than two times the traffic of [ ] iPad users."

The iPhone was responsible for 61.5% of North American web traffic from iOS and the iPad for just under 31%. The iPod Touch drove roughly 8% of iOS-generated web traffic according to Chitika. 

The Chitika report didn't look at engagement or time on site. The earlier Adobe report found that "on aver­age inter­net users view 70% more pages per visit when brows­ing with a tablet com­pared to a smartphone."

As tablet penetration grows, we should see its share of iOS and all web traffic commensurately grow. The interesting question is whether tablets are substituted in the home for smartphones or PCs. A recent Google-Nielsen report found that 77% of smartphone search activity happened at home or in the workplace (when people typically have ready access to PCs).

Users Prefer Apps to Mobile Sites But High Expectations Burn Developers

Many developers and digital marketers still cling to the assumption that HTML5 and the "mobile web" will eventually win out over native apps. There's a kind of logic to that position. However they may be waiting a very long time for that to happen.

As has previously been written, the overwhelming majority of consumer time spent with mobile devices is spent in apps ("4 out of every 5 mobile minutes," per comScore). And according to a new survey from Compuware the majority of international respondents (85%) preferred apps over mobile sites.

The survey had a total of just over 3,500 respondents from the US, UK, France, Germany, India and Japan.

Despite the positive news for app developers the survey also had some harsh findings. For example 59% of respondents said that an app should load in two seconds or less. In addition, poor user experiences result in app abandonment, switching to competitors' apps, negative word of mouth and erosion of brand perception -- among other negative consequences.

The most common problems encountered were freezing/crashing (62%) and slow load times (47%), as well as the more generic "didn't function as expected" (37%). A majority of users had encountered one or more of these problems in using apps. Users expect apps to load faster and perform better than mobile sites: "78% expect mobile apps to load as fast as — or faster than — a mobile website."

Nearly 80% of the survey respondents said that they would give an app one (maybe two) more chances if it didn't work correctly the first time. And app-store ratings are being taken very seriously by users: "84% users say app store ratings are important in their decisions to download and install a mobile app."

The survey report cited third-party data for the proposition that the average number of apps on users' smartphones is 41.  

US Teens Go Online 'Mostly' through Mobile Devices

The key figure from a new US "teens and technology" survey by the Pew Internet Project is this: 50% of teens who own smartphones primarily access the internet that way. According to Pew (the data are from Q3 2012) 78% of US teens overall own cell phones and nearly half (47%) of them own smartphones.

I suspect if the data were from 2013, smartphone penetration would have easily crossed 50% because of Q4 holiday gifts. Among all teens (including those who don't own a cell phone), 37% own smartphones.

Part of the reason that US teens may rely more heavily on their mobile phones (and tablets) for internet access is that some do not own PCs or share PCs with their families. Thus mobile devices are more private and personal because they're not shared. Regardless teens' orientation to the internet is more mobile than their parents'.

The survey also found that 23% of US teens owned tablets (compared with 25% of US adults).  

As these teens "grow up" it will be interesting to see if they adopt a more "balanced approach" and access the internet equally from PCs, tablets and smartphones. I suspect their bias will remain toward mobile devices, with tablets taking the place of PCs for non-smartphone access. 

An October 2012 survey (n=7,700 teens) by financial firm Piper Jaffray found that Apple held an advantage among US teens:

• 40% owned iPhones (representing a majority of smartphones)
• Next phone: 62% were going to buy an iPhone, 22% Android
• 44% reported owning tablets (72% of those were iPads) 

A Report for Those Who Doubt Mobile ROI

This morning Google released the results of an extensive study conducted among US mobile users with Nielsen in Q4 2012. The survey explores mobile search behavior in particular and uses a combination of interviews, online survey data, diaries and search query logs to get a holistic picture of search activity on smartphones. Tablets weren't part of this research. 

Among the many interesting findings there are two big ones that stand out: 77% of mobile searches happen at home or work, even when there's a PC nearby. And 55% of mobile-search related conversions (call, store visit, purchase) happen within "one hour or less" of query completion.

These two stats illustrate two larger "truths" about mobile. The first is that mobile devices are increasingly "primary" for people as a method of internet access. Speed and convenience were cited by respondents as reasons for substituting a smartphone for a PC in a search context. 

Marketers need to be cognizant of the fact that large numbers of people will be using their smartphones (and tablets) at home to search for things, whereas before they might have used a PC. At work people may be motivated by other considerations, such as privacy, to use mobile devices vs. corporate-provided PCs. 

The other "truth" is illustrated by the 55% figure: conversions often happen very quickly after a mobile search. This reinforces the notion of the focused, "need it now" mindset of many mobile search users. Mobile searchers take a variety of actions after completing their queries. They go to websites and do additional research, they make phone calls and they go into stores. They buy things. 

But marketers can't see most of that activity, hence the complaints about mobile ROI. Most marketers get confused and "lose the trail" when users go offline. You can track calls and site visits, you can capture email addresses and you can monitor e-commerce transactions via mobile. However it's challenging to get complete visibility on all the ways that mobile is influencing purchase behavior.

The slide above illustrates the range of activities mobile search triggers. But more importantly, Google and Nielsen found that 45% of mobile search queries were undertaken to help make a purchase decision -- so-called "goal oriented" searches. And most of these will result in a conversion, often offline. 

The totality of the data released in this study (download the pdf) show that mobile users are more focused and are typically farther down "in the funnel" than PC users. Mobile (search at least) is clearly driving lots of conversions. Marketers just need to open their minds about what constitutes a "conversion" and get creative about ROI and attribution. 

Otherwise, they're not seeing what's really happening with their customers and how critical a role mobile is playing in the overall marketing and sales process.

Report: Tablets Mostly Beat Smartphones for Ad (CTR) Performance

Many of the Q4 reports released by the ad networks and major agencies showed the growth of tablet-related ad spending. That's a trend that will further accelerate under Google's new "Enhanced Campaigns" regime in which tablets are grouped with PCs for paid-search advertising purposes. In other words, marketers cannot separate PC and tablet paid-search campaigns. 

Last week Adobe reported that tablets had passed smartphones for share of global traffic.  

In many ways tablets are the new PCs, taking their place for many at home use cases. Tablet owners tend to behave more like PC shoppers, including displaying a greater willingness to covert online. By contrast, smartphone owners typically don't convert on the small screen making ROI harder to track for marketers targeting those devices. 

Because online conversions are more likely and prevalent for tablet users, the "danger" is that marketers will neglect smartphones or that smartphones will be "ghettoized" and considered good for only a limited number of purposes. In fact mobile/smartphone advertising is great for both DR and branding purposes. 

Mobile DSP Adfonic now offers data that show, across most categories, tablet advertising appears to outperform smartphone ads in terms of CTRs (though ultimate influence on conversions isn't measured).

As the chart above reflects, "tablets achieve especially strong CTRs for advertisers in the Style & Fashion, Lifestyle & Health, Entertainment & Media, and Travel verticals." Smartphones are stronger in other categories such as retail and automotive. People tend to use tablets in the evenings and on the weekends. 

Over time marketers will determine which devices are better suited to which types of advertising. However companies need to have a comprehensive strategy that recognizes the "multi-screen" consumer, who will move from device to device before converting. 

Although Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 are gaining, Apple tablets continue to dominate web traffic. The following chart shows North American traffic over the past three months, comparing the top-three devices on Chitika's ad network.

Tablets Pass Smartphones In Global Website Traffic, Will Marketers Respond?

According to Adobe's marketing group tablet growth is outpacing that of smartphones. This trend also showed up in several Q4 reports from other online marketing firms such as Marin Software. 

Adobe says that on a global basis, mobile devices (smartphones + tablets) generated 15% of all internet traffic. Of that 15%, tablets edged smartphones with 8% of traffic. The company also says that tablet users spend much more time and are much more engaged than smartphone users: "on aver­age inter­net users view 70% more pages per visit when brows­ing with a tablet com­pared to a smartphone." 

Among the countries measured, the UK is seeing the highest share of internet traffic from tablets followed by the US and Canada. 

ComScore previously reported that about 36% of total US internet time is being spent on mobile devices, even though they're generating less than that in terms of overall traffic. Part of the reason for such a discrepancy may be apps, which are often not measured but where "9 out of 10" mobile minutes are spent. 

While 6 and 7-inch tablets exist somewhere between a smartphone and a full-sized tablet (i.e., iPad Classic), tablets are increasingly replacement devices for PCs. PCs still have the largest installed base and a home in the enterprise, among business users and for more selected purposes in the home. But the centrality of the PC as the gateway to the internet is over.

Using Gartner data, USAToday chronicled the decline of PC sales (which aren't coming back): 

The "problem" with tablets is that many marketers treat them like PCs (including Google AdWords) and don't give them special attention. A study released in Q4 last year found, for example, that only 7% of retailers' websites were tablet friendly.

Yet tablet-app mobile ad creative can be very effective. In general tablet ads (in apps) are much more engaging than smartphone ads right now.

As tablets continue to gain momentum as PC replacements we may see a very odd situation develop. That is: smartphones might be given perfunctory treatment as an ad platform or otherwise neglected in favor of tablets with their larger "canvas." However, as suggested, the bulk of marketers may treat tablets like PCs and not address them with specialized ad units.

Accordingly, as mobile devices take more and more consumer time and engagement "online advertising" could become considerably weaker than it is today. 

Report: National Advertisers Getting More Sophisticated about Local-Mobile Targeting

This morning mobile ad network xAd released its year in review report. The document contains a range of information and data about the company's offerings, including the performance of ad campaigns on its network. The focus of the report is on national advertisers (rather than SMBs). And it presents a picture of marketers getting a great deal more sophisticated about local ad targeting on mobile devices.

As laid out in the report, xAd is now offering a range of local targeting flavors on mobile: behavioral, place-based, POI and event targeting.

In the graphic above you can see that from Q1 to Q4 the number of national advertisers using more sophisticated forms of geotargeting increased dramatically from 27% to 81%. In other words only 13% of xAd's national advertiser campaigns in Q4 were using "standard geo," (zip, city, DMA). The remaining 81% were using one of the other more complex targeting methods (all involving location) such as behavioral.

Of the 81% using a more precise form of location targeting, here's the breakdown:

In the report xAd offers performance metrics for these approaches compared to industry averages. The company says that its targeting methods provide a substantial performance improvement over traditional (non-location targeted) mobile search and display advertising.

In particular on the display side xAd breaks down how each of its more elaborate forms of location targeting perform. Behaviorial does the best, followed by place-based targeting.

Finally the following are the top consumer search categories for all of 2012 and the top advertiser categories on the xAd network. The latter are national advertisers and don't include small businesses. There's a general alignment across both columns but it's obviously not 1:1. 

The company's advertisers tend to be more sophisticated about location and more inclined to experiment with it. It would be great if these advertisers were representative of the entire industry. However they're not. A recent CMO Council survey showed how many agencies and national advertisers still don't "get" location.

The CMO Council survey explored national advertiser "localization" tactics. The overwhelming majority of survey respondents (over 80%) didn’t make the connection between mobile and local:

Source: CMO Council/Balihoo (n=296 national marketers/agencies)

Perhaps once more national advertisers become aware of the performance lift and case studies associated with location targeting they'll wake up to its potential. In the interim those national advertisers using more sophisticated local-mobile targeting are "conquesting" their competition.

Jumptap: Samsung Will Control 60% of US Android Market This Year

New US smartphone figures came out today from comScore for January. According to the comSumer survey Android had 52.3% of the market, while Apple was at 37.8%. Those numbers represent a jump for Apple and a dip for Google since October, the comparison period. 

Apple is the top smartphone OEM in the US followed by Samsung. Their relative shares are 37.8% to 21.4%. However Samsung is the dominant Android handset OEM by far, though LG did experience an uptick because of the extremely popular Nexus 4 (the best Android handset currently on the market). 

Today also mobile ad network Jumptap released its latest MobileSTAT report for February. In that report Jumptap says that from 2011 to 2012 Samsung's share of Android handsets on its network grew from 42% to 56%. Jumptap is predicting that Samsung's share will continue to grow, perhaps beyond 60% of the US Android handset market this year. 

Weaker or fading rivals HTC, LG and Motorola will have a much smaller share: no greater than 11% in any individual case according to the Jumptap prediction. The chart below illustrates the degree of Samsung's dominance in the US smartphone market. The comScore numbers above are not quite as severe.  

Operating system share will remain relatively stable in 2013 according to Jumptap. Accordingly, Windows Phones and BlackBerry are stuck in the basement with a combined 4% share. Indeed, 2013 will be the year that Nokia needs to make a decision about whether it wants to "diversify" with Android. If these numbers hold it will be all but compelled to do so. 

Tablets will take mobile browsing share from smartphones according to another Jumptap prediction. The firm believes that tablets will grow to capture 29% of mobile traffic while smartphones will generate 70% of mobile traffic. The tablet impact on PCs is not discussed.  

According to an earlier report from comScore mobile now represents 36% of internet time vs. 67% on the PC. I believe tablets will continue to take meaningful share from PC usage even has they cannibalize some share from smartphones (chiefly in the home).  

Survey Shocker: Mobile Media Beats TV Around the Globe

Move over TV, your time at the top of the media hierarchy is coming to and end -- at least outside the US. Last week ad network InMobi released its Q4 "insights" report. The document is based on survey data drawn from more than 14,000 respondents in multiple countries around the world. However many questions don't include answers from US and UK mobile users.

The "big finding" is that around the world (US, UK excluded) time with mobile has surpassed TV. In fact time with mobile beats all other media channels. The chart below reflects aggregate findings from 12 countries, though not the US and UK. 

The survey also discovered that 62% of respondents "engage in mobile activity" during TV watching. Accordingly TV ads in general see diminished attention because of mobile (beyond ad skipping). However this also represents an opportunity for marketers to use mobile devices to measure their TV ads' effectiveness or to generate concrete actions in response to TV ads. 

Another "big" finding is that internet users are now going online through mobile devices in numbers equal to the PC internet or primarily use mobile to go online. This phenomenon is most pronounced in developing markets, as one might imagine. But it's also true in the US according to the InMobi data. 

According to the survey 38% of US respondents "mostly" use mobile to go online. This finding (and others) may well be biased because the survey respondents were found through the InMobi ad network: "Recruited via InMobi global mobile ad network between August and November 2012." This is therefore going to tend to be a more mobile-centric audience than the US internet population as a whole. 

Another interesting result, this respondent pool says that it rarely clicks ads unintentionally. In contrast to some of the estimates and data floating around in the market (e.g., 40% of mobile ad clicks are "inadvertent") only a small minority said that mobile ad clicks were mistaken more than 10% of the time.

Though these findings may not be entirely representative of internet users or perhaps even US mobile users as a whole they're still striking in multiple ways.

Back to the TV vs. mobile time spent: most marketers' ad spending and behavior fails to recognize the profound shifts in the market captured by and reflected in these data. The idea that mobile now dominates TV in terms of time spent or that mobile captures attention from TV even during TV time will be unsettling -- if not shocking -- to most brand marketers.

And most right now will have no idea what to do about it. 

Sorry PC: Tablet Buyers Want Yet More Tablets

Beyond the pure sales numbers -- tablets up, PCs flat or down -- there's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that people are substituting tablet purchases for PCs. Adding to that, mobile ad network JiWire put out a Q4 report in which it surveyed more than 5,000 mobile consumers in the US and UK on a range of topics.

Among the findings in the report was the intention of existing tablet owners to by a second or additional tablets. The survey found that almost three-fourths of the respondents (existing tablet owners) intended to purchase another tablet.

It should be pointed out that the JiWire audience is not necessarily representative of the general mobile user population. It tends to be a slightly more "early adopter" profile. However I would imagine this finding is a kind of leading indicator of broader consumer sentiment.

HP's announcement of a $169 7-inch Android tablet earlier this week (putting more price pressure on the entire segment) argues that tablets will become an affordable and mainstream PC alternative for a broad consumer population, not just "affluents." Indeed, this result above suggest that many households will have two, three and even more tablets: one for each family member. 

As I've argued before these devices (and smartphones) will be "primary," while the PC will be used for selected tasks and perhaps become a "secondary" Internet device in the home for large numbers of people. Developing markets may see even more dramatic patterns along these lines, with low-cost tablets simply taking the place of PCs in many instances. 

An interesting, related finding in the JiWire report is the hierarchy of tablet preferences. The findings below reflect the international nature of JiWire's results. The Galaxy tablets have not done as well in the US but have done relatively well in Europe. In the US or North America, Kindle Fire has been the most successful Android device, followed by the Nexus 7.

What's particularly interesting is the position of Windows Surface machines in the third slot, above Kindle Fire. This indicates there's healthy awareness and interest in the device. However, we'll have to see in several months whether this translates into actual sales.

Report: Mobile Now More than One Third of Digital Media Time

Metrics firm comScore is out with a couple of "Digital Future in Focus" reports. They collect the company's data from 2012 into a narrative about marketplace trends. In terms of mobile much of what's in there is familiar: smartphone penetration crossing 50%, tablet ownership growth, Android growth, the rise of apps and so on.

One stat, however, that caught my eye is in the graphic to the right: 37% of digital media time is now spent on smartphones and tablets. By contrast 63% is on the PC. This one data point shows how dramatic the shift to mobile/personal devices has been, in a relatively brief time frame. Most marketers have not fully caught up however.

Another interesting chart (above), previously released, is comScore's Top 25 digital properties. It shows PC vs. mobile usage (uniques) for the top sites, as well as the incremental lift provided by the mobile audience. The table also reflects substantial overlapping usage. However in selected cases (i.e., Pandora, Weather.com) there's a major boost in audience via mobile. 

In the report comScore also documents the erosion of PC usage in select "mobile centric" categories. In other words, there's a shift to mobile usage for some part of the audience: 

We have begun to see a marked shift in usage patterns on the traditional desktop-based web. While most mobile content usage remains incremental to existing web behavior, certain content categories particularly well-oriented to mobile usage have witnessed material softness in top-line usage from desktop computers. Over the past two years, categories such as Newspapers (down 5 percent), Maps (down 2 percent), Weather (down 12 percent), Directories (down 23 percent), Comparison Shopping (down 4 percent) and Instant Messengers (down 52 percent) have seen declines despite a 5-percent increase in the total U.S. internet population over that time.

Again the categories that have seen some or substantial migration to mobile: 

• Instant messengers (PC traffic is down 52% YoY)
• Directories (23%) -- this category isn't fully defined in the document
• Weather (12%)
• Newspapers (5%)
• Maps (2%)
• Comparison Shopping (4%)

Survey: Users Look to Mobile Websites for in-Store Customer Service

Earlier this week ForeSee Results, which measures online consumer satisfaction, released a new "Mobile Satisfaction Index." Based on a survey of 6,000 US adults in Q4 2012 the company sought to rank retail mobile sites and apps. Amazon was the winner, followed by Apple.  

Below is ForeSee's list of top 25 ranked retailers and e-tailers according to consumer mobile satisfaction: 

There's nothing surprising on the list above. Amazon has a great brand and has made huge investments in mobile. What's perhaps surprising is the absence of eBay from the top 25. 

ForeSee also found that 70% of survey respondents were using their mobile phones in stores during shopping. Other surveys have shown higher numbers. In addition, if smartphone users are isolated the numbers are certainly higher (above 80% or 90%). 

Regardless perhaps the most interesting survey finding is that a majority of mobile users said they accessed the retailer's website (though mostly not their apps) while in the store. 

How did you use your mobile phone while in retail stores this holiday season?

• 62% accessed the store's website on their phone (satisfaction for this group is 79)
• 37% accessed a competitor's website on their phone (77)
• 21% accessed a shopping comparison website on their phone (77)
• 20% accessed the store's mobile shopping app on their phone (79)
• 11% accessed a competitor's mobile shopping app on their phone (77)

Again: 62% accessed the store's website on their phone. People have always assumed that in-store mobile usage is about buying on Amazon or getting competitive price information. It turns out, not exactly. 

Many of these users are looking to a retailer's mobile website to perform traditional in-store sales or customer service functions. People want more information about products (e.g., reviews) and they're looking for it via the mobile web rather than trying to find a sales person or service rep in the store.

It means that retailers need to develop their mobile sites and apps with the idea that users are often in their own stores and these sites/apps are more likely to be in-store shopping aids than e-commerce sites. They need to think of the in-store experience now as multi-channel. Retailers should also aggressively be using their mobile sites to drive downloads of their apps which should offer an even better experience.

The app then becomes a mobile marketing and loyalty tool for the retailer. 

This may not sound like anything other than self-evident information or advice. But the heavy in-store context of mobile app/site usage requires a shift in retailer thinking. Rather than a parallel or independent channel retailers must consider mobile as a kind of sales assistant that can and should augment the in-store experience as much as anything else. 

Study: Low Awareness of Digital Wallets Other than PayPal

Online measurement firm comScore released data from a new survey about digital wallet awareness and acceptance among US consumers. The survey was conducted in November 2012. It underscores familiar themes in the existing coversation about digital wallets: most consumers are largely unaware of the offerings, but those that are have security concerns.

In the context of this research "digital wallet" means online and mobile. To that end, the survey data showed that PayPal and Google Wallet were the only two payments products that enjoyed meaningful consumer awareness. In terms of usage, only PayPal has seen any real adoption -- largely because of its long established online history. 

Echoing many other surveys the comScore data found that security was a concern for many users. Like almost every one before it, the study concludes that consumers need to be educated about the overall benefits of digital wallets and the features that make them more secure than conventional credit card payments.

In a Q3 2012 survey we found very limited interest in mobile payments. 

How interested are you in using your mobile phone to pay for things, and replace cash or your credit cards?

Source: Opus Research (August, 2012; n=1,501 US adults)

From a demographic standpoint, people under 45 were considerably more interested in mobile payments than people who were older. Similarly, a recent survey (n=1,155 US adults) by the Raddon Financial Group found that that younger adults (Gen Y) are most likely to be interested and most likely to see value in mobile wallets.

Source: Raddon Financial Group (2012)

A recent survey from Harris Interactive is more bullish on the outlook for mobile payments than was ours:

“How interested are you in being able to use your smartphone to process in-person payments via tapping a special receiver, rather than using cash or payment cards?” 

• Very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 8%
• Somewhat interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 19%
• Not very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 12%
• Not at all interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 43% 

This was the full mobile-user population. The following were the smartphone-only responses: 

• Very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 16%
• Somewhat interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 28%
• Not very interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 16%
• Not at all interested in using my smartphone instead of cash or cards: 30% 

While the benefits of "horizontal" wallets and mobile payments solutions (e.g., Google Wallet) are often unknown or ambiguous to consumers, what will drive (and is now driving) mobile payments adoption are "point solutions" that are highly specific. In these scenarios the benefits are concrete and self evident: 

• Coaster Another 'Point Solution' That Will Drive Mobile Payments Adoption 
• Siri-Fandango Tie-in Will Drive More Mobile Movie Ticket Sales 
• Starbucks-Square and How "Point Solutions" Will Drive Mobile Payments
• Point Solutions Like Parking Apps Will Drive Mobile Payments Adoption 

Survey: Half of Mobile Showroomers Changed Their Minds about Buying

A new Pew survey (n=1,003 US adults) found that 58% of all mobile phone owners (feature + smartphones) used their handsets as part of in-store shopping during holiday 2012. More specifically, 72% of smartphone owners did so. Google research and InsightExpress have found even higher smartphone numbers: 82% to 90%+.

What kinds of things did these mobile phone owners do in stores? Mostly they called other people, but they also checked prices and product reviews.

Pew says 46% of all mobile users called others to get input on a purchase; 28% looked at product reviews and 27% compared prices on their phones (presumably there was some overlap among the categories). Of those who conducted price comparisons, roughly 48% didn't buy in the store, while 46% did make a purchase:

• 46 percent purchased the product at that particular store
• 30 percent decided to not purchase the product at all
• 12 percent purchased the product online
• 6 percent purchased the product at a different store

Interpreting these data is tricky. That's because we don't really know the mindset of these people when they entered the store. Accordingly we don't know the full impact of the pricing information they discovered. 

We can make the assumption that 64% of these respondents (of the 27%) had some level of existing purchase intent when they went to the store -- because they ultimately did make a purchase. As mentioned, 46% percent bought at the store and 18% bought elsewhere (another store, online).

Another way to interpret these data is to say that 48% of the the people who did in-store mobile price checks decided not to buy there (my headline). It's probably safe to infer that at least 18% of these people were negatively swayed by the price data they saw on their phones -- they bought online or at another store -- although the actual number may be quite a bit higher and include some or all of the 30% who decided not to buy at all. 

We don't have any sense of how this price-check group compares with the larger survey population. Did the larger group buy at higher or lower rates than the price checkers? We don't know.

One can see what one wants in these data. Without a sense of what people were thinking ahead of time we can really only guess at the full impact of in-store mobile phone usage. Yet it's clear from the totality of available information that "showrooming" is a real thing and that retailers need to aggressively address it. 

Related: Spaaza ‘MyPrice’: A New Response to Showrooming

Failure to Properly Value Mobile Clicks Leads to Google CPC Decline

Yesterday afternoon Google announced Q4 2012 earnings. In almost every respect it was a spectacular holiday quarter for the company. Consolidated revenues (which include Motorola) were $14.42 billion, an increase of 36% over 2011.

Google made $50.2 billion for the full year, crossing that revenue threshold for the first time. That compares with $37.9 billion the company made in 2011. 

However the average price that avertisers paid Google per click (CPCs) decreased 6 percent vs. Q4 2011. That was a smaller decline than in the past, which could be seen as a positive.

The CPC YoY drop is because more clicks are now coming from mobile devices and advertisers are paying less for those clicks. According to a report released yesterday from marketing firm The Search Agency, CPC prices for paid-search ads appearing on smartphones are well below comparable ads appearing on tablets and PCs (see graphic below).

In Q4 mobile search clicks were worth less than 50% of what marketers paid for PC search clicks according to the data. Why are marketers paying much less for mobile clicks when mobile consumers are often much better prospects and customers than PC users? 

There's less competition currently for mobile clicks than there is for PC search clicks. Because Google's ad system is an auction that necessarily affects pricing. But more than that many advertisers are unwilling to pay more for mobile clicks because they don't trust them and/or can't calculate a mobile ROI.  

Source: The Search Agency 

Many search marketers, especially brands and large advertisers, rely on automated systems that calculate paid-search ROI based on some pre-defined conversion event. Those conversions can be a variety of things but frequently they're e-commerce transactions or, in some cases, phone calls. 

PC ROI calculations are generally flawed because they usually don't or can't capture online-influenced offline buying. Accordingly the system and the marketer only see online events but not the far larger collection of offline purchases and activities (e.g., store visits) that are driven by online and paid search advertising. The problem is even more pronouced for mobile, however. 

Because there are relatively few mobile commerce transactions -- though there are plenty of phone calls from mobile devices -- marketers simply don't see the "latent" conversions that happen in the real world or later on another screen, such as in the case where someone does research on a mobile device and later buys on a PC or tablet. 

As a result of this varied, multi-screen consumer behavior marketers aren't able to correctly perceive or attribute ROI and accordingly value mobile clicks. While this represents a "buying opportunity" for advertisers that know the true value of mobile the majority of advertisers are undervaluing mobile clicks. And that's reflected in the average CPC declines that Google has been reporting. 

Nokia Shows Momentum but Needs Android More than Ever

Yesterday Nokia announced "better than expected" Lumia sales. Overall the company said (in these preliminary results) that it sold just over 86 million mobile devices. Among them were 16 million smartphones, including 4.4 million Lumia handsets. The remainder were legacy Symbian devices and new lower-end Asha devices. 

Asha phones are somewhere between a feature phone and a true smartphone. They're designed to be low cost and intended for emerging markets such as India. They would see little or no success in developed markets like North America or Europe. Indeed, they're not directed toward those markets. 

In Q2 and Q3 2012 Nokia sold a combined total of 6.9 million Lumia handsets. The troubled-company's stock was up yesterday and this morning, having seemingly beaten a very grim Q4 forecast. And some financial analysts are hailing the results as the beginning of Nokia's long-hoped-for turnaround. 

Any celebrations are premature however. According to Kantar Worldpanel Comtech research demand for Windows Phones is uneven and limited. 

In the US Windows Phones continue to lose share and have failed to capture consumer interest. The story is somewhat different in Europe, however, in part because of the legacy of Nokia's strong brand. In the five major EU countries Windows saw aggregate growth of 1.7%. 

The markets where Windows Phone gains have been meaningful are Italy, Spain and the UK, according to the Kantar data. In Italy, for example, Windows Phones gained almost 8 points and now have an 11.7 percent share of the smartphone market.

While there may continue to be modest growth for Nokia with Windows Phones, it's fairly clear that they are unlikey to power a full recovery. What Nokia really needs to ignite growth is to add Android devices to its lineup.

Remarks earlier this week by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop suggested that the company could be open to using Android: 

In the current ecosystem wars we are using Windows Phone as our weapon. But we are always thinking about what's coming next, what will be the role of HTML 5, Android... HTML5 could make the platform itself -- being Android, Windows Phone or any other -- irrelevant in the future, but it's still too soon [to tell]. Today we are committed and satisfied with Microsoft, but anything is possible. 

Contractual agreements with Microsoft probably would make Android "diversification" unlikely in the near term unless Windows Phones sales fell below a certain threshold. Given the modest momentum around Microsoft's OS Nokia will probably stick with Windows. 

Yet if the company were to offer both Android and Windows devices it would see its fortunes improve more rapidly -- much more rapidly. 

Survey: A Majority Use Smartphone 'Personal Assistants' Daily

Nuance Communications, which provides speech recognition services for enterprises (and increasingly consumers, including the Swype keyboard) released a “mobile assistant” survey in connection with CES. The survey of roughly 1,000 US adults found that 75% of respondents had their mobile devices (presumably smartphones) “always on them” or “at hand.”

Among the 90% of survey respondents that reported they had some sort of assistant capability on their phones (not defined in the survey results), a majority (60%) said they used that assistant daily. The following were the most common use cases:

• Driving directions: 84%
• Weather: 72%
• Restaurant lookups/recommendations: 61%

This survey implies satisfaction is relatively high with these assistants. More than 80% of respondents indicated if they could they’d want the “same mobile personal assistant” with them at all times, across all devices and use cases: phones, tablets, PCs, cars, TVs, apps and so on. Accordingly the survey was partly intended to support Nuances "cross-device persona project" called Wintermute, which the company is showcasing at CES.

Using your unique voice print, the system remembers who you are and "follows you from one device to the next, remembering what you like, what you’ve been doing, and where you’ve been." This is in a way a voice-version of what Google is trying to do in asking people to sign in to the Chrome browser so that it can monitor them across devices. In Google's case it's for the purpose of personalizing search results, serving better ads and collecting data on user behavior. Nuance seems to be focused more directly on improving the user experience. 

Interestingly the survey also found that respondents had emotional connections (to varying degrees) to their assistants:

More than half of all respondents cited a personal connection with their mobile personal assistant. Women actually name their mobile personal assistant more than men, with 71% compared to a close 66% of men . . . 73% of men feel comfortable asking their mobile personal assistant for directions but 79% of women ask for help more often.

The materials I received don’t provide detail on whether the assistants in question are Nuance products (i.e., DragonGo) or Apple’s Siri or Google Voice Search/Now. It's not clear how specifically the "personal assistant" idea was defined in the survey instrument. 

The concept of the personal virtual assistant has been around for quite a long time, using a range of technologies and approaches. Yet crystallized in the public mind with the advent of Siri. Nuance, which provides speech recognition for Siri, recently introduced Nina -- a white label Siri-like assistant for enterprise customer service applications. 

My colleague Dan Miller recently issued an expansive new report on personal virtual assistants and their adoption in the enterprise and on consumer devices.

Update: Nuance has reportedly acquired VirtuOZ, which is a provider of virtual-assistant enterprise customer care solutions with a PC focus. The VirtuOZ online assistant will be enhanced and improved by Nuance's speech recognition capabilities and Nuance's Nina offering will help expand its reach into online customer care. 

Tablets Predicted to Outship Laptops This Year

Mobile handsets already outnumber PCs across the globe. However, in terms of internet access (including apps) PCs could fall into third place after smartphones and tablets. That would represent a radical change from today, where PCs still represent the most common way that consumers in most developed countries access the internet. 

Hardware monitor NPD Group is predicting that this year tablet shipments globablly will exceed notebooks (laptops). Here's the projection:

NPD also takes a stab at forecasting penetration of tablets by screen size. However this is somewhat less important than the fact of tablet adoption. 

Rather than the cornucopia of screens displayed in the graphic above, we're likely to see standardization around three primary tablet screen sizes:

• 5-6 inches (including the so-called "phablets" phone + tablet hybrids)
• 7 inches (Apple iPad Mini, Nexus 7)
• 9-10 inches (iPad, Nexus 10)  

The general publisher response to the rise of tablets is probably going to be responsive web design, which has limitations. However tablets will further reinforce app usage among consumers, though surveys and behavioral studies show more mobile web usage on tablets vs. smartphones. 

Tablet adoption also ends the reign of Microsoft as the most important company in the PC universe. Windows 8 and Surface adoption to date has been quite tepid. And the inevitable availability of Office for tablets removes yet another incentive to buy a PC.  

The "big takeaway" here is the simple fact of more tablets than new PCs. PCs will remain prominent in the workplace and among business users. However for consumers they will see less and less "face time." Tablets and smartphones will become primary internet access points in the home, with PCs being used for more limited and specific things.