Mobile Has Made Its Move-Is Your Strategy Keeping Up?

Traffic on smartphones converts into sales at a much lower rate than on desktop devices and laptops, according to the “Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing on Mobile.”

At home with my two sons last month, whilst my wife was away working, I was quick to post on social media what a great boys’ weekend was in store for us—watching the British Grand Prix, the Men’s Wimbledon final, and the Euro 2016 final. Alas, the boys had very different ideas, with our one and only TV commandeered for Peppa Pig and Disney.

Thus my viewing had to be migrated to the only other available device, my smartphone. And, to be honest, it worked pretty well given the size of the screen being used. What it brought home is how central mobile is to everyday life.

And I’m not alone. Our lives literally revolve around them, with [a study by Nottingham Trent University](http://www4.ntu.ac.uk/apps/news/180892-15/People_check_their_smartphones_85_times_a_day_(and_they_dont_even_know_the.aspx) finding that the average user picks up their device 85 times a day.

Whether as a second screen for watching sport, controlling central heating or music systems, communicating with friends, reading the news on the morning commute, or for the weekly shop, we are increasingly turning to this pocket-sized device to meet our day-to-day needs.

The Traffic To Revenue Gap

In the recent “Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing on Mobile,” this shift and its increasing importance on our businesses are clearly demonstrated. Organisations surveyed in the report show that an average of 37% of total digital traffic is now via mobile, up from 31% in 2015, with 62% of respondents agreeing that this is set to increase to more than half of all traffic this year.

However, for many, this traffic does not translate into revenue. As borne out by the report, whilst it is increasing, the majority of organisations are making less than 30% of their revenues through mobile devices.

The question we are all asking ourselves is why? In the report, 63% agree that the quality of the mobile experience is more important than that on the desktop because there’s no room for error or waste. So is this why traffic converts into sales at such a significantly lower rate than on desktop devices and laptops?

In part, the answer is obviously yes. Given that with mobile you are dealing with far smaller screen and, typically, touch screens that are prone to user error—known as fat fingers in my household—it is always going to be a challenge to create an experience that is intuitive and easy. Many businesses have overcome these issues through good user-interface design.

Even with the increasing role that native and hybrid Apps are playing in creating smoother, more engaging experience, with greater access to the inherent capabilities of the device (location, camera, etc), the challenge remains. Of the respondents to the “Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing on Mobile,” only 12% strongly agreed that time spent on Apps was longer than on mobile web. This suggests that whilst great user-interface design is important, it isn’t the silver bullet.

Empowered By Mobile

So if it’s not solely the size of the device that’s causing the challenge, then what is? To answer this, I believe we need to look at the user rather than the user interface. Equally, we need to consider the user as mobile rather than the device.

There is one simple reality that the growth and development in the mobile have created—a completely new set of customer behaviours that have never previously been possible. We are now in the era of human development in which we are empowered by machines rather than adapting to them, and mobile is a central enabler of this. No longer do we have to follow a prescribed process to purchase our goods or services.

Thus, to succeed, we must try to understand this behaviour and have a clear strategy to respond to it.

What is clear from the report is that having a clear strategy around mobile makes a significant difference to performance. The report shows that companies with a defined mobile strategy are more likely to report mobile traffic volumes exceeding 50% than those without (37% versus 25%).

The report defines a mobile strategy as “evaluating where mobile fits in the overall customer journey” and “enabling marketers to move beyond thinking about designing specifically for devices and more towards designing a good user experience that surprises and delights.”

There couldn’t be a truer set of statements. To truly unlock the full potential of mobile, we need to consider how your customers experience your brand in totality. Increasingly, the complexity of the customer journey is being recognised, and we have to understand their day-to-day behaviours if we are to satisfy their needs and maximise our outcomes. Customers are using multiple channels in the customer journey, both online and offline. Our own behavioural studies, quantified by our web analytics, show the influence on in-store sales of research carried out on a mobile device. We should certainly not assume that any customer journey is in any way linear or undertaken on a single device type.

So in designing for these more complex customer behaviours, we need to consider all touch points, not just mobile. Let us not forget that whilst there is a huge move towards mobile, there are still more than half of customers who are still using desktop computers and laptops. To ignore the customer experience holistically is a mistake.

And yet, so many of the organisations in the survey continue to focus on a channel-centric view of the world, with desktop seen as the most important channel by almost two-thirds of respondents.

As the report points out, “arguably all channels are of equal importance.” Certainly, what is of paramount importance is the customer.