The CMO’s Guide to 2015 Mobile Trends and ROI

At the midpoint of 2015, ROI on mobile advertising investments are at an all-time high. According to Google, more searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries, including the US and Japan.

Consumer behavior changes every day. For many, smartphones are the first and last thing people engage with every day. Mobile devices serve as an inside look into consumers, their friends, and their spending habits. Here are a couple reasons why every dollar spent on mobile advertising gets more valuable in the quickly evolving landscape.

Mobile Search Is At Its Strongest

According to SmartInsights, 80 percent of Internet users search using their smartphones. That number becomes even more powerful when 48 percent of consumers use search as their most common form for mobile research.

Paid search has long been a field focused on maximizing the value of keywords. The evolution of search behavior towards cross-device leads means marketing plans involving mobile are now essential. It can be challenging to take advantage of, but there’s a lot of untapped potential locked in the way consumers think with a “mobile-first” mindset.

Start by experiencing it yourself. Open up your smartphone, think about user intent and start optimizing. Is your website designed for mobile engagement with easy to read content and responsive design? If visitors are looking for an address, make the listing easy to find. If they are searching for a phone number, let them “click-to-call.” These cues that take a user from an ad to a store can build a certain trust in the purchase experience that other brands cannot replicate.

This means there’s intrinsically more value in optimizing your websites and search ads for mobile. This means writing copy that’s useful and convenient for mobile searchers. With algorithm updates like Pigeon and this year’s “Mobilegeddon,” Google is putting more emphasis into local searches on mobile, so every rating matters.

Mobile Ad Opportunities Grow

More and more of digital ad dollars are being shifted from desktop to mobile. In 2015, mobile ad spending will increase 50 percent reaching $28.72 billion dollars, accounting for 49 percent of digital ad dollars according to the same eMarketer report. They also predict that mobile display ad spending will outpace mobile search ad budgets in the coming years.

The amount of users investing in smartphones is outpacing how much time they spend on those devices. As the competition gets stiffer and shifts more funds towards mobile, brands late to the mobile game will find it hard to get the ball rolling for their own ads. While desktop will remain a significant portion of marketer budgets in the coming years, mobile market share will grow by the double digits as desktop remains flat.

Social Influence Drives Trends

According to Nielson, there has been a 63 percent rise in monthly time engaged with apps per person to 37 hours and 28 minutes. That’s nothing to scoff at, especially when there are 3.65 billion unique global mobile phone users — 200 million in the US.

The apps where brands get the most recognition are social media. According to Pew, the percent of users who use Twitter and Facebook for news is on the rise. Many on Twitter keep up with news and events coverage as it happens via mobile devices. As more users create social media accounts, investing time into keeping up with trending conversations can be a great way reach new audiences.

Social media changes all the time, and lately many major platforms are incorporating new ways to consume media and keep mobile users engaged. That includes different news feed tweaks, a focus on in-app purchases, and shifts in content trends and mediums for both organic and paid. By the end of 2014, mobile video accounted for 55 percent of data usage according to Cisco’s 2015 Mobile Forecast. This shows a positive response to mobile focused content and it’s ability to drive ROI for brands. Marketers must leverage these new content trends, targeting features, and available data or risk losing potential social revenues to competitors.

Data Is More Available Than Ever

Measuring cross-device search behavior can be difficult, but there are tools to do it. In 2014, over half (about 62.5 percent) of search engine users were also searching on their mobile phones. eMarketer predicts that in five years, that number will increase to over 90 percent. Each dollar invested into your mobile budget gets more and more valuable.

More contextual information is passed along with every click, swipe and scroll. Now more than ever, shoppers incorporate the Internet in their offline decisions, seamlessly integrating digital influence into real-world decisions. For the 2015 consumer, mobile experiences must be tied to live experiences in order to create moments where a sale is made.

Last year, Google introduced a “store visits” metric that helps retailers track users who click a search ad to visit a store. Location data and type of device are both in play, and both can be used to target ads better.

According to a study by NinthDecimal, store visits increased 80 percent within the first day a mobile ad was served on the search marketplace compared to average store visits. Furthermore, 54 percent of users used a mobile device to shop around before making a purchase.

The Growing Millennial Market

Shoppers between the age 18 and 34 make up more than half of those who come to the Internet to shop and spend more online.

There are currently 79 million Millennials in the US compared to the 48 million in Generation X. Their sheer volume and purchasing power will dictate how eCommerce, especially mobile commerce, will evolve.

It’s no secret that almost half of the millennial population has made a purchase on their phone, and that number continues to grow. According to PewSocialTrends, 41 percent of Millennials identify their smartphone as their main form of communication. More and more consumers are likely to go to search engines to scout out whether to make a purchase, whether in-store or online.

Their spending habits need to be incorporated in how digital marketing evolves in order to stay relevant to that audience. Millennials, and any consumer in this age, have many different tools at their disposal to aid their purchasing decision. Brands need to be at a customer’s fingertips or risk missing out on being a part of their thought process at all.