Mobile proves to be strong conversion tool this holiday

NEW YORK — Mobile devices drove online sales growth this holiday, fueled in part by the use of mobile-specific shopping sales. Going forward, the trend shows little signs of slowing as retailers are seeing mobile as a strong conversion tool. That was a key message of the webinar, “Mobile Engagement Drives Happier Holidays for Retailers,” held on Thursday.



“We expect continued growth particularly on the Smartphone platform as the screen sizes gets larger and mobile payments remove some of the friction that typically happens within the Smartphone shopping process and making that process much easier,” said presenter Bill Schneider, director of product marketing, Urban Airship, during the webinar presented by RetailCustomerExperience.com. Urban Airship is a provider of mobile relationship management.



This holiday, mobile proved to be the shining star, accounting for 52% of all online traffic — that’s a 22% increase over 2013.



“We’ve heard from a number of retailers, one of them being Walmart, that they saw upwards of 70% of digital traffic coming from a mobile device. So, very healthy engagement rates and traffic rates that are coming from the mobile platform,” Schneider told attendees.



This holiday season retailers sent more push notifications — 34% more compared with last year’s holiday period — which paid off for those retailers that saw value in such notifications as engagement rates were up year-over-year.



In fact, more than one-third of all app opens captured during the holiday period were attributed to a push notification, up from 22% last year.



“If retailers had not sent a push notification they would’ve missed out on one-third of their mobile audience,” said presenter Stephanie Capretto, Strategy Consultant, Urban Airship.



On Thanksgiving Day, specifically, volume doubled and generated a 41% incremental app open across the board. In context, of all app opens, 41% of those opens came from a push notification on Thanksgiving Day.



What about Black Friday? While research indicates that in-store foot traffic was down this year, online traffic was up. According to Urban Airship, engagement on mobile devices jumped 30% compared with the week prior. Come Cyber Monday, a hint of fatigue set in as engagement rates declined slightly compared with the Black Friday weekend. But it didn’t really come as a surprise.



“If you think about it, it makes sense. Shoppers were back at work. They had already taken advantage of Black Friday or even early access Cyber Monday deals over the weekend. And, as a matter of fact, they already had a full week of great deals since retailers starting hyping Black Friday almost more than a weekend before,” Capretto said.



How can marketers get the most out of their mobile engagement solution? Some tips provided by Urban Airship include —



• Data is all-powerful. “If you’ve done the work to tag your app or your messages you definitely have a leg up in developing a targeted messaging strategy,” said Schneider.



• Don’t underestimate data elements like “last app opened,” “last viewed items” and “products that have been shared or added to wish list.” “Those are all great cues and signals from shoppers that you can use to drive a targeted messaging campaign,” said Schneider.



• For those with an advanced data strategy, these elements can also be combined with other elements such as geo location data, POS data or CRM data.



• Consider putting together a strategy in the coming days to give shoppers different shopping ideas as the holiday approaches. For example, “The 10 day Christmas Countdown.”



• Take your digital wallet capability a step further and add the power of digital wallets through Apple Passbook and Google Wallet to help create a more frictionless experience in redeeming coupons.



• Give customers a reason to check back often and set expectations of how often to check back.



• Notifications should be thought of as a service. For example, send a proactive communication to users about shipping deadlines.



• Promoting shopping tips and last minute gifts that can be easily purchased via mobile devices is a great last-minute tactic.