4smartphoneThere is by now a good deal of mobile shoppers waiting in the wings, which is why more and more dealers have started to tailor offers particularly to mobile commerce. Electronic loyalty and credit cards on the phone, shopping apps and mobile payment solutions, simply allow customers to do their shopping easily over the phone on the way or in between on the tablet.

In general, it can be seen that especially the technology-affine and better educated youngsters are using smartphones and tablets vividly for mobile shopping. Alleged obstacles, such as the small mobile screens or load times for mobile pages seem to lose in importance – even mobile payment service seem to gain more momentum this year.

Marin Software Incorporated, a provider of a leading cross-channel performance advertising cloud for advertisers and agencies, released its insightful Q1 2016 Performance Marketer’s Benchmark Report recently, essentially saying the following:

Smartphones turn from an information to a shopper's device

Mobile devices, especially smartphones, play a decisive role for channels like search, social, and display. Display ads actually seem to convert the best on mobile nowadays, since more than half of all conversions come into existence on the smartphone. For a long time, the smart device has been seen mainly as an information medium, since electronic shopping was initially taking place on the desktop. But times have changed.

While the share of smart phones increased significantly, the desktop part decreased, and if you add even tablets, two out of three buyers come via mobile advertising today.

In the social channel, the mobile conversion rate is now almost the same as on desktops, according to the experts of Marin Software, who assume that this trend will continue and exceed this year the 50% threshold.

Indeed, the direction of consumer and advertiser trends has largely stabilized, as Marin’s Global Online Advertising Index shows, which looked at over $7.8 billion worth of spend in the Marin platform.

The gist of the report:

  • Conversion has grown with search engine marketing by ten percent over the previous year, meaning that every third purchase is made on an Internet-enabled phone. The most notable shift is that smartphone gains were no longer mainly from desktop, instead, there was cannibalization from the tablet side. Clicks and spend are by now majority mobile, with impressions and conversions close behind. Desktop share still retains its dominance, but the lead is a narrow one.
  • Mobile share of display spend continued to eat away at desktop share across all metrics. Q4 2015 saw display advertising on mobile explode globally and, whilst the growth has slowed, in the last quarter conversions have grown 26%, clicks were going up 13% and impressions have increased by 10% on smartphones.
  • Social is still the most mobile of all three channels. Conversions, impressions, spend and clicks are all up but at less significant rates, reflecting the sustained popularity of mobile for this channel. This trend is likely to continue, eventually crossing the 50% mark this year.


Advertisers should begin to use all channels and devices according to their respective strengths, providing a comprehensive digital marketing approach that addresses the audience via all channels and devices for better results. Considering going from web-centered to app-centered could be a good solution, too.

By Daniela La Marca