Offline Exposure Everywhere and Anywhere Is Driving Mobile Search

by Steve Smith, May 21, 2012, 9:37 AM

• Comment (1)
• Recommend (8)
• Tweet
• 

Getting a mobile marketing strategy in place is all well and good, but brands need to understand how much non-mobile exposures are driving the smartphone search revolution. Google pulled some highlights from its new Mobile Planet initiative with Ipsos, the Mobile Marketing Association and the IAB last week to demonstrate just how important integrated programs have become. Group Product Marketing Manager for Google Mobile Ads Dai Pharm posted at the Mobile Ads blog data showing that 66% of smartphone owners say they have conducted mobile searches after seeing an ad on another medium.

TV is a key driver of mobile search, with 58% of smartphone users saying they have done a search from a TV ad. More than half of the respondents in this survey (52%) say they use their phones while watching TV, although we have seen much higher shares from other surveys. But in-store ad mentions are right behind in popularity (57%), suggesting that many mobile users are leveraging the device as part of the shopping experiences. Despite premature rumors of its imminent death, the magazine still compels 48% to mobile search, but common forms of outdoor promotions like billboards and posters are less powerful, driving only 36% to search.  

Mobile search is itself often just a stepping stone on a longer path to purchase, however. While 35% of smartphone users say they have purchased an item via their device, 37% say that research that started on their phones ended up being fulfilled via the PC and 32% ended up making the purchase in-store.

Until consumers embrace the mobile device as an e-commerce endpoint, mobile marketing must account for its role as a median on the road to purchase. These devices likely are playing some role in consumer decision-making even if attribution may be challenging for now. More than a third (35%) of smartphone users say they deliberately bring their devices with them to stores for price comparisons and product look-ups, while almost as many (32%) say that information from their devices has changed their mind about making a purchase in-store.

Obviously, Google wants to encourage search-centric strategies and so emphasizes the ways in which mobile is integral to the purchase path. And it recommends extreme optimization for mobile, since 61% of respondents say they don’t ever get beyond the first page of results when they do mobile searching.   

And yes -- the inevitable infographic highlighting some of this research is available too. 

• Comment (1)
• Recommend (8)
• Tweet
• 

1 comment on "Offline Exposure Everywhere and Anywhere Is Driving Mobile Search ".

1. Karen Smith from Intuitive Pear Internet Marketing
   

   commented on: May 23, 2012 at 10:38 p.m.
   This is incredible. We build mobile apps for businesses, when we give users a way to purchase they seem to be taking advantage of it and buying thru their app.

Leave a Comment