• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, October 25, 2011

Mobile is great for shopping experiences, but while the smartphone is used mainly for shopping at retail, tablet computers are “more of a device for shopping in general,” Michael Fischer, CMO, Coldwell Banker said during the tablet panel at OMMA Mobile this afternoon.

While mobile users regularly bring their phones into retail establishments, Fischer said more than half of tablet computer owners “never take them into a retail environment.”

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you’re a financial services marketers like Coldwell Banker, but it is something that you need to understand.

So far, Fischer said that Coldwell Banker has been more than happy with its overall mobile marketing experience, but especially where tablets, and particularly iPads, are concerned.

Coldwell Banker, you may recall, was an early adopter of Apple’s iAd platform, and was actually the second advertiser to place an iAd on an iPhone. As good as that experience was, Fischer said that Coldwell Banker’s iAd experience in iPads has surpassed its expectations by all the meaningful metrics.

Among other things, he said that iPad users have been spending more than a minute engaged with their iAds on iPads. We’ve been really happy with that.”

What Fischer hasn’t been as happy with, is the iPad’s ability to generate downloads of Coldwell Banker’s app. On that note, he said Google’s AdMob appears to be doing a better job.