• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 22, 2012

Clothing might not seem the likeliest product category when it comes to mobile shopping. But new data from Spotzot, which operates a platform powering mobile coupons and offers, says women’s and men’s apparel were the most popular categories among mobile browsers.

The findings were based on ad impressions and interaction on Spotzot’s network over the last nine months. The company has created a mobile shopping index measuring the effectiveness of mobile offers and ads across more than 100 product categories and subcategories and 1,000 top U.S. retail chains.

The index ranks lead-generation performance by the ability to convert a shopper’s interest into purchase intent. (Total shopper intent/shopper interest x 100). Shopper intent covers all queries for each category from mobile shopping, search and location-aware applications and sites.

Shopper intent reflects things like click-throughs to Web sites, phone numbers and driving directions to nearby stores or retailer coupons.

In terms of interest, women's and men's apparel were tops followed by consumer electronics, health and beauty, home and garden, and computers. Top products more specifically included women’s shoes, mobile phones and tablets, face and skin care products, handbags and laptops and desktop computers.

Sanjay Mittal, Spotzot’s co-founder, chairman and CTO, said the top categories reflect the abundance of retailers that sell some type of clothing or accessories in its network. “When we look at merchants in the top 1,000 [retailers], there are a disproportionately large number of department stores and specialty stores dealing with men's and women's apparel,” he said.

In relation to Spotzot's shopper index, correlating interest and intent, automotive (parts and services) had the highest index score of 56%, followed by consumer electronics (52%), sports and fitness (49%), computers and office (46%) and toy, party and gifts; and jewelry and watches (both 45%).

Women's apparel -- the top segment in shopper interest -- had the lowest average score (34%) of the 11 overall categories analyzed. That suggests initial interest is not necessarily translating into purchase intent as much as in other categories.

Mittal noted the higher conversion rate for auto parts ads than those for women's apparel is partly a factor of the total offers and products for each category. “If you look at an offer on a can of machine oil or a tire, there’s not a whole lot to browse,” he said. “But if you’re looking at offers for shoes or handbags, it’s almost like a reading experience. You can look at 15 or 20 items, and maybe one or two catch your eye."

The research also showed that eight of the 11 categories were directly influenced by sales and coupons. Consumer interest in discounts was high in areas including auto parts, jewelry and watches, home and garden, and kids and babies.

Spotzot says its SpotAds can reach 100 million U.S. mobile users and deliver click-through rates 10-30 times higher than top mobile and online ad networks and three times more leads to stores. Apps including ShopSavvy and CardStar use Spotzot's platform to run offers in their mobile apps.

In terms of devices, the vast majority of shopping activity tracked by Spotzot takes place on smartphones, with tablets accounting for less than 10% of traffic, Mittal said.