SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Efficient Frontier, the leading global digital marketing company, announced the release of new data on the mobile search industry published in a report from Macquarie Group.
Among the key findings:
- Mobile spend is 6.5% of all search spend, up 2.7 times (270%) from a year ago.
- Return on Investment (ROI) for search on mobile devices has climbed rapidly in 2011 but remains less than half of traditional desktop search.
- Tablet usage has increased substantially and is now half of all click share on mobile devices and conversion rates on tablets are now comparable to that of desktop search.
- Tablets have made major inroads in retail where 77% of all mobile traffic is coming from tablets.
- By the end of 2012, tablets and smart phones are predicted to be between 16% to 22% of all paid search share.
“After years of false predictions, it looks like 2012 really will be the year of mobile,” said David Karnstedt, CEO of Efficient Frontier. “We are seeing incredible demand from our client base for mobile search advertising and today’s report demonstrates the strides mobile has made led in part by incredible rates in tablet adoption.”
Demonstrating momentum in the tablet market, tablets took up 43% of the mobile device spend share in the last 3 months from August to October 2011. Additionally, Cost Per Click (CPC) of mobile phones is 108% compared to desktop search but tablet CPCs are 85% compared to desktop. This represents an opportunity for marketers to capitalize on opportunities in the tablet market. Click-through rates of mobile phones and tablets are 166% and 137% that of desktop, respectively.
“As an update to our last report in March, mobile ad spend continues to be a sector with a lot of momentum because of increased consumer usage in both smart phones and tablets,” said Ben Schachter, Senior Analyst, Macquarie Securities. “With continued innovation in mobile and tablet technologies and more user friendly form factors, ROI on mobile devices will continue to rise as consumers increase their usage for research and purchases.”
The study also found some interesting consumer usage patterns among desktop, mobile phones and tablets. Comparing the spread of traffic throughout the day, all devices start to show increase usage at 8 A.M. when people start their day. However, in the evenings, the patterns are different. Mobile phones peak first at 7 P.M., followed by desktop at 8 P.M. and then tablets at 10 P.M. This may be explained by people tend to leave work at around 7 P.M. and use mobile phones when they are on the way home. Tablets are used when people wind down at home towards the end of the day watching TV hence its traffic peak the latest among the three types of devices.
Outlook and Recommendations
The average consumer is using multiple devices during the purchase cycle. This fragmentation will increase and advertisers will have to ensure a good consumer experience on all devices. Advertisers will best serve their interests by focusing on three fronts.
1. Mobile friendly sites: With greater usage of mobile devices, brands will have to maintain a user-friendly presence across all devices. Mobile conversion rates double from their previous rates after they are optimized correctly.
2. Attribution: A purchase that begins with a mobile device often ends on the desktop. As a result, the ROI on the mobile campaign looks worse than it actually is. The smart advertiser will allocate advertising budgets across devices appropriately after accounting for attribution. Until now, this was not an urgent need as mobile traffic was a small fraction of overall traffic but this changing.
3. Tailored Advertising Campaigns: Advertisers have to reach the consumer across devices in a manner consistent with how these devices are used. For instance, mobile campaigns should focus on shorter words since query lengths are shorter.
This analysis was completed with an index built on data from Efficient Frontier’s search engine marketing customers. More than 3 billion monthly impressions representing 30 plus customers were analyzed for this report.
About Efficient Frontier
Efficient Frontier is a leader in digital marketing, managing search, display and social media campaigns for advertisers and agencies around the world. Efficient Frontier currently manages more than $1.5 billion in annual digital marketing spend on behalf of its clients globally.
In May 2011, Efficient Frontier acquired Context Optional, the leading provider of social marketing management solutions for global brands on the leading social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Context Optional’s Social Marketing Suite enables global enterprises to build, manage and measure their brand presence, and engage their fans to increase mindshare, word of mouth, customer loyalty and website traffic. Together, Efficient Frontier and Context Optional offer a complete solution for brands to acquire, activate and drive value from fans and followers.
Efficient Frontier is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in New York, Chicago the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India and Australia and technology licensing partnerships in Japan and Hong Kong. Context Optional is headquartered in San Francisco. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information on Efficient Frontier, visit http://www.efrontier.com and for Context Optional visit http://www.contextoptional.com.
About Macquarie
Macquarie Group (Macquarie) is a global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services. Macquarie’s main business focus is making returns by providing a diversified range of services to clients. Founded in 1969, Macquarie operates in more than 70 office locations in 28 countries and employs more than 15,000 people. Assets under management total approximately $327 billion.
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