Category: Featured News

Applications are now being used to help enhance the rate of customer engagement while shopping.

Marketers are continuing with their rapid adoption of techniques to reach consumers via smartphone and the popularity of mobile commerce apps is a new reflection of that attitude. A new report suggests that these marketers are using mobile applications as a new way of reaching their target audience.

The report was titled “Quantifying the Rise of Mobile Apps & The Value of Deep Linking.”

That report was published by The Relevancy Group in conjunction with Branch. The research data indicated that almost 45 percent of marketers are now developing and launching mobile commerce apps to enhance customer engagement. Furthermore, over 40 percent of marketers are looking to mobile apps to boost brand loyalty. About that same percentage of marketers are also using applications for the purpose of driving sales.

Marketers recognize the increasing value of mobile commerce apps to drive revenue.

When asked their opinion about the effectiveness of m-commerce apps in driving revenue, marketers ranked them as fourth on the list of most effective channels. Above applications in terms of their effectiveness were: display advertising, social media marketing and email marketing.

According to Branch’s Todd Patton, “Email marketing remains an important part of your marketing efforts.” Furthermore, “Email is the best channel to directly reach potential customers and loyal supporters, “ he said.

At the same time, marketers acknowledge that email marketing can be very effective while at the same time being easy to use. It remains a central marketing tactic for brands due to the simplicity of the tools required in order to reach customers. It is quick, cost effective and it reaches people on virtually any connected device.

A previous Adestra and Ascend2 report called “State of Digital Marketing – Benchmarks for Success,” showed that 61 percent of marketers feel email is the most effective marketing technique. Only 23 percent felt that it was the most challenging tactic to effectively execute.

That said, 38 percent of marketers felt mobile marketing was the most challenging to execute. Still, its effectiveness appears to have made the challenge worthwhile considering the rising number of mobile commerce apps being produced.

This new opt-in feature is designed to boost security while decreasing the number of card declines.

U.S. Bank announced the adoption of geolocation technology to help improve the security of payment transactions for travelers. The idea is that a shopper can use his or her mobile phone to confirm his or her identity when using a credit card.

If a credit card purchase is made at a different location from that of the mobile device, it will be declined.

The concept of this use of geolocation technology is to stop transaction declines from happening unnecessarily. Instead, a traveler’s identity will be further confirmed by the presence of his or her mobile phone in the same location as the transaction. In this way, it stops a person who has stolen the card from being able to successfully complete a transaction. After all, if they grab the card – or card info – and run, they will be too far away from the actual cardholder to use it.

This avoids the dreaded auto-decline message some travelers get when they try to make a purchase that is out of sync with their typical buying patterns. That said, it’s important to note that this geolocation service is opt-in. It is not being automatically implemented for all U.S. Bank issued Visa cards.

Furthermore, this geolocation technology service is activated only by cardholders who are traveling.

Purchases made closer to home will not qualify for this additional mobile security component for credit card transactions. The fraud prevention program is being released in waves.

According to U.S. Bank’s Retail Payment Solutions division senior vice president and head of product and marketing, Clifford Cook, “We’ve all experienced that embarrassing moment when your credit card is declined at dinner while on vacation because the bank thinks you should be at home in Minneapolis, but you’re eating dinner in Seattle.” Cook explained that “When your phone is on and you’ve opted-in for geolocation, U.S. Bank can validate that the expense is legitimate and avoid customer frustration.”

To start, U.S. Bank FlexPerks Visa cardholders will be able to opt into the geolocation technology program when they travel. All they need to do is activate the feature using the FlexPerks mobile app.