Tag: mobile commerce apps

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.

Application developers felt that providing consumers with a smooth experience was by far the most important consideration.

Adding a mobile commerce experience to apps has given developers a whole new way to monetize their products. Now, they aren’t simply reliant upon the purchase price of the application to make money. Furthermore, enabling ads is also not the only route available to them, particularly when offering a free app.

That said, the choice to include an m-commerce checkout option also comes with several additional decisions.

For the vast majority of app developers, providing a smooth and seamless mobile commerce experience is the highest priority. They strive to provide the consumer with a frictionless experience. The hope is to add to the experience for the user, instead of detracting from it. This, according to The Evolving State of Mobile Commerce study by VisionMobile.

That research provided insight based on the participation of 1,986 app developers. These developers all used the VisionMobile platform for the m-commerce component of their apps.

The mobile commerce experience survey revealed that there are certain strategies that most developers have in common.

Among the respondents, 53 percent said they used app-store billing. This made it by far the most popular among the mobile payments options available. Geography played a role in the most popular billing methods. In emerging markets, operator billing – also known as carrier billing – were most common. This was because those are markets in which it is not commonplace to have credit cards. Thirty three percent of app developers in Africa and the Middle East used that form of payment method for their mobile commerce apps.

The survey revealed that there are three main considerations for app developers when choosing m-commerce payment methods. Those considerations were:

• Seamless and frictionless user experience – easily the most important factor, taking a top priority by 66 percent of respondents. In fact 53 percent said smooth mobile commerce experience was more important than cost.
• Security and the ability to prove it – they need to be able to enable secure payments and show that to consumers.
• Capabilities for international expansion – apps need the potential to grow beyond specific borders or regions.