Earlier today Google has published a post on multi-channel attribution, where among other things they’ve pointed out:
We’re …seeing channels like mobile grow tremendously. For instance, mobile is now 8% of all conversions that we’re seeing in Google Analytics, and mobile conversions have grown by about 180% in just the last year.
Being a fervent believer in the future of mobile commerce, I tweeting the above stats; and received an immediate reply from an old-time affiliate marketing friend, Richard Gaskin of Fourth World Systems. Here’s our mini-coversation:
@ePrussakov The shocking thing is the number of sites that have no mobile-formatted content.
— Richard Gaskin (@FourthWorldSys) May 14, 2012
I agree, it is shocking. However, an even more enlightening fact to me is that, apparently, 81.5% of smartphone users find mobile apps more engaging than websites.
A week ago comScore published the following data:
| Top Smartphone Properties by Total Unique Visitors (Mobile Browser and App Audience Combined) March 2012 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM Platforms Source: comScore Mobile Metrix 2.0 |
||||
| Audience | Engagement | |||
| Total Unique Visitors (000) | % Reach | Browser % Share of Total Time Spent | App % Share of Total Time Spent | |
| Total Audience (Browsing and Application combined) | 97,007 | 100.0% | 18.5% | 81.5% |
| Google Sites | 93,954 | 96.9% | 18.9% | 81.1% |
| 78,002 | 80.4% | 20.0% | 80.0% | |
| Yahoo! Sites | 66,185 | 68.2% | 25.3% | 74.7% |
| Amazon Sites | 44,028 | 45.4% | 14.3% | 85.7% |
| Wikimedia Foundation Sites | 39,073 | 40.3% | 99.8% | 0.2% |
| Apple Inc. | 38,309 | 39.5% | 0.3% | 99.7% |
| Cooliris, Inc | 28,543 | 29.4% | 0.0% | 100.0% |
| AOL, Inc. | 28,021 | 28.9% | 47.4% | 52.6% |
| eBay | 27,190 | 28.0% | 17.6% | 82.4% |
| Zynga | 26,619 | 27.4% | 0.4% | 99.6% |
| 25,593 | 26.4% | 3.5% | 96.5% | |
| Rovio (Angry Birds) | 25,057 | 25.8% | 3.7% | 96.3% |
| Weather Channel, The | 24,131 | 24.9% | 47.1% | 52.9% |
| Microsoft Sites | 23,938 | 24.7% | 82.1% | 17.9% |
| ESPN | 23,317 | 24.0% | 56.8% | 43.2% |
However dated, here’s another interesting piece the puzzle: about a year ago Kony Solutions reported that they were “seeing over 30% higher conversion for iPhone native app customers vs. mobile web customers” [source, emphasis mine].
Does your business have a mobile app yet? Or at least a mobile website [some guidelines here]?