Everyone agrees that mobile ecommerce will continue to grow. Mobile commerce will account for much larger percent of sales in 4Q 2011 than it did in 4Q 2010, no doubt.  But for growing buisnesses that have lots of marketing (and technology) needs, how do you know when it’s the right time to spend limited resources on creating a mobile platform?

In Google Analytics, you can review traffic and sales from mobile devices. The critical factor is making sure to account for iPads. For many businesses, iPads make up a large percent of what Google considers sales from mobile devices. But the thing is, while iPads are definitely mobile… they aren’t technically considered mcommerce because you can shop a  website as though you were on your regular laptop. The experience is the same. So, it’s not like trying to navigate a site on an Android, Blackberry, iPhone or other smartphone where the user really needs either an App or a slimmed down site that’s easier to navigate on a handheld device.

To get a true sense of revenue from mcommerce, you have to pull out iPad traffic and sales. Once you look at those numbers from 2010, triple or quadruple them for 2011. Then you’ll have an idea of how much traffic you can expect, and the kind of revenue it may generate. In looking at the estimated increase in traffic, would your revenue increase appreciably if you provided those users with a true moble experience? What if a better mobile experience doubled your conversion rates? Is that enough to justify the investment?

Once you’ve done this quick overview, you can get a sense of revenue from mobile and you may decide it’s worth the investment now. Or you may decide that for the remainder of 2011, you want to focus on growing sales for the website as is and that mobile might need to wait another year.

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Ecommerce, ecommerce reporting, Google Analytics, mcommerce, usability

ComScore is reporting that during this holiday season:
The use of work computers has gone up (2.3%), home computer use has gone down (.9%) ….. but more people are actually making their purchases at night (presumably on the home computer).

What’s this mean?
That people are picking out what they want to buy while at work, during the day.
Then they’re going home and buying.

Why’s this important?
Because that will greatly affect direct conversions reported because they’re finding what they want through one computer, and making the purchase on another. So, no cookie.

We’ve been banging the direct conversion drum for so long, it’s getting worn out.

Direct Conversions are not a completely accurate portrayal of purchasing behavior.
It’s so important that marketers know that the effect their SEM efforts have on sales has always been under-reported, and  is even more under-reported now.

By SEM I mean both pay-per-click and organic rankings too. People find products under generic searches at work (like say, men’s argyle sweater). Once they’ve found what they  like, at night when they’re home  they go right to the site (or search for the brand that they liked) and purchase.

They make the purchase on a different computer, which means there’s no trail.

Reporting statistics can only be given so much weight. They shouldn’t be considered an exact measurement of what’s going on.

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing AdWords, direct conversions, ecommerce reporting, holiday ecommerce report, holiday sales, organic rankings