Mobile Marketing Means Much More Than Apps

cio.com

Most marketers are rushing to deliver mobile apps, but the mobile Web remains one of the most effective channels for sales and customer engagements.

People spend more time on their mobile devices than they do in front of their television sets, yet mobile is not as powerful an advertising medium -- at least, not yet. Mobile apps rather than the mobile Web might seem to be a better way for companies to reach customers, but the vast majority of mobile traffic and shopping doesn't come through apps.

These insights offer only a taste of a Forrester’s recent findings on mobile app marketing trends. It's vital marketers understand mobile trends when placing bets: Should you dedicate development dollars to a bunch of mobile apps or a single one? When riding the coattails of popular apps, should you tie services or drive app installs? And, more importantly, how can you seize what Forrester calls the mobile moment?

[Related: CIOs and CMOsMust Join Forces to Win Digital Consumers]

Playing the mobile app game isn't easy. For starters, Forrester says the average U.S. and U.K. mobile user has 24 apps on their device but spends more than 80 percent of his or her time on only five of them -- mostly messaging and social media, not so much gaming. Some vendor apps such as Starbucks and Nike+ Training Club do well, but the vast majority falls by the wayside.

Knowledge Is Mobile Power

Armed with this knowledge, what should marketers do?

"Forget about systematically introducing a new app for every new product or main promotional campaign you launch," says Forrester analyst Thomas Husson in the 2015 Mobile App Marketing Trends report. "Instead, focus on specific app features that drive engagement and fulfill a tangible need for users -- serving them in context in their mobile moments of need -- and, ideally, be the first app to do so."

Since only a handful of apps land on that precious mobile real estate known as the home screen, marketers might be better off advertising or partnering with one of them. Forrester says apps with huge reach will morph into open marketing platforms. (Think: Uber integrating into Google Maps.)

One of the great myths is that mobile apps rack up sales. Sure, apps can lead to upselling, cross-selling and contextual-pricing opportunities, but marketing goals need to go beyond monetization, Forrester says. A mobile app can be the engine that drives traditional marketing benefits, such as higher customer satisfaction and greater brand awareness.

[ Related: Proximity-Based Advertising Closer Than You Think ]

In marketing's rush to mobile apps, they often forget about the mobile Web. But the mobile Web remains one of the most powerful channels for sales and customer engagements and should play a role in the overall mobile marketing strategy. Unfortunately, nearly half of marketers don't have differentiated strategies for their mobile app and mobile website, Forrester says.

Living in the Mobile Moment

Marketing in the brave new world of mobility requires marketers to be on their toes. That's because the environment is always shifting. This year alone, Forrester predicts everything from app unbundling to app deep-linking to app retargeting shaking up the landscape.

While mobile marketing can seem overwhelming at times, marketers can find solace knowing that the goal is still the same: seizing the mobile moment.

"You can deliver value to customers by serving them in their micro-moments, whenever they have only a few seconds to check information or access services," Husson says.

In-App Advertising Opportunities Poised to Grow

adage.com

Fewer Mobile Users Are Willing to Pay for Apps

Mobile users prefer free, ad-supported apps, and that's creating more in-app advertising opportunities.

Despite a growing number of app users, the number of U.S. mobile users willing to pay for apps will actually decline in the next four years. About 80 million people will pay for mobile apps at least once this year, according to a new forecast from eMarketer. That represents about one-third of all mobile users.

Yet these gloomy numbers might not be bad news for marketers. Nearly 93% of smartphone users and more than 90% of tablet users will download and install apps, according to eMarketer, signaling more in-app advertising opportunities.

"I think the whole market is shifting. What's happening now is people are testing the various business models," said Cathy Boyle, senior mobile analyst at eMarketer. "More app developers are pursuing monetizing, and marketers as well as consumers are embracing it,"

With the lackluster paid app marketplace, developers have been seeking other monetizing models such as in-app advertising, subscription or in-app purchase. They are also experimenting with more sophisticated formats, Ms. Boyle said, including video ads.
Still, the effectiveness of in-app marketing has been hard to measure. Although most advertisers depend on clickthrough rate, Ms. Boyle said using this metric alone is "risky" because accidental clicks are still common among smartphone users.

Communicate to Your Mobile Users Relevantly: Use Personalization App Marketing Methods and See Your Bottom Line Grow

appdevelopermagazine.com

We all know that it is hard to get new users to try out an app. Most people have around 25 apps on their phones (depending on the information source, it is a little higher or lower, but that is a safe number to work with). It cost money, time, and more to convince someone to add your specific app to their group of apps on their device, and having done that, you need to do everything in your power to keep these people engaged and valuing your app content.

So everything you do from a communication strategy to needs to build on a positive app experience. And that means speaking to your app user’s particular needs and situation. The numbers bear this out - 52% of users enable push messaging on their mobile devices, but 54% of users convert (act upon) from a segmented push message (one that is tailored to their interests) compared to only 15% for broadcast messages.

Each of your users is different - meaning they’re not a homogenous group who will all respond positively to the same marketing message. Segmenting your audience is the single most important way you can improve the chances of a message’s relevance to a specific user. Segmentation can be as simple as separating between male and female. Age is more segmented and the advertising industry has long segmented audiences by age -12 12– 17, 18 – 24, 25 – 34, 35 – 44, 45 – 54, 55 – 64. 

The point is there are some simple standards that you can start from, however that is really only a start. Today’s devices provide so many more opportunities for segmentation with the only limits being the amount of information you can collect within the app and your imagination (and know-how) leveraging this segmentation for app marketing purposes. 

To help get the “know how” on approaching segmentation, you have to walk before you crawl. Localytics has provide the perfect primer on the theory of mobile app segmentation, how and where to gain user information, how to group similar audiences, and where to put this data into marketing action. Localytics presents this information in an eBook titled “How to Use Personalization to Create a Great App Experience.”

The publication provides practical advice on how to collect accurate and valuable data about your users, prospects, and customers. You’ll learn how to integrate user information (profile data) with user action (behavioral data). By integrating profile and behavioral data, you’ll have one unified, cross-channel database of user insights. 

With armed with this knowledge you can:

- Identify buyer personas and target audiences

- Run transactional push messages

- Create cross-channel marketing campaigns

The best thing is that this is not rocket science and it does not have to be complicated. Localytics provides information that has been proven to work for mobile apps so the learning curve is not steep, if you take the time to learn the proper approach. The publication is available on the Localytics website and can be downloaded here.

Survey reveals the growth of the multi-channel consumer

paymentscardsandmobile.com

A recent survey has revealed that consumer trust in newer payment methods has declined significantly in the last year. However, despite this lack of trust, the results also demonstrate that consumers are still increasing the breadth of channels they use to make payments.

The survey, conducted by Compass Plus in which 650 UK residents answered questions about their banking and payments habits, found that 71.3% of respondents believed mobile payments to be the least secure payment method.

The results show that whilst the number of people making mobile payments has increased, nearly double the amount of people perceive the mobile device to be the least secure when compared to the 2013 Compass Plus survey results (38%). Contactless payments with contactless cards (46.8%) remained solidly in in second place (41.7% in 2013) on the list of the perceived least secure ways to pay.

For the third consecutive year, cash was seen as the most secure (72.6%), and over the last year trust in debit and credit card payments on both the high street and over Internet increased by over 20%, in some cases doubling the respective figures from 2013. These results clearly indicate that consumers are much more trusting of payment methods they are familiar with and that this level of trust directly feeds into how they choose to pay on a day-to-day frequency.

The survey revealed that once again cash is king,  not only as the most trusted form of payment, but also as the most popular way to pay, with nearly all respondents claiming to have withdrawn cash from an ATM in the past month (95.8%). This was closely followed by using a bank card on the high street and Internet (84% and 73.3% respectively).

When the results were compared to the 2013 survey, the number of payment methods consumers had used in the previous month had increased. This illustrates that whilst the majority of consumers feel that certain payment methods are not as secure as others, when given the option they will still choose to use them if they offer convenience, though not nearly to the same frequency as the more trusted options.

“Our survey results show that regardless of industry speculation cash is still the most trusted and used payment method,” says Maria Nottingham, CEO at Compass Plus GB.

“What is really clear from these results is the growth of the multi-channel consumer. People want the choice to carry out different transactions using different channels and payment methods, making the proliferation of any one channel in the future appear unlikely. It will, however, be interesting to see the correlation between trust and convenience for the mobile channel as consumers become more educated about the security measures in place and it crosses over into the mainstream.”

Survey reveals the growth of the multi-channel consumer

An app and a dream: Are indie developers doomed to zombie ghetto?

Apple's App Store has surged and along with it the rate of "zombie" applications has tagged along, according to Adjust, a mobile app analytics company.

zdnet.com

Summary:Zombie apps proliferate on Apple's App Store and rest assured they're on Google Play too. How does a small developer market as the app economy is a huge business?

A zombie app is one that is basically invisible to users. Adjust noted that the zombie rate on the App Store was 83 percent in December compared to 74 percent in January 2014. The report should sparksome discussion about how to avoid creating a zombie app.

The Google Play store wasn't included in the Adjust report, but the zombie theme still works there too. The reality is that it's hard to discover potential hits on these stores as they surge past the 1 million app mark. There's also a connection to self published authors on Amazon and how you need to figure out marketing probably before you even start (figured this one out first hand).

In other words, a select few independents will make it. The rest are stuck in the zombie zone and creating things for non-monetary rewards. As these marketplaces swell, developers will need to put a lot more money into marketing to have any hope of being discovered.

And marketing is daunting when the top apps gobble up all the usage.

Adjust noted:

We're eager to see Apple experimenting with new ways of promoting praiseworthy apps to a broader audience. At the same time, we believe that a limited, one-size-fits-all approach is not fully extensible to a market that continues to at this pace.

The App Store is dead. As a source of organic user acquisition, it can no longer serve all the apps and all the users that flock to it. While the App Store provides a secondary method for users to find out about apps, most people look to the media, their Facebook feeds and - whether they admit so or not - increasingly toward branding and advertising. The data proves it.

Here's the buzzkill. How does any developer with an app idea and a dream not get depressed by one of those splashy ads from Machine Zone's Game of War? Let's face it: Kate Upton isn't going to plug your app and if you're lucky it will take a few years of your revenue to maybe afford her day rate.

Google and Apple will continue to note how they pay out billions to developers. And that payout is huge for the app development community. However, there needs to be some discover-ability move that will highlight the app cooked up by a kid in a garage.

Without Identity, the Internet of Things is Just Noise

business2community.com

As the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) wrapped up in Las Vegas earlier this month, one thing became abundantly clear: 2015 is going to be a big year for connected devices. From toothbrushes that can schedule check-ups with dentists to yoga mats that can analyze poses in real-time, 3,000+ companies launched more than 20,000 new products at CES this year.

Collectively referred to as the “Internet of Things” (IoT), this concept of connected devices is obviously nothing new. In fact, Gartner predicts that the number of Internet-connected devices will inflate to more than 25 billion by the year 2020.

Driven by convenience and an infatuation with previously impossible technological capabilities, consumers will continue to build their arsenals of smart gadgets. As their collections of Internet-enabled devices grow, they will look to businesses to enhance connectivity and improve user experiences. Part of advancing the user experience means creating ways for these devices to seamlessly communicate with one another.

Coffee makers that can be programmed to brew at a specific time during the day are now things of the past. The coffee maker that can communicate with a user’s mattress to sense when he or she is waking up, send an interactive push notification to the user’s phone asking which flavor is preferred, and automatically order those preferred coffee beans from Amazon when supplies are running low is the wave of the future.

With such an abundance of smart devices producing exabytes of consumer data, businesses must rethink how they will store, organize, and leverage the information. Real-time processing and analysis will become the norm, and without an infrastructure in place capable of handling large volumes of both structured and unstructured data, organizations will fall behind. So what, exactly, should IT and marketing professionals do to stay ahead of the IoT curve?

Focus On Identity

Identity is the key to unlocking the true potential of the Internet of Things.

By tying all of the data points generated from connected devices back to a user’s identity, businesses will be able to create truly personalized and lifestyle-based experiences for individual consumers. This reconciliation and attribution of data to a single consumer identity is what will enable a user’s toothbrush to successfully communicate with his or her smartphone, cloud-based calendar, and dentist’s patient scheduling portal.

Without a clear system in place to attach information to individual user records, data can become fragmented and, essentially, useless. If the data points from each device are housed in independent silos, the experience becomes disjointed and aggravating for users.

The best practice for businesses is to keep data clean, organized, and attached to a user’s identity from the very first point of connection. This process starts with registration. When a consumer first registers with a business on a connected gadget, either through traditional site registration or via a pre-existing social account, a user record needs to be created.

From this point on, the business needs to tie any action taken by the consumer from any touchpoint managed by the business back to the user record. It’s this connection with user identity that allows devices to communicate with one another in order to learn user preferences and deliver convenience.

For example, if a person purchases a Samsung smartphone, that individual is now a part of the Samsung ecosystem. If the user decides to treat his or her phone as a control center for a Samsung smart TV, remotely do laundry via a Samsung connected washing machine, or send files to Samsung wireless printer using a third-party app, he or she should be able to do so using the same login credentials created upon first entry.

All of the data points can be aggregated and relayed back to the user record, allowing the business to create unique, 1:1 experiences.

Maintain a Unified Database

In addition to ensuring all returned data points are attributed to user records, businesses must make sure they have a solution in place to securely house these records. Utilizing a dynamic-schema database with the ability to go beyond basic user attributes makes building accurate customer profiles and engaging experiences a reality for companies heavily invested in the creation of connected devices.

An advanced database that is built with a dynamic-schema can easily process massive amounts of unstructured user data in an optimized way. Customer data is automatically indexed and updated when a user takes an action the business has identified as useful. This information becomes available in an organized, easily navigable manner that enables marketers to tailor and target their efforts.

With systems in place to consolidate, organize, securely store, and access customer data, brands can bring to life the grand visions of a more connected world. As the Internet continues to evolve to include connected devices, it helps engineer the evolution of customer identity to include payment information, biometrics, and social graph data. With identity at its core, the Internet of Things can truly change our daily lives.

After all, what is the purpose of billions of smart devices if they are unable to work together to create convenience and relevance? Without identity, the Internet of Things is just noise.

Vital Metrics For Tracking Your App’s Success

developereconomics.com

Making data driven decisions is key to driving growth in your mobile app, and it’s the reason that nearly every app developer in the world integrates analytics tracking within their app. In fact, in a recent Tapdaq survey we discovered that 90% of developers have implemented a third party analytics SDK into their app.

However, we were surprised to then learn that only 5% of these developers knew what to do with the data points which they were tracking. After speaking with a large group of the developers questioned, we realised that many aren’t sure which metrics are most important, or what steps they need to take in order to improve.

As the App Store has matured, creating a chart-topping product has become a much more complex process.App analytics providers have moved with the times and now provide developers with more data than ever before on their app’s performance. In this post I am going to pick out 12 app metrics and explain why they are the most important data points when tracking your app’s success.

Acquisition

Growth of your app business starts at the user acquisition stage. Here there are several key questions which all developers ask themselves.

How many installs have I generated?

Tracking installs received as an overall figure is very easy, and all data is provided through iTunes Connect/Google Play.

How much have these downloads cost?

You have to know what your cost per install (CPI) is when paying to acquire new users to your app. If your CPI rises above the value of your user’s lifetime value (LTV), then the campaign is unprofitable and unless you are propped up by strong organic install numbers, your business is going to struggle.

Working out your cost per install on mobile ad networks is straightforward, and nearly all networks now give this figure to you up front. If you are acquiring users via cost per install ad networks then I’d recommend you test multiple platforms, providing you have a large enough budget. In an interview with KISS Metrics, Wooga’s head of marketing, Eric Seufert, said the company used 23 ad networks to get their Jelly Splash game in to the top charts of the key markets.

Where did these downloads come from?

When you see a spike in your app’s downloads, the first thing you want to know is where they came from. By using install attribution tools you can see a breakdown of all your installs by referral source, which gives you far stronger idea of which networks can send you the greatest volume of users for the lowest cost.

How high a quality are the users within my app?

This question can’t be answered immediately, but, over time, cohort analysis can help you to get a better understanding of the quality of the users within your app. Specifically, when working with multiple paid traffic sources, you can work out which platform provides you with the most real value beyond just the install itself.

For example, Ad Network A might have sent you 10,000 installs for $20,000, whereas Ad Network B sent 10,000 installs for $15,000. If looking at the CPI alone, logic would say that Ad Network B is the preferred choice here. However, using cohort analysis you may discover the users from Ad Network A have an LTV of $2.50, whereas the users from Ad Network B only have an LTV of $1.50. So, in terms of real value, Ad Network A would actually be the optimal solution.

Engagement

In mobile analytics, the fun really starts after the install. With app engagement there are multiple metrics that need to be tracked in order to paint a picture of how engaged your users really are.

Session Length

Tracking your session length is not as straight forward as it sounds. Different analytics companies have different definitions when it comes to sessions. For example, Flurry deem a session to start when an application is opened, and end when the app is terminated. By default, a session is ped as terminated if a user leaves the app for more than 10 seconds, although this logic can be changed.

In contrast, Google Analytics only consider a session to be over after 30 seconds of inactivity, although again this can be customised to any required time.

They key takeaway here is to ensure you know exactly how a session is defined within your app, as the definition does vary depending on who your analytics provider is.

Time in App

This is a marketing metric that is sometimes confused with session length, and is also often classed as a retention metric.

Where session length describes how long a user’s individual session lasts, time in app is used to define how long a user spends within an app, in total, over a given length of time. For example, a user could spend 2 hours in an app over the course of a week, and this could comprise of multiple sessions. The more time a user spends in your app on a daily basis, the better your chances are of monetising that user.

Popular Pages/Features

Understanding which pages and events are most popular in your app helps you paint a better picture of which content is most valuable to your users. More importantly, it also highlights weaknesses too. By tracking your page visits and conversion funnels you are able to see exactly where users drop out from your app, and this enables you to make data driven decisions on what content to improve in order to get more users reaching the ‘aha’ moment in your product.

Retention

It is argued that user retention is what sets apart a top grossing app from its competitors. Whilst user engagement tracks how long users spend within your app, user retention focusses on how often customers visit your app. It’s worth bearing in mind that a digital product can be a huge success, even if engagement is low, providing retention rates are high. For example, Google is a very successful tech company with sky high retention rates, yet engagement is relatively low.

Let’s take a look at the most important engagement rates you need to be tracking…

Retention Rate

User retention rate can be calculated in a number of ways. However, probably the most popular method is rolling retention (which is actually the default method used by Flurry Analytics).

To calculate this, you need to look at the proportion of users returning to your app on Day+N, or any day after that, and dividing it by the number of users who had installed your app on Day 0.

Here’s a great graphic from the Applift blog that summarises this calculation…

It’s going to be very interesting to see exactly how powerful Apple make their analytics tracking within iTunes Connect. A sneak preview has been posted on the AppTweak blog, showing a screenshot of a cohort table used for tracking retention…

Daily and Monthly Active Users

Your daily and monthly active user count is another measure of just how ‘sticky’ your app is. Over time, successful apps look to grow the gap between their daily downloads and their daily active users, and they do this by ensuring they add as much value to their customers as often as possible.

Again, both these metrics are heavily tied with engagement. The more engaging the content is within your app, the more likely it is you will retain your users. The more often you can provide them with value, the higher your DAU count will be.

Churn rate

User churn rate is a key metric to understand, particularly when you come to calculating your user lifetime value (LTV). Churn rate is the opposite to retention rate and is the measure of how many users stop using your app over a given period of time, usually a month.

Churn rate is expressed as a percentage of the number of people who could have left and it is not possible for customer churn to be 0% or lower. An example would be: If your app has 100 users, then 100 people could leave/stop using your app this month. At the end of the month, only 23 users stop using your app, so this means you have a churn rate of 23%.

Monetisation

Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

This metric is often confused with LTV, but it’s actually a far simpler data point to track. ARPU is the revenue you generate, on average, from each user of your application, and this can be calculated by simply adding up the revenue your app generates each month, and dividing it by your total number of users.

LTV

Lifetime Value, often shortened to LTV, is the measure of the revenue a customer will bring during their lifetime of using your application. In our recent Tapdaq survey, amazingly all 60 of the developers we spoke to said it was the most valuable metric in app marketing.

To calculate the LTV of one of your users there are several data points you need to know. They are:

• Customer Churn: As described above…
• Income: This includes all revenue from In-App Purchases and subscriptions, after Apple has taken their 30% cut, and any income from selling advertising space within your applications.
• Number of active users: This one’s fairly obvious, it’s the number of active users your application has. The definition of what a “user” or “active user” is will vary depending on your application and your business model. If you have a mix of active users where some generate income and some don’t, include them all. This mix will likely continue as your app grows.
• Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): As described above…

Once you have collated all the numbers above, just plug them into the equation below to discover the average LTV of your users.

Summary

There are quite a number of important metrics that you need to be tracking and improving upon in order to make your app a true success. Always be looking at the wider picture, and evaluating how each metric has an effect on one another. If your team is small, or you are an indie developer working alone, then I’d recommend starting by iterating your product with the focus on increasing engagement, retention, and your average user LTV. You don’t need to have millions of users on board in order to build a truly great mobile app. Test heavily, and make data driven decisions in order to position yourself in a place where you can start to invest in acquisition with the confidence in your product’s quality and monetisation.