Ben Davis says, “Payment impacts customer experience more than anything else. In fact it’s easy to reel off examples of payment scuppering a deal altogether – the kebab shop that doesn’t take card, the mobile-unfriendly online checkout, the voucher which is suddenly no longer valid. But payment has also improved many experiences – contactless payment has smoothed the flow of commuters on the London Underground, and PayPal has long since made eBay a safe place to shop. Let’s look at payment now, as well as looking forward a few years to innovations by Google,... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Since the end of the last decade, responsive web design (RWD) has been a popular way for marketers to minimize the amount of website modification they have to do for multiple screens. In responsive web design, a single website is automatically scaled for different screen sizes through proportion-based page grids. But mobile users are becoming pickier about mobile website performance, and this pickiness has been a driver of the increasing use of ad blockers. Even though RWD images are resized for the screen, Akamai Technologies’ Senior Product Marketing Manager Anthony... [...]

Jessica Langdorf & Doreen Saxby says, “Over two-thirds of Americans now possess a mobile phone, and we use it for just about anything and everything, multiple times per day. And we’ve all heard those reports that shock us with the extent of our mobile obsession, suggesting that people are willing to give up beloved vices like chocolate rather than give up their phone. So knowing the significance of the mobile phone to our everyday lives, and quite frankly our personal identity, how can brands effectively master communications with customers in a way that achieves results—in a... [...]

Janis Zech says, “By now you’ve heard of — if not played — Pokémon Go. You’ve also heard about how the game keeps shattering download records (with 75 million and counting) and revenue since its launch barely a month ago. Pokémon Go has overtaken breakout mobile hits such as Color Switch to global juggernauts such as Supercell’s Clash Royale. And while the game is definitely prompting mobile developers to re-examine location-based gameplay, Niantic’s hit may have an even greater effect on how we buy and sell mobile ads. The online to offline connection Data and scale... [...]

Andrew Gazdecki says, “As more and more consumers begin to rely on their mobile devices for personal and business use, instead of a more traditional means like a desktop computer, the need for a mobile app is rapidly growing. With 2015 being dubbed the Year of the Mobile, small businesses without a mobile app planned for the future will continue to fall farther and farther behind. There’s typically only one reason that is causing these businesses to continue to hold out: money. The Cost of a Mobile App About a year and a half ago, a survey of a number of leading mobile app developers was... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “According to official Google statements, more than 50 percent of search queries globally now come from mobile devices. But we don’t know whether the number is 51 percent or 60 percent, or if it varies significantly by country. A recent report from Hitwise (registration required) argues that in the US mobile search is roughly 58 percent of overall search query volume. That’s based on an average of 11 key categories and associated queries analyzed by Hitwise in its “Mobile Search: Topics and Themes” report. The company “examined hundreds of millions of online... [...]

Aaron Strout says, “At least once a year, I like to step back from the mobile industry to provide some context as to what is happening and, more importantly, why it’s happening. It’s also important to know what these statistics mean to marketers. As a marketer myself, I find that having additional context about the landscape can be helpful. To that end, let’s look at the bigger picture, starting with our global population. There are currently 7.3 billion people on the planet Earth. Of those, over 40 percent, or just over 3.4 billion, are online. What’s astounding is that fact that... [...]

Jennifer Wise says, “Mobile search is essential. In fact, according to Forrester’s Mobile Audience Data, Q4 2015, 87% of US smartphone owners rely on browser-based search on mobile devices. And the data reveals that Google’s search engine is the most common path to a mobile site even for well-known brands such as Amazon, Walmart and Kmart. As a top discovery resource, companies can’t afford to wait any longer to implement a mobile-first search strategies. The biggest seen mistake today? Either lacking a strategy completely, or treating mobile search the same way as desktop search. As... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “While mobile has become an increasing focus for digital organisations in the past few years, when it comes to executing a streamlined strategy, it appears many are still lagging behind. As the latest Econsultancy/Adobe Digital Intelligence Briefing highlights, 48% of organisations don’t have a proper plan in place. And out of the rest that do, many admit to a lack of cohesion. With this in mind, here are a few key takeaways from the research, which investigates the extent to which marketers have embraced mobile marketing and how organisations are approaching and implementing... [...]

SBT team says, “There is a tendency within the digital sphere to uphold a future-oriented mindset. From social media to SEO, from algorithms to user experience, our approach and practices maintain a forecasting nature. Trends and methods are always observed and developed with the next step in mind and the future in sight, the end goal being to evolve with complexity and instinct matching that of users. How is search behavior changing? What will users respond to? How can we improve the digital practices that already exist? In what direction is search moving, and how can we stay ahead of the... [...]