Mobile Site Health Is Conversion Critical

As Web browsing continues to move to the smartphone, digital marketers will need to make changes in the capabilities of its brand websites to make it easier for consumers to make purchases from their mobile phones.  Failure to address this will likely produce falling click-through rates (CTR) and rising cost per clicks (CPCs), according to a recent research report published by Adobe Systems.

Today, a greater portion of Google's search ad business depends on mobile clicks. In the second quarter of 2015, the Adobe Digital Index (ADI) estimates the worth of a mobile click at 37% less compared with a desktop click, an improvement of 7 percent from the first quarter of 2015.

Brands that did not address mobile Web strategies after Google said it would update its algorithm in late April lost 10 percent of organic mobile traffic, compared with the prior year according to the report.

The challenge for Digital rainmakers becomes earning the revenue per visit from mobile that they get from desktop visits. If mobile sites are not optimized, in 18 months when the industry is expected to see more mobile visits from smartphones than desktops, retailers stand to suffer because of lower online sales conversion rates.

Let Smartphone Cool Off And Enjoy Ride

One of the best ways to avoid the temptation to text while you drive is to let your smartphone literally cool off. Today’s smartphones are powerhouses constantly running smart apps and processing unlimited amounts of data and just like our cars, they need cooling to avoid dangerous overheating. Overheating can result in lower battery life, slow processing speeds and can eventually lead to damaging your smartphone.

Chevrolet engineers have developed a solution, currently available on the 2016 Impala and Malibu that will help cool smartphones while they’re charging in a wireless charging bin. The new system, known as the Active Phone Cooling, features a ventilation process directed towards the wireless charging bin, using the car’s HVAC system to cool the smartphone. 

The Active Phone Cooling system will also debut on the 2016 Volt and Cruze models. So now drivers have a perfectly logical, efficient and product protecting rationale to do just one thing when they get in their cars – drive.

Cross A Boundary, Get A Text

While savvy marketers have been using geotargeted strategies for years, they might be surprised about the many ways they can fine tune and better pinpoint marketing efforts with “goefencing” tactics.

Geofencing adds an interesting weapon to the digital marketer’s arsenal, capable of making a serious impact on competitors in a local market tug of war for customers. The tool lets digital marketers identify prospects’ locations, using GPS or RFID to tailor customized texts and emails. A marketer can track its prospects’ location either by the use of a downloaded, branded app on the smartphone or via software that is capable of identifying location based on the customers’ visit to the brand’s website.

Geofencing helps retailers create virtual targeting boundaries

A marketer can also deploy an unlimited number of tactical executions using geofencing. It could deploy a defensive strategy to ward off competitors’ attempts to siphon off their existing customers or it can use the strategy to conquest new prospects.

For example, a local retailer who is using a geofencing platform, like Cloud Engage, can draw a virtual fence around a competitors’ location so that each time a user crosses the virtual boundary he or she can be served up an incentive promotional text aimed at steering the prospect to the marketing retailer’s establishment instead.

Not only can the marketer trigger a text when the prospect enters the virtual fence, but he or she can also customize the message based on a weekly or daily merchandising offer and/or a specific demographic, such as seniors visiting the website or using the app who have been identified as living in a retirement community area.

After several years of mobile check-ins, geofencing appears to be taking location-based marketing to the next level.