Summary: New report shows that many businesses are also failing to integrate mobile into their overall marketing mix

Only a handful of firms have developed a mobile marketing strategy in a bid to boost interaction with customers, a new report has found.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has revealed that just 16 per cent of 250 global marketers surveyed have looked at how they could use mobile to better serve customers and improve their bottom line.

The Engage at Every Stage report, which analysed the mobile marketing campaigns run by major brands including Coca-Cola, JP Morgan Chase and Unilever, did suggest that firms will take mobile marketing more seriously in the future. Just 14 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the way that their brands are using mobile, while 43 per cent were unsatisfied with their firm’s current mobile efforts. The remainder are still evaluating their mobile performance.

It appears that businesses are being hindered in their attempts to embrace mobile by a lack of budget and resources, with around half of the respondents who are unsatisfied with their mobile pointing to a lack of talented staff and funds as reasons they are unable to facilitate their mobile initiatives.

The study, which was obtained by Mobile Marketer and sponsored by Pandora and FunMobility, also showed that marketers are still only using mobile for individual campaigns, rather than being integrated into firm’s overall marketing mix. Just over a third (37 per cent) of respondents have used mobile to promote offers, while 18 per cent used the platform to allow customers to make transactions and the same proportion used it to either activate or acquire customers.

Marketers are also placing too much emphasis on hard figures to gauge the success of their mobile campaigns, according to the research. For example, a third of marketers said that they would measure the impact of their mobile initiatives by looking at the number of app downloads, while a quarter said that they would look at transaction volumes.

Other ways in which businesses rated the success of campaigns included user feedback, repeat custom and brand distinction.

Donovan Neale-May, founder and executive director of the CMO Council, told the Mobile Marketer website: “Mobile spend should be an integral part and extension of all marketing and customer relationship investments including customer help, service and support, advertising and custom content delivery, web site interactions, word of mouth and search optimization, loyalty and rewards program management, feedback and insight gathering, point-of-sale merchandising and shopper marketing as well as campaign performance measurement.

“There is no set percentage in our view as this should be embedded in all infrastructure, process and campaign spend.”

Mr Neale-May added that mobile investments need to be tracked and evaluated based on “value, response, impact, cost and conversion”.

“More importantly, the mobile channel offers a powerful mechanism for serving customers with alerts, notifications, advisories, updates, bulletins and advisories that increase brand reliance and affinity,” he stated.

Other key findings of the report included the fact that half of businesses ranked messaging and communication as key parts of a mobile campaign, while a third said the same of social media interactions.

Personalisation was also deemed to be a crucial aspect of future mobile campaigns, with just under half of marketers noting that mobile is an ideal platform in which to run tailored promotions.

Summary: New report shows that mobile advertising budgets increased by 132 per cent in the first half of the year to reach £181.5 million

Firms across the UK significantly increased the amount they spent on mobile advertising during the first half of 2012, a new report has revealed.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK found that overall digital advertising spend increased 12.6 per cent to a record of £2.59 billion in the first six months of 2012 compared with the same period last year, with mobile the primary driver behind the growth.

According to the research, mobile advertising budgets increased by 132 per cent in the first half of the year to reach £181.5 million as businesses across the country looked to capitalise on the growing popularity of mobile devices.

Spending on SMS, MMS, display and video advertising on mobile devices surged by 91 per cent to reach a total of £49.9 million, while investment in mobile search increased by 152 per cent to £131.6 million.

Alex Kozloff, senior mobile manager at the IAB UK, told Mobile Marketer: “The biggest news was the huge growth that mobile saw, which was up 132 percent, outperforming most other media.

“In the first half 2011, mobile made up two percent of digital ad spend and in 2012, it was up to seven per cent – that is great news for mobile.

“What surprised me was that every single format saw significant growth. One that really stands out was mobile video – it started from a relatively small base in 2011 and is up to £1.7 million in the first half of 2012.”

The report shows that firms have opted to increase their mobile marketing budgets in response to the proliferation of smartphones, with figures showing that 58 per cent of Britons owned a smartphone as of June 2012. Businesses also began to shift their marketing spend to tablets, with ad spend on the devices reaching £2.4 million in the first half of 2012.

There is still significant room for growth in mobile advertising spend, with IAB noting that 60 per cent of the UK’s 100 leading advertisers have yet to create a mobile-optimised web site. With data showing that consumers spend around 70 per cent longer on sites which are optimised for mobile, the rewards for those who develop mobile-specific sites are obvious.

“There is still potential for growth in mobile marketing,” Ms Kozloff said. “We are at about 60 percent smartphone penetration in the UK – that highlights a gap in consumer usage versus marketing spend so there is definitely potential to grow.

“All the formats are growing so it is not enough to just do mobile search anymore. It is important to have a presence on mobile because consumers are using these devices heavily.”

Other findings from the report show that those in the consumer goods and finance industries spend the most on digital display advertising, with consumer goods advertisers increasing their spend on all digital channels. The report claims that businesses in the consumer goods industry did this as they realised how they can promote their brand online and on mobile platforms.

Furthermore, the report sheds light on internet download speeds with the average British household’s broadband speed now 9MB.  Social media advertising is also likely to surge in the coming months, with the report showing that one fifth of all internet time is spent on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

New report shows that SMS will continue to be the main messaging platform over the next five years despite figures showing 83 billion Rich Communication Suite mobile messages will be sent in 2017

SMS is set to remain the king of mobile messaging despite the rising popularity of Rich Communication Suite (RCS) mobile messages, a new report has found.

The study, published by Juniper Research, forecast that 83 billion RCS mobile messages – a standard which can improve instant messaging with images, media, and file transfers – will be sent by 2017.

However, although more and more of these RCS mobile messages are set to be sent over the next four years, they will still only account for less than one per cent of total messaging traffic in 2017 as SMS and more established web services such as instant messaging, email and social messaging make up the remainder. Overall, mobile messaging traffic will nearly double to 28.2 trillion per annum by 2017, up from the 14.7 trillion messages sent this year.

Joyn, an application which allows users to combine talk and chat services as well as share videos, photos and files, has been the biggest driver behind the growth of RCS messaging. Operators across the world, particularly in Spain, have been signing up for Joyn’s services but there still remains a number of obstacles to its growth.

For example, RCS messaging is still in its infancy, with Joyn’s services only set to be five years-old by 2017. When one considers that it took SMS around 30 years to establish its position as the leading mobile messaging platform, it is likely to take many more years for RCS messaging to take its place.

Moreover, the use of RCS messaging is likely to be severely restricted in emerging countries where the majority of consumers have basic phones which are not compatible with the new technology.

Dr Windsor Holden, the report’s co-author, urged Joyn to do all they can to ensure that their service is available on a wider range of phones in the future to help spread RCS messaging services.

He said: “While nine of the ten handset manufacturers are pre-installing the Joyn app on smartphones, more work needs to be done to get chat services onto feature phones.”

Overall, the report found that SMS traffic will still account for the largest amount of messaging traffic as mobile phone users continue to react positively to its reach, ease-of-use and reliability. Juniper Research also predicted that social media messaging and email will also help further the growth of IP messaging.

With SMS set to be widely used by companies for the foreseeable future, it is important that businesses follow regulations and ensure that they do not foul of industry watchdogs.

Amazecell Trivia, a premium rate shortcode company, was fined £300,000 recently for breaching the PhonePayPlus Code of Practice, reports Mobile Marketing Magazine.

A total of 127 complaints were made to PhonePayPlus after Amazecell Trivia was found to have misled customers into signing up for their service, which sent trivia questions to consumers at the cost of £5 per text with the promise of the chance to win an iPhone or iPad.

Complainants were directed to the service by promotions on websites, including surveys on Facebook, which entered them into the costly trivia game without their knowledge.

New report shows that revenue from mobile ads surged by 95 per cent in the first half of 2012

Mobile advertising revenue in the US reached a record $1.2 billion (£742 million) in the first half of 2012, a new report has found.

The study, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the Interactive Advertising Bureau , found that revenue from mobile ads surged by 95 per cent compared to the first six months of 2011.

It means that mobile now accounts for seven per cent of all internet advertising revenue, which climbed from $14.9 billion in the first half of 2011 to a record high of $17 billion for the same period this year.

Mobile was one of the chief contributors to the rise in internet advertising revenue as the medium was the fastest growing ad platform in the study. Its rapid growth shows no signs of abating either, with figures for the second quarter of 2012 showing that mobile accounted for eight per cent of all web ad revenue.

“The tremendous growth of mobile advertising revenue over the past year is an indication of the importance of location to advertisers and mobility to consumers,” said David Silverman, a partner at PwC’s US division.

“Bringing the power of the internet to mobile devices has opened up a world of possibilities to both consumers and marketers.”

As revenue surged, the amount of data traffic in the US also rocketed.

A study from the CTIA – The Wireless Association found that Americans used more than 1.1 trillion megabytes of data between July 2011 and June 2012, an increase of 104 per cent over the previous 12 months.

This growth in data use can largely be attributed to the proliferation of smartphones during this period, with 131 million, or 41 per cent, of wireless subscriber connections in the US found to be smartphones as of June 2012. The number of tablets also increased to 22 million, meaning they now make up 17 per cent of all wireless connections.

Furthermore, there was almost a ten per cent rise in the number of prepaid contracts in 2012, from 68.4 million to 74.9 million, meaning that that they now account for 23.3 per cent of US wireless subscribers.

Despite the fact many consumers are using more voice, data and text than ever before, the average monthly bill fell $0.07 to $47.16 per month.  These figures highlight the growing clamour for more mobile data in the US, as well as the need for providers to create more spectrum to satisfy these demands.

Steve Largent, president and chief executive of CTIA, attributed the fall in bills to the growing competitiveness between those in the wireless industry.

He said: “Thanks to the fiercely competitive wireless industry, consumers have a variety of choices from which provider to contract or prepaid plans to devices.

“With the persistent increase in usage, this survey is another proof point for why our members need more spectrum to meet consumer demands. We appreciate the FCC’s NPRM on the incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum and hope that its brought to market quickly so that our members may continue to innovate and invest in our nation’s economy.”