Advertisers are always looking for the next best website, search engine, or mobile app to advertise on. Of course, the big thing now is social media, whether it be on desktop platforms or mobile. Social network mobile apps are popping up with big numbers in the advertising world, and they bring in quite a bit of success. There are still some smartphone users, however, that cannot be reached through social apps. Therefore, there are other valuable apps worth considering, and according to Nielsen, a global marketing news and report site, most consumers do their shopping online. More specifically, these consumers are starting to use shopping apps on smartphones to get most of their shopping done.
Nielsen’s report that they released yesterday states that about 47% of smartphone owners in the U.S. used at least one shopping app in the month of June 2012. That totals out to about 45 million smartphone users that use apps in the Shopping/Commerce category. These consumers that use the shopping apps averaged about 17 uses each for the entire month. These numbers can’t be compared to the everyday use of social apps, but they are impressive numbers in the wide scheme of smartphone apps.
These shopping apps can include anything from daily deal apps like Groupon and LivingSocial to bidding apps like eBay Mobile. In fact, Nielsen provides a list of the top ten shopping apps in consumer use for June of 2012. Topping the list is eBay Mobile with a unique audience of over 13 million. The average time spend on the app was 1 minute and 4 seconds. After eBay, the list includes Amazon Mobile at over 12 million, Groupon, Shopkick, LivingSocial, Walgreens, Target, RedLaser, Out of Milk Shopping List, and at number ten was SavingStar Grocery eCoupons with about 1.5 million. As can be seen, these are all different types of shopping apps, but they all share the same category in the app store.
Ever since smartphones became the majority in mobile devices, certain apps have grown faster than others in the advertising industry. As social networks have been at the top for a while now, advertisers are starting to trickle down to other apps that could bring them results in areas that social apps could not. With shopping apps, consumers can be reached directly while they are already in the act of purchasing items or looking for deals.
The director of Telecom Insights at Nielsen, Don Kellogg states,
As more Americans use their smartphones while shopping and making purchases directly through apps, retailers should consider personalizing their targeted offerings around the needs of individual consumers.
Shopping apps won’t pave a new road over social apps by any means, but they could be better for targeting consumers when it counts. If consumers are already ready to buy, then there is probably a better chance of them clicking on an ad that may offer something better than what they are already interested in. Since close to half of U.S. smartphone users are on these apps, there’s a good chance that they’re worth a shot.
