It seems that all types of digital marketing are being well-incorporated into mobile forms, and now marketers always have to consider desktop and mobile, instead of on or the other. The growth of mobile is consistently proving to be a strong force, and the future of marketing seems more and more clear each day. That said, the proof of mobile’s growth in many fields now comes in the form of a new report from Knotice, a direct digital marketing company. Their report takes a close look at numbers that the company collected during Cyber Week, which is what they have called the week from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving until Cyber Monday.
The report focuses mainly on mobile email opens during this time, and compares them year over year. In 2011, the percentage of email opens during Cyber Week that occurred on mobile devices was at about 30.50%. In 2012, the percentage for mobile email opens increased to 44.75%, which is a significant increase for a single year. When comparing these numbers to the desktop open percentages, 69.50% in 2011, and down to 55.25% in 2012, we can see that mobile could be taking a lot of the email activity away from desktops and bringing it to handheld devices.
The report also shows the overall percentage of email opens that took place on each platform in the first half of 2012. When comparing mobile’s Cyber Week percentage of 44.75% to its overall 36.01%, it is hard to see just how much mobile has improved. It seems that when it comes to shopping on the spot, mobile is the go to platform for consumers, as opening marketing emails on mobile shot up during the most popular time for shopping during the year.
As for click activity during Cyber Week, mobile again showed some great improvement year over year. For 2012, smartphones saw a click percentage of 19.40%. In 2011, smartphones saw a click percentage of 13.03%. Tablets also proved more relevant this year, with a click percentage of 11.50%. Compared to 2011, when the click percentage was only 5.54%, the increase is quite significant. Although the improvements are obvious, desktop’s numbers for 2012 were still far higher, with a click percentage of 69.10%.
It’s interesting to see the sharp climb in tablet activity, as well as the sharp drop in desktop email engagement, as reflected in “% Clicks.” However, even as email opens and click activity show steep declines on desktop when compared to the same week in 2011, it’s worth noting that click activity overall is still considerably higher on desktop as compared to mobile devices. Where some predict tablet engagement to soon overtake the traditional desktop devices, the data indicates that desktop is slipping but remains fairly solid for now. Marketers need to continue to strive to provide smooth, effective mobile experiences with device-optimized campaigns and clear calls to action. It is indeed time for adopting a “Mobile First” approach, as mentioned in previous reports.
