How to get the most out of mobile marketing

Marketing group Nielsen estimates that going mobile will extend the audience reach of many internet sites by an average of 13 per cent. To get their hands on this ever-growing market, search providers are introducing applications and services, and opening up new possibilities to market on a personal level.

Recently, Yahoo! unveiled One Connect, a social networking site for the mobile web. Meanwhile, Google is developing a platform called Android, which it claims will revolutionise the mobile web market and the way ads are served on devices.

For marketers looking to use mobile web browsers, it is critical that their offering is presented in a practical, consumable way. For media-driven sites such as Disney.co.uk, this is a straightforward proposition - making a 'snack-sized' portal that balances advertising with content. Retailers have been more cautious, given the difficulty in displaying sufficient quantities of information to encourage a purchase.

But, unlike the fixed internet, the mobile web has no established models by which to measure success or failure, which makes it difficult to justify its slice of the marketing budget. It is therefore important for marketers to start to obtain a view of how their customers are interacting with their brand over this channel. Are visitors viewing more than one page on the site? Are their browsers capable of handling video? What screen size do most visitors use?

Successful web marketers have long used metrics and segmentation techniques to optimise sites. Mobile internet marketers must apply these same techniques.

Web analytics data can help when it comes to understanding which browsers visitors use, what time of day they accessed the site and when is the best time to bid for keywords.

Initial adopters of mobile internet sites found that the pathing (the route the visitor takes through a portal before leaving it or buying something) is considerably shorter than for conventional websites. Understanding this, the web developer can produce shorter conversion funnels.

Appreciating which phones support which video formats can also help companies understand the most effective formats in which to distribute content. Apple's iPhone will only support MPEG-4 files, while the newer BlackBerrys are compatible with most formats.

The mobile internet is reaching critical mass. Digital marketers need to understand its value and how to communicate with visitors accessing their sites with handheld devices. Maximising its potential begins with analytics, and using the lessons of the internet will help us understand how to deliver value.

Neil Morgan, vice-president of marketing at Omniture

POWER POINTS
- Going mobile will extend the reach of many internet sites
- Shorter conversion funnels are needed in the mobile internet
- Analytics can help brands to understand consumer behaviour

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