For Q4 shopping is projected to grow 15% to generate $61 billion in online revenue.
Mobile commerce, or M-Commerce is predicted to make up 16 percent of all e-commerce sales for 2013, totaling over $42 billion.
Check out the Q4 Ecommerce Strategy Series for Q4 holiday ecommerce tutorials:
8 Ways To Get More Revenue With Your Google Shopping Data Feed This Holiday
Q4 Ecommerce Strategy Checklist
Google Holiday Tips
Q4 Lessons For 2013 [Infographic]
Q4 Sales & Shipping Tips
Q4 Fulfillment tips
11 Places to Earn More This Q4 With Mobile Commerce
Q4 Social Strategy
Mobile commerce, or M-Commerce is predicted to make up 16 percent of all e-commerce sales for 2013, totaling over $42 billion.
Your site should be set up for mobile integration, and optimized to get the most out of your mobile traffic.
Q4 Ecommerce Strategy: Mobile Commerce Tips For Online Retailers
Here are some tips to help you get the most out of mobile commerce this holiday season:
1. Segment Mobile Traffic in Google Analytics
Over 1.2 billion individuals access the web using a mobile device
Mobile shopping behavior differs significantly from ecommerce. Mobile shoppers have different needs and behaviors which you should consider when creating your mobile commerce campaign.
Delve into Google Analytics (or mobile integrated Analytics site) to determine what your mobile visitors look like:
- What do you want to get out of mobile? Create a mobile campaign goal.
- How much mobile traffic does your website get? Is your website missing out on mobile? Why or why not?
- How long are your mobile customers on your site? Segment your mobile user audiences based on visitor frequency, and purchase type to tailor your mobile ads for different personas.
- What devices are your mobile customers using? Use the most popular device to base your mobile campaign on. Remember that your mobile visitors are using different devices. Here is a look at Q3 2011 smartphone sales based on device type to give you an idea of that traffic (source DeviceAtlas):
2. Determine Mobile User Engagement
It’s likely you have a potential for mobile traffic if you aren’t seeing any current mobile visits. Smartphone use doubled for 2013, accounting for roughly 25% of website traffic:
- Use your Analytics insight to determine which mobile shoppers are your existing buyers, and segment your traffic to pay more for those users. Segment out traffic which doesn’t convert and bid lower there. If you can, identify groups which are similar to your core converting customers and create campaigns specific to them.
3. Rank on Google with Mobile SEO
With Google’s latest algorithm update hummingbird, Google search results are tailored to verbal search. Mobile searches and purchases are on the rise, forward thinking merchants and SEOs are taking advantage of that traffic.
Here are introductory mobile SEO steps:
- Test your mobile website performance on a tool like mobitest.
- Outline mobile keywords in Analytics to tailor your mobile Ads
- Determine what mobile keywords you aren’t ranking for which relate to your site and or products
- Optimize titles, meta descriptions, and page content for mobile keywords
- Limit titles and descriptions characters for mobile screen size (60-100 characters)
- Tailor URLs and content based on URLs, and responsive design
4. Be Aware of Mobile Bounce Rate
Source: Slideshare
22% of mobile shoppers would buy from a competitor’s website after experiencing website issues and 20% would abandon the purchase all together.
Mobile shoppers are more likely to bounce from a page which is difficult to use, which doesn’t size to their device, or which has too complicated navigation,etc.
Econsultancy concluded that 62% of companies that designed a website specifically for mobile use had increased sales.
- Make sure your mobile website is simple, and easy for shoppers to use
- Ensure you website renders properly for the majority of your mobile visitors: Consider using a flexible grid, flexible images and CSS media queries as part of your responsive mobile design, and or server-side adaptation
- Reflect your ecommerce website design in your mobile site for a fluid shopping experience
5. Make Mobile Checkout Easy
Here are 5 of the major reasons mobile users abandon the checkout process:
1. Site is too complicated
- Make sure you mobile site design is easy to use (see point 4)
2. Product is too expensive
- Do competitor pricing research for mobile ads and search.
- Consider featuring sales specific to mobile users or mobile ads
3. Prefer to shop on other device
- Cross sell products on your website
- Make it easy for mobile users to come back to your website on another device with retargeting and branding
4. Never heard of service offering
- Consider expanding your company and product branding
5. Shopper doesn’t feel secure
- Feature a secure site
- Display secure site icons to alleviate shopper barriers
- Verify your SSL certificate is up to date
6. Payment is too complex, payment features not available
- use secure payment methods such as Google Wallet or Paypal
Mobile checkout tips:
- make sure your checkout page is easy to understand and brief for a quick chekcout
- Think about payment screen pre-fills with exisiting client information content
- Minimize checkout steps
- Don’t show any offers which will remove someone from checkout before compeltion
- A/B test checkout pages to verify which buttons and steps are hurting or helping conversions
6. Mobile Load Time
64% of smartphone users expect websites to load in 4 seconds or less, which is twice the average mobile site load time
Mobile site load time is an important factor for both your mobile website navigation and checkout page. Nothing sends a mobile shopper away quicker than a page that loads too slowly.
- Use Google PageSpeed Insights to test your mobile site speed, or sites like Mobitest
- Remember site speed is also an indicator to Google, and can affect the SEO for your mobile site. Matt Cutt’s talked about this recently for Google search.
- Consider mobile site bandwitdth in context of where users may be accessing your site. Are your users in urban areas with a lot of wireless use? Are they accessing your site during peak traffic hours of the day?
7. Get Social with Mobile
76% of mobile users access media or networking sites with their smartphone
Smart phones and mobile devices are at their core communication devices. They are inherently social.
- Encourage mobile visitors to share product information
- Make it easy to share on your mobile site with one touch social posting
- Actively participate on social sites with high mobile use like Pinterest, Instagram,and Facebook
- Incentivize socila shares with deals, discounts and sweepstakes
8. Use Mobile Specific Deals
Mobile customers like sales and promotions just as much as ecommerce visitors.
- Feature daily deals, limited time product discounts, or flash sales specific to mobile shoppers
- Highlight mobile sales for big sales days, particularly for the Holiday season including Gray Thursday (Thanksgiving),black Friday, and Cyber Monday. This year there are 26 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas (compared to last year’s 32), so these are increasingly important.
9. Utilize Mobile Marketing
Shoppers using smartphones and mobile devices are familiar with the mobile experience. Utilize promotions and a sales experience which relates to their mobile activities.
- Use SMS marketing to push sales or engage cart abandoners
- Feature QR codes for sales and promotions
- Showcase mobile apps
- Use mobile for email marketing campaigns (36% of all email opens happen on mobile)
10. Go Local for Mobile
88% of smartphone users access local information on their device
Google recently updated their maps feature to promote retailer promotions.
- Sign up for Google maps offers
- Tailor your Product Listing Ads and AdWords ads for local searches
11. Remember Cross Device Purchases
90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal
In the end a lot of mobile shoppers may end up making a purchase on your website or using another device such as a tablet. Make it easy for shoppers to access you brand and products regardless of device, and easy to make a purchase wherever they are.
