Editorial Articles

The second quarter of 2011 registered a something of a blip in the growth of the mobile web, with April and May seeing a downturn in the overall proportion of visits coming from mobile devices. This however appears to mimic the trend shown last year, and as in 2010 the month of June saw a return to growth.

Previous research carried out by Latitude Digital Marketing has highlighted the impact hardware releases have on the growth of the mobile web. The release of the iPhone 4 in the summer 2010 drove hosts of new smartphone users onto the web and any materialisation of the rumoured September iPhone 5 release could see a similar trend this year. Following last year’s trend line, this means mobile could potentially account for up to 8% of total website visits by the end of the year.

Q2 has also seen continued growth in Tablet usage. The release of the popular iPad 2 in March seems to have made an immediate impact on visit volumes, with Tablet visits representing on overage 1.5% of website visits through Q2, compared to 1% in Q1. Although the iPad continues to dominate Tablet sales, offerings from other manufacturers will surely begin to eat into Apple’s market share. The recently released BlackBerry PlayBook and an expanding range of Android driven devices should drive Tablet visitor volumes further over Q3 and Q4.

Taking an overview of paid search traffic in general, Q2 saw a continuation of the upward trends for Mobile ad impressions and clicks. Mobile (including Tablet) now accounts for approximately 8% of total paid search clicks. This represents a substantial increase from the 6.5% average seen across Q1. The average cpc (cost per click) for Mobile ads has remained static from Q1 though and Mobile clicks remain approximately 39% cheaper than Desktop clicks. This represents a great opportunity still for marketers with the channel still offering low cost incremental traffic to their websites.

So traffic is increasing and cpcs are still attractive, but what about conversion rates? Well as you’d expect, desktop on average converts significantly better than mobile. The main cause of this is highlighted by the statistic showing 83% of UK businesses do not yet have a mobile website.

Overall, paid search conversion rates from mobile grew marginally through Q2, averaging 1.5% over the quarter. There still remains a significant difference in conversion rate when compared to Desktop though, which averaged at 2.8%. Although Mobile paid search clicks converted at just over half the rate of Desktop clicks, the growth in Mobile to 8% of total click volume meant that Mobile delivered 4.4% of total conversions in Q2.

The full segmentation of Tablet devices from Mobile in Google Adwords from June this year enabled advertisers to separate traffic and target accordingly. The data revealed marginally higher conversion rates for Tablet, averaging at 1.7%. A slightly lower conversion rate might be expected from smartphones, since Mobile is often used to research an acquisition later carried out on a desktop.

With such a wide selection of handsets and operating systems currently in circulation, consideration should certainly be taken to ensure that your goal - be it an email signup, purchase or online quote submission - is as easy to convert as possible to each visitor no matter how they access your site. Google Analytics recently updated to provide greater insight into mobile visits. Metrics for phone brand, screen size, resolution and many others are now available. This is valuable information for mobile website optimisation.

So what’s next for mobile? Well Latitude predicts that growth will continue for the rest of 2011, with a potential surge around the start of Q4 if the iphone 5 is released. With more and more marketers getting wise to the opportunities on mobile it is anticipated that cpcs will rise to be in line with desktops, particularly across competitive search terms. This increase in cpcs shouldn’t put marketers off though if they have mobile versions of their websites live, leading to an increase in average conversion rates across mobile devices. Expect to see less than 50% UK businesses without a mobile version of their website by the end of this year.