Spotlight

Mobile Commerce:
A Broader
Perspective
Seth Earley, Earley & Associates

“S
oftware is eating ­ icture when it comes to leverag-
p Engaging the Customer
the world” is a fa- ing mobile commerce. Customers expect certain core
mous quote from functions that naturally mesh
investor and soft- A New Perspective with mobile device usage, such
ware engineer Marc Andreesen. Given that so many people have as store-locator capabilities (users
Given this thought, it seems to me smartphones these days, you often access information about a
that mobile devices, as the focal might expect the cost of a mobile specific store they plan to visit4).
point of social software, appear to ad to be higher than that of an ad Customers use their mobile devic-
be little Pac-Man characters hun- appearing on a desktop or laptop es for a range of activities related
gry for more, with mobile growth computer. Surprisingly, this isn’t to purchases, including
trends continuing on hockey- the case. Mobile ads are one third
stick trajectories. By 2017, three the cost of desktop ads, according • accessing coupons that they re-
billion smartphones and one bil- to David Cost, VP of Ecommerce deem at a local store,
lion tablets are expected to be in for Deb Shops, a retailer catering • receiving offers that they use to
the hands of users worldwide.1 to 15–24 year-old women who live make a purchase on a laptop or
Many organizations are thus on their smartphones. One rea- desktop PC,
trying to understand how best to son for this, according to Cost, is • downloading apps that let them
leverage the unique combination that it’s difficult to track activities browse their favorite retailers,
of content, data, and functional- from mobile devices and tie them • browsing and previewing email
ity provided by mobile devices. to subsequent behaviors. Even from retailers that prompt them
This is especially true in the retail though someone might begin to to make purchases on their
sector, where significant mobile research a product on his or her smartphone,
commerce growth is predicted. smartphone, in many cases, the • using apps that make in-store
According to Internet Retailer, of person completes the purchase on and at-home shopping more
the 49.6 billion visits to the top a full-size monitor or in the store. productive, and
500 e-retailers in 2014, 26.4 bil- However, mobile commerce • checking inventory at a local
lion (53.2 percent) will stem from presents unique opportunities to store.
smartphones. 2 Similarly, the engage with consumers. Many
percentage of online retail sales enterprises that deal directly with For some retailers, the key isn’t
placed via mobile devices will consumers are extending their so much transactions and com-
grow from 11 percent in 2012 to mobile capabilities to interact in merce-focused functionality but
25 percent by 2017.3 However, ways that strengthen the brand rather consumer engagement—
ecommerce and transaction sta- and the consumer relationship even when consumers aren’t
tistics are only one part of the both before and after the sale. shopping. Pre-purchase research

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 Spotlight

is a primary activity supported by shopable.” This lets Deb Shops in online behaviors and integrate
access to detailed product infor- feature user-generated photos of with purchase histories and third-
mation, online reviews, and relat- their product in all kinds of dif- party data feeds. The goal is to
ed content (support articles, tips ferent settings. identify high-value customers,
and tricks, FAQs, and discussion This engagement strategy has track them across channels and
forums). However, a great deal of paid off. “Our desktop traffic de- devices, and model purchase in-
value is also derived from partici- clined by 8 percent between 2012 tent. The common identifier is the
pating in social media conversa- and 2013, but our mobile traf- user’s email address.
tions and developing relationships fic was up 60 percent and Tablet Advertisement “retargeting” de-
with customers. traffic was up 130 to 140 percent,” pends on the ability to track sites
According to Cost, “everyone in says Cost. “It’s about your ap- that users have visited. If a site visi-
the commerce world is centered proach and what are you present- tor bounces from that site without
[on] conversion, but if someone ing to prospects. When we started purchasing or registering, the ad-
has income to make a purchase our social media program about vertiser can present an ad to them
once per month, do you want [that two years ago, we decided we when he or she visits another site
person] to just show up on the day were going to have an engagement that’s part of the ad network. This
of the purchase?” Cost says no— strategy and not worry about driv- approach won’t work consistently
he wants that customer to come ing people directly to make a pur- with mobile devices. An approach
every day, even when not making chase on the website.” that one vendor (Drawbridge;
a purchase: Instead, the goal was to cre- www.drawbrid.ge) is using is based
ate an environment where people on “statistical methods that rely on
The daily conversion of visits came back once a day or more anonymous data to track people
is worse, but this is a different through interaction with social as they move between their smart-
way of thinking. Purchase met- media content. That way, the re- phones, tablets, and PCs.”5 An
rics are not always meaningful. tailer would be on the custom- anonymous profile is assembled
If a person starts [his or her] ers’ minds, and the logic was that using a variety of data sources, and
journey on a mobile device, but conversions would follow, even an aggregate identity of users is
doesn’t [make a] purchase, how if those conversions couldn’t be tracked across devices.
do you know what is success- directly tracked. “We had 30,000 Facebook, Google+, and Twitter
ful on mobile? We are making Facebook fans when we started all have the ability to track users
the argument that it has to be this process and added 1 million across devices and offer various
around engagement. the first year [and another million] advertising products that retarget
the second year. We now have 2.3 ads to mobile users. Although the
Cost refers to this new approach million fans.” approaches vary, because users log
as the “micro-conversion,” and in across devices, those networks
he explains how new technolo- Retargeting Ads can monitor user desktop activi-
gies are helping his company cre- Tying social media engagement ties and enable cookie-based data
ate user-generated content to help directly to sales is one challenge. to be integrated with consumer
with this process. Another is tracking behaviors mobile device behavior to serve
from device to device and across content and advertisements that
Leveraging User-Generated channels, which complicates ef- are appropriately targeted to users.
Content forts to deploy resources and al-
Cost explains that many of his locate funds appropriately. Mobile Exploiting Mobile Trends
younger customers are on Ins- devices don’t use cookies consis- Mobile technologies and ap-
tagram, where they constantly tently, so organizations are trying proaches are evolving and chang-
share photos, so he wanted to take new software and approaches to ing rapidly, but there are several
a more visual approach. “We use monitor and track customer be- trends that analysts have identi-
Olapic [www.olapic.com], which havior and mine that behavior to fied.6 These developments help
lets us engage in a unique way. segment buyers and create cus- to make mobile devices capable
Customers take pictures of them- tomized user experiences. of true one-to-one marketing—an
selves wearing something from One company, Tellapart (www. aspirational goal that marketers
Deb Shop, submit [the photos] tellapart.com), uses predictive have had for decades.7 By ­targeting,
to us, tag which items they are analytics and machine learning personalizing, narrow casting, and
wearing, and we make the picture techniques to look for patterns communicating through friends

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 and colleagues, marketers will be for ­
sentiment and trends. This or through competing with
able to more closely provide pros- requires a deft touch and is less friends) that increases mobile
pects with the things they need, about technology and more about engagement.
when they need them. Rich media the nuances and needs of the au-
and games mean that communi- dience and channel. Developing Mobile
cations are more engaging and Location Strategies
entertaining, customers will be Narrow Casting Content The great power of mobile tech-
better served, and organizations This can take place via attributes nology is the ability to leverage
that cater to them will reduce the in Facebook or Linkedin. Rather location and multiple levels of
cost of finding and serving cus- than broadly disseminating a granularity to specifically target
tomers. Of course, users must be message across a wide range of users given the context of their ac-
willing to accept potentially intru- users, narrow casting is about tivities. Phil Hendrix, of research
sive monitoring of their activities more carefully targeting the con- based consultancy IMMR (www.
in exchange for a better user expe- tent and message. Mobile target- immr.org), considers location
rience with more targeted content. ing platforms build this capability from a temporal and contextual
through data monitoring, collec- (as well as geospatial perspective):
Personalization tion, and integration techniques,
Personalization and customization but they might begin to encroach Location is not merely a posi-
of messages and content-based on privacy issues. tion as reflected by latitude and
user context is even more impor- longitude. Consumers are situ-
tant on a mobile device due to Rich Media Messaging ated in time and space. Mobile
limited screen real estate and user Rich media messaging (RMM) is enables marketers to deliver
attention. Mobile devices connect another mechanism for ­interacting marketing at the intersection
with consumers on a very intimate
level, and many approaches require
explicit permission and proactive Users must be willing to accept potentially
engagement. Without high-value,
appropriate offers, that permission
intrusive monitoring of their activities in exchange
and engagement won’t likely take for a better user experience with more targeted
place. Also, some approaches, such
as mobile messaging, can be seen
content.
as intrusive without the correct
preliminary interactions.
with users on their mobile de- of both, thus targeting the mo-
Geotargeting vices using over-the-top appli- ment in time and the location
Sending offers that relate to a cations that let users bypass the context around it. As a result,
user’s location can be accom- carrier’s text messaging service marketers can deliver market­­
plished at the macro level (nearby and avoid additional fees. The ing that is appreciated and valu-
shops, for example) or the micro messages contain video and in- able because it is inextricably
level (noting where the customer teractive content that’s optimized linked to the world around us
is standing in the store or when for the user’s smartphone. Mul- and related to our lives at pre-
a high-value customer enters the timedia messaging (MMS) can cisely that point in time.8
store). At each level of granular- ­include ­attachments that the user
ity, the user’s context can inform can open, but in RMM, the entire According to Hendrix, location
messaging and personalization. message can contain graphics and is a continuum that ranges from
functionality. Engagement rates the macro level—the span of com-
Social Network Channel through RMM applications are munication at the city level, typi-
Integration significantly higher than through cally served by local newspapers,
Conversations are taking place character-based SMS, MMS, or TV, and radio—down to the micro
on social media about products email messaging. level of an individual product on a
and services on a continual basis. shelf.8 The eight layers as defined
Successful marketers are inte- Gamification of Mobile Ads by Hendrix are city, area, vicinity,
grating their messages into social This technology lets users score center, store, aisle, package, and prod-
media and mining social media points or achieve ranking ­(badges uct. In some cases, these leverage

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 Spotlight

the same applications, approaches, to locate ­ sensors in these areas ­urchase history to determine if
p
and technologies and lead to the to directly measure the impact of VIP treatment is warranted.
same outcomes, but the scale var- campaigns and determine levels Another approach at the store
ies. In other cases, the tools and of activity and pedestrian traffic level is that of “conquesting”—that
approaches are fundamentally patterns. is, advertising and promoting your
different. They all point to the Traditional advertising (such as brand or product next to content
complexity and power of mobile billboards and direct mail) reach about a competitor. Originating
tracking, analysis, and targeting. this level of granularity in geo- in the print world, it now has new
In theory, marketers could tar- graphic targeting. Data vendors, meaning using mobile technology
get the geographic and spatial such as PlaceIQ, collect data from as businesses geofence around
context of a consumer with vary- mobile devices and integrate with their competitors and promote of-
ing levels of granularity, depend- multiple public and proprietary ferings to customers while they’re
ing on the message, reach, activity, information sources to allow col- in the competitor’s location.
and specific call to action. lation and triangulation down to
as fine a detail as geographic tiles Aisle Level
City Level of 100 × 100 meters. This data is At the aisle level, retailers can in-
At the city level, marketers can link temporal in nature—different mo- teract with customers in a ­number
newspaper or magazine ads to QR bile usage patterns will emerge in of ways using QR codes, near field
codes, which mobile users scan the same grid throughout the day. communications, and B ­luetooth
using an app on their smartphone Based on device tracking and histo- to engage with customers as they
to bring them to a website with ry, combined with other data sourc- browse merchandise. Beacon
the next step in the engagement es, the company says that audiences technology is another tool that
process. Radio ads can now use can be identified across numerous can determine traffic patterns and
Shazam, the music fingerprinting categories, brands, and personas,
­ monitor movements within depart-
application typically used to iden- such as “avid golfer, luxury shop- ments. This technology is valuable
tify and purchase music, to tag ads per, and chief household officer” in determining effectiveness of
and bring users to a website where (see www.placeiq.com/products/ store layouts and signage. Accord-
they can access content and ap- piq-aud i ences). Vendors with ing to the Mobile Marketing As-
plications. (By “shazam-ing” the similar location and audience tar- sociation, “Real-time ‘footstream’
broadcast advertisement for an geting (mostly advertisement) plat- traffic is analogous to clickstreams
automotive manufacturer, users forms include ThinkNear (www. on digital properties.”8
can access a variety of features and thinknear.com) and xAd (www.xad.
functions, including a user-con- com). Package and Product Levels
trolled, gyroscopic view of a “car’s Package- and product-level gran-
interior from the driver’s seat, a Store Level ularity leverage many of the same
virtual pedal to rev the engine, and At the store level of detail, market- technologies but are different ap-
the full mobile website.”7) ers are attempting to deal with the plications—packaging can have
phenomenon of “show rooming,” a QR code or sensor, as can the
Area, Vicinity, and where customers come to the store product itself.
Center Levels to look at items, check for compar-
These are loosely defined geo- ative offers and pricing online, and Omnichannel Marketing
graphic scales at increasing levels then (potentially) purchase from a In-store mobile applications sound
of granularity and smaller location competitor. A number of strategies appealing in theory, but in practice,
boundaries. “Area” is defined as a are being tested in which retailers they’re challenging to get right.
neighborhood, zip code, school attempt to engage with custom- It’s difficult to synchronize across
district, or other section of a city ers through apps and offers by channels, and data on effectiveness
or town. “Vicinity” is defined as leveraging geofencing and beacon isn’t yet widely available. However,
a one-mile radius of a location technologies. Geofencing lets a re- retailers will continue to explore
for businesses targeting “nearby” tailer determine when a customer the possibilities that mobile de-
customers, and “center” refers to enters the store and, depending on vices offer, finding ways to address
a commercial zone or cluster of a host of factors and permission- integration and privacy issues. Re-
businesses such as a mall. Com- ing, might let the retailer identify tailers want to synchronize across
panies like Placemeter (http:// that customer, make a specific of- channels—having the same offers
placemeter.com) are attempting fer, and even see the ­ customer’s whether online, in the store, on a

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 mobile device, or through tradi- Debs created an app that let us- References
tional advertising and media. The ers scan a tag and see the clothes 1. B. Evans, “Mobile is Eating the
experience on smartphones and on a model, along with a prod- World,” Slideshare, Nov. 2013; www.
tablets should be consistent with uct description and social media slideshare.net/bge20/2013-11-mobile-
that on a Web browser on desktop. tie-ins. However, although signs eating-the-world.
“We have chosen an omnichannel promoted the app and staff dem- 2. B. Siwicki, “Will Smartphones
approach. We keep the marketing onstrated its use, customer reac- Account for Most Visits to
messages the same between online tion was disappointing. “They E-Commerce Sites by 2014?” In-
and brick and mortar,” says Cost. said it was cool but never touched ternet Retailer, 23 Apr. 2012, www.
“Google is trying to focus on how it. The feedback was that they had internetretailer.com/2012/04/23/
to quantify Adword impact on in- seen it on the website and traveled will-smartphones-account-most-
store sales. They want to increase to the brick and mortar to experi- visits-e-commerce-sites.
their advertising base by working ence the store.” 3. “Smartphones, Tablets Drive Faster
with retailers to try to quantify the Responsive design is an ap- Growth in Ecommerce Sales,” eMar-
benefit of Adwords to brick and proach that allows a single design keter, 24 Apr. 2013; www.emarketer.
mortar stores.” and content to be viewable on a com/Article/Smartphones-Tablets-
Cost also says a company called full-size monitor, on tablets of Drive-Faster-Growth-Ecommerce-
Euclid Analytics (http://euclidanalytics. varying sizes, or on a smartphone. Sales/1009835.
com) is trying to be “the Google However, “designing for the 4. “Merchants Seek Mobile Mastery:
Analytics of the physical world.” smallest design (smartphone) and A Task-Oriented Review of the
With their technology, if you of- then adapting that to larger de- Mobile Experience,” The E-Tailing
fer Wi-Fi to a customer who has vices is catering to the least com- Group, Oct. 3013; www.e-tailing.
Wi-Fi enabled on his or her smart- mon denominator” says Cost. His com/content/?p=3720.
phone, the phone will then trans- preference is to develop a separate 5. J. Leber, “Get Ready for Ads that
mit a unique media access control design that is mobile optimized Follow You from One Device to the
(MAC) address. Euclid Analytics’ while maintaining a single plat- Next,” MIT Technology Rev., 5 Dec.
Wi-Fi device can then identify cer- form to manages content across 2012; www.technologyreview.com/
tain MAC addresses that were in mobile and desktop devices. news/508176/get-ready-for-ads-
the store on any particular day. If that-follow-you-from-one-device-
the customer later opens an email to-the-next.

M
from the retailer, the company can obile commerce and 6. J.L. Schiff, “6 Mobile Marketing
associate the device MAC address omnichannel market- Trends to Leverage in 2014,” CIO,
with the customer’s email. Cost ex- ing present tremendous 30 Dec. 2013; www.cio.com/article/
plains that this type of technology opportunities for all industries, 745152/6_Mobile_Marketing_Trends_
“can be used to test store signage, so organizations will want to have to_Leverage_in_2014?page=1&taxo
allowing A-B testing, because the mechanisms for serving customers nomyId=600003.
company can see who walks by the on their smartphones and tablets. 7. L. Arthur, “The Next Big Thing for
store versus who comes in.” Omnichannel approaches present Marketing,” Forbes, 14 Sept. 2011; www.
Motorola is also offering a Wi-Fi new challenges and require new forbes.com/sites/lisaarthur/2011/09/14/
device for brick and mortar stores solutions to data integration, pre- the-next-big-thing-for-marketing.
to tie in email addresses, and dictive analytics, content modeling, 8. Mobile: the Great Connector, white
Google has similar plans. How- and user attribute development. IT paper, Mobile Marketing Assoc.,
ever, these are new approaches for professionals will be well served by 2013; www.mmaglobal.com/bridging-
leveraging store-level geotarget- tracking these fascinating technol- digital.
ing, so there’s not a lot of related ogy developments and understand-
data yet. ing the changing face of commerce Seth Earley is CEO of Earley & Associ-
There’s also a good deal of de- and customer interaction strategies. ates (www.earley.com). He’s an expert in
bate on apps versus responsive These fields are rapidly evolving knowledge processes and customer experi-
design versus mobile optimized and will require IT professionals to ence management strategies. His interests
approaches. Although there are continually update their knowledge include customer analytics, knowledge
numerous vendors approaching and skillsets to serve their business management, content management sys-
retailers with apps, in Cost’s expe- stakeholders as they attempt to le- tems and strategy, and taxonomy and
rience, customers haven’t shown verage mobile commerce to gain a metadata development. Contact him at
much interest. In p ­ articular, Shop competitive advantage. [email protected].

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