A report from Nielsen found that consumers prefer using the mobile web to applications, as they look to compare prices on several different websites rather than buy regularly from one vendor rather than get product info via apps while shopping. The data fuels the growing argument that business owners should create content for their sites that will help them build a presence in mobile search.
The company studied the mobile behavior of 5,000 American adults during the holiday shopping season. Based on the research, Nielsen found that 60 percent of smartphone users turned to the web to find information related to products they wanted to purchase at some point during the study.
The research showed that 51 percent of smartphone users accessed an ecommerce website during peak shopping season in December. In January, the activity still held fairly strong, with 45 percent of consumers using the mobile web to find product information.
In the four months studied by Nielsen, the amount of consumers accessing mobile apps for these businesses was no higher than 28 percent.
For marketers, this places great value on developing a website and integrated web marketing strategy aimed at reaching mobile web users. Mobile SEO campaigns are especially useful in this regard since simple adjustments to keyword strategies can make content marketing material more likely to appear on mobile SERPs.
Growing mobile use can also help companies boost social media marketing campaigns, especially in terms of targeting prospects. While websites are preferred over ecommerce apps, Brafton recently reported that social media apps are consistently popular on smartphones, and any brand with a social page can be discovered on the platform’s respective app. Expanding a social campaigns as part of maintaining a strong mobile web presence can help marketers appeal to their audiences.
