The State of Mobile Shopper Marketing: Top 10 Survey Findings

December 12, 2017

In the third of our six-part thought-leadership series by Crisp, a Quotient company, we share results from Crisp's third annual Mobile Advertising & Marketing Survey. The survey tracks annual growth and trends among shopper marketers in terms of mobile platform usage, approaches and service providers. Here are the key findings.

1) Mobile Is Key to Driving Success

• No surprise, nearly 60% of respondents find mobile campaigns are 'important' or 'extremely important' in driving shopper marketing program success
• 80% of shopper marketers use product sales as their preferred KPI for measuring mobile campaign performance

2) Mobile Channels and Platforms

• Although mobile web and email remain the most used platforms, the use of push notifications significantly increased compared to 2015
  • 9 out of 10 respondents use mobile web and 8.5 out of 10 use email
  • Mobile app usage remains relatively stable, used by 7 out of 10 respondents
  • 42% use push notifications

3) Mobile Ad Types

• Display (basic banners), social media and video are the most used ad formats
  • 9 out of 10 respondents use display (basic banners) and social media
• Video is also popular, used by 8 out of 10 respondents
• Rich-media display and paid search have not fluctuated much over the years and are in the middle of the pack in terms of usage
• Native and text-based ads remain among the least-used ad formats

4) Features Used in Rich Media

• The most commonly used rich-media features are ad integration with third-party shopper content providers and expandable banners, both used by 90% of respondents

5) Targeting Methods

• Demographic, geo-targeted, and behavioral methods are the most popular forms of mobile targeting, used by 80% and 85% of respondents
• Search and contextual methods are in the middle of the popularity pack and haven't seen much change in usage over the years
• Re-targeting saw significant increases from 2015 to 2016 and maintained those increases in 2017

6) Shopping App Usage

• Retailer-owned and third-party shopping apps continue to be the most popular, with brand-owned-app usage lagging behind by a wide margin
• According to respondents, the benefit of retailer-owned and third-party shopping apps is triggering sales, while brand-owned apps are beneficial for brand awareness

7) Shopper Content/Data Providers

• Over half of respondents use iBotta and Quotient's shopper content/data to support their mobile programs
• Cartwheel (Target) and Shopkick saw dramatic decreases in usage, as did some other less used providers (Cellfire, Retailigence, and CoFactor (ShopLocal))
• The most frequently used providers - iBotta, Quotient and Cartwheel (Target) - had the highest satisfaction

8) Audience Targeting More Important Than User Experience

• For mobile campaign success, 82% say audience targeting is 'important' or 'extremely important' compared to 71% who say the same about user experience

9) The Most Important Mobile Advertising Elements

• Respondents said personalization and relevant content were equally the most important mobile advertising elements in terms of driving success for mobile programs
• Respondents also agree that in the next five years, digitally-based coupons/rebates, circulars and loyalty programs will replace their traditional counterparts such as paper coupons and FSIs

10) Industry Issues

• Brand safety, ad fraud and ad viewability are important to the majority of respondents, with ad viewability the most important mobile advertising industry issue of all three
• However, few respondents (less than 5%) think these issues are being addressed extremely well by the industry

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And check out the rest of the series:

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