Anytime I have the opportunity to get out of the office and learn, I jump on it. There’s just something very invigorating about stepping away from my computer, meeting new people and considering new ways of thinking. I always return with a notebook littered with starred action items, new book titles I must read and a brain oozing with new ideas. SES New York was no different this year.
When 4 out 5 smartphone owners check their phones within the first 15 minutes of waking up, it’s easy to see why so much of this year’s SES conference was focused on mobile. (I’m told this can also point to a more over-arching, legitimate psychological disorder.) Did you know 40% of people will go to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience on your website? Or after waiting five seconds for a page to load, 74% of mobile users bounce? Yikes! So, how do you decrease the “I came, I puked, I left” metric as Avinash Kaushik so colorfully calls it, or your site’s bounce rate? Here are a few small tips I picked up from my sessions at SES:
- Optimize your website for mobile using responsive design and make it easier for users to convert.
- Create an app to establish brand loyalists and promote upsell opportunities.
- Focus on finding the audience in the right moment rather than just throwing money at channel x, y or z.
- Look for ways to better track the customer’s journey across screens and consider convergence events, the simultaneous use of multiple devices.
A lot of insights on how mobile users utilize your site can be gathered by using web analytics. However, during a session on landing page optimization, Angie Schottmuller pointed out that 25-40 % mobile traffic is lost or counted as direct traffic from popular web analytics tools like Google Analytics and WebTrends. She challenged her co-panelist Justin Cutroni, Google Analytics Advocate, and suggested using mobile analytics tools like Bango, Percent Mobile and Amethon.
As more traditional web analytics tools change the way mobile traffic is measured, we can better understand how various channels are used and customize experiences. It will be interesting to watch how quickly companies can adapt and perform the additional analysis needed to prepare for these types of changes. Those with more agile capabilities certainly have the advantage – at least until the next big thing surfaces.
