The Biggest Losers of Google’s Mobilegeddon

Last month, we wrote about preparing for Google’s algorithm changes and the importance of optimizing mobile sites. Now that the changes have been in place for a few weeks, we’re taking a look at how Mobilegeddon is challenging some of today’s biggest websites.

Mobilegeddon Losers Infographic
Click to enlarge.
The biggest losers in Mobilegeddon

Even though Google gave companies plenty of notice, several sites took a hard hit from the algorithm update. Many sites did not optimize for mobile prior to Mobilegeddon.This lowered their Google ranking, or visibility.

Lil Wayne’s youngmoney.com ranked as one of the worst sites for mobile users – and for good reason. The mobile site is poorly formatted, displaying an abundance of blank white space and tiny links that are impossible to press. Searchmetrics reports that youngmoney.com saw a dramatic 76% decline in visibility.

Some of the biggest websites on the Internet are seeing negative effects from their mobile unfriendliness too. Reddit, known as “the front page of the Internet,” saw a 27% decrease in their visibility. NBCSports and SongLyrics saw similar drops.

But while these webpages may be down, don’t count them out just yet!

Reddit is working to improve its visibility by implementing a mobile site. The site is still undergoing maintenance, as Reddit works to add and fix certain features. But mobile users can use the mobile site, which includes larger links, less text, and a fresh look. Once the mobile version is complete, Reddit can expect their Google ranking to improve.

Is your company feeling the effects from Mobilegeddon? Be sure your mobile site is effectively optimized so your site doesn’t end up at the bottom of Google’s search engine.

The Leaders in Beautifully Designed Smartphone Apps

When it comes to marketing across mobile, companies range in success. From poorly optimized web pages on mobile, to sites that take too long to load, some companies undoubtably struggle when shifting from brick-and-mortars or website to mobile devices.

However, some companies are leading the forefront of omnichannel efforts through their Smartphone applications. Through convenient apps that personalize shopping experiences, today’s strongest marketers are providing an enjoyable mobile shopping experience for customers.

We have evaluated today’s best Smartphone apps from some of today’s top marketers. Read on to learn who we’ve deemed Good, Better and Best in omnichannel marketing.

GoodTaco Bell Location Personalization

Taco Bell: the right idea with questionable execution

Taco Bell is legendary – not just because of its cheap tacos, but because of its world renowned marketing, PR, and advertising strategies.

The most recent addition to Taco Bell’s marketing campaign is its highly publicized smartphone app. The app combines personalization and omnichannel marketing to make ordering a breeze for its patrons.

The app lets users find a Taco Bell closest to them with GPS. Users can order through the app – customizing any part of their meal, of course – and pick up their food in the store or drive-thru. Along with each menu item, a photo of the food is displayed. This gives users that added, necessary dimension to preview what they order before they actually receiving the item.Taco Bell Personalize Order

One of the strongest benefits of the app is that users can place and pick up a customized order on their own time at a location of their choosing. This makes the process convenient.

However, Taco Bell struggles with the “seamless” element of a truly omnichannel approach. When I used the app to order from my neighborhood Taco Bell, it took more than 10 minutes to receive the food I had ordered. At this rate, standing in line and placing my order “traditionally” would have been a faster option. An ideal Taco Bell app experience would eliminate unnecessary wait times.; otherwise, the Smartphone app loses its convenience and becomes pointless.

Better

Neiman Marcus: strong convergence of digital platforms

Neiman Marcus is not only a leader in luxury fashion, but in omnichannel marketing as well. Their new app Snap. Find. Shop. helps users find shoes and handbags with digital imagery. Users can take a photo of an item and use the app to find styles that are similar and available at Neiman Marcus. Photos can be taken of printed or “real-life” images. The app has been compared to a personal stylist, and shoppers love its convenience and efficiency.

Neiman Marcus is the first luxury retailer to use visual search technology. This new technology has helped the retailer drive traffic to physical store locations. The app is also particularly useful in ecommerce and mobile app purchases. When a shopper uses Snap. Find. Shop. on their mobile device, he or she can make their purchase in just a few more taps to their phone screen. These steps shave a significant amount of time off of the traditionally long shopping process. The efficiency that comes paired with Snap. Find. Shop. is memorable and groundbreaking.

BestWalgreens Refills Easy

Walgreens: the unexpected winner of Smartphone apps

Walgreens is not the first company that comes to mind when thinking “omnichannel.” However, a look at their Smartphone app shows that Walgreens is a pro at utilizing multiple platforms seamlessly.

Several different functions in their app fuel a seamless mobile to brick-and-mortar experience. The app lets users refill prescriptions through their mobile, which is done by a quick scan of the prescription’s barcode. Shoppers can then run down to their nearest Walgreens to pick up their meds. App users can also set refill alerts to remind them to refill prescriptions if need be.Walgreens Item Locator

The Walgreens app also has a store locator, showing the user where they can find the nearest Walgreens. Once the customer is inside the store, he or she can use an item locator feature to find the exact location of a product. In the case that a customer does not want to walk about the store, he or she can opt for the web pickup or home delivery options.

With its variety of personalization elements and incorporation of multiple channels, Walgreens has one of the best apps for an omnichannel shopping experience. As consumers steadily depend more on mobile for making purchases, Walgreens is setting itself up for success.

Want to learn more?

Inspired by these innovative omnichannel pros? Learn how to go omnichannel over social media for even more great marketing ideas.

Optimizing Mobile and Preparing for Mobilegeddon

Syncing your mobile and website platforms has always been a smart move for marketers, simply because shoppers prefer the ease and convenience of optimized mobile sites.

However, new updates to Google make this optimization a necessity, rather than option, for today’s eCommerce sites.

Google recently released plans to change its mobile search rankings based on a site’s “mobile friendliness” in the eyes of Google. The search engine giant will implement adjustments to its algorithm starting April 21, 2015 and has provided a tool to check if a site is mobile-friendly.

This is a big game changer for retailers that benefit from showing up high on Google’s search list. If these mobile sites are not properly optimized, they may be knocked down a few pages on Google’s search results lists. Companies around the world have cleverly dubbed these big changes, “Mobilegeddon.”

Google’s announcement has caused companies to reevaluate their mobile optimization. In light of this game changing situation, we are determining the best ways to optimize websites via mobile.

What does mobile “unfriendliness” look like?

Tiny links and text that require the user to zoom in are unfriendly, according to Google. Sites that require the user to scroll sideways to see content is also unfriendly. A properly optimized mobile site should be easy for the user to understand and use.

This shouldn’t surprise anybody. Shoppers like seamless experiences that are quick and easy – not an hour-long session that requires time, effort, and lots of extra navigation.

Although Google is practically requiring sites to become more mobile-friendly, retailers should have already be attentive to consumers by offering the best material for them. However, recent studies show that a whopping 91% of small businesses have not optimized their sites. When NectarOM heard this statistic combined with the breaking news of Google’s Mobilegeddon, we decided to take a closer look at optimization and mobile sites.

Types of mobile site configuration

There are a couple different ways companies can configure their sites to mobile:

  1. Responsive: Responsive configuration looks the same across all devices used. It uses the same URL across all platforms. For example, a site will look relatively similar on a laptop and on a mobile device – minus a few formatting changes. Tech experts agree that, traditionally, Google prefers a responsive configuration.
  2. Peets Coffee SiteMobile-specific: Mobile specific configuration can look significantly different from a website viewed on a computer. Oftentimes, these sites utilize less text, larger links, and resizing features to make the mobile commerce experience easy for users. Mobile-specific sites usually use “m” as their subdomain. For example, Peet’s Coffee and Tea
    designs their mobile site to include elements from their website – but with larger buttons and links, and less text.
Effectively optimizing mobile content

Snapshot of the homepage when viewed from my phone

When reconfiguring your mobile site, there are several factors your company should consider for easy site viewing and usage. We’ve determined what we think are the most important factors for effective optimization.

The most im

portant thing to remember when optimizing for mobile is to keep things simple. Don’t overcrowd the user’s mobile screen with text and links – an overabundance of content can get overwhelming and leave the user frustrated. Instead of cramming an information surplus into a home page, use basic links and titles to make a shopping experience easy for your users.

As far as formatting goes, there are several different factors that can strengthen your mobile optimization.

One of my biggest qualms in mobile sites are links that are too small or too close together. When my

Heinz uses links that are way too small for anyone's thumbs
Heinz uses links that are way too small for anyone’s thumbs

thumbs are too large to click a single link on my phone, I oftentimes get so annoyed that I leave the site entirely. When this happens, I might check out a competitor’s site, and use that instead if its easier to use. Be sure that consumers are able to click on your links easily so they don’t leave you for your competition.

Similarly, your site’s text should carry over seamlessly to mobile as well. If you are not designing a site unique to your mobile device, your site should utilize text that is easy to read – even when it’s smaller. Large, cursive fonts that may look pretty on the computer can look like illegible scribbles on a small mobile device.

Companies should also be aware of which outside content they are bringing into their site. In particular, plug-ins like Flash or Java can be an Achilles’ heel for companies implementing them on mobile sites. Both Flash and Java are notorious for failing to be mobile friendly. Ensure that your users are able to experience all content by avoiding these entities.

Going forward

Optimizing mobile in the upcoming weeks will be a necessity for all businesses. And the sooner you get started with optimization, the more time your company can take to effectively optimize your content. Interested in learning about other ways you can utilize mobile? Check out our mobile personalization white paper to learn what personalization can do for your mobile marketing campaign.

Flappy Bird: The Truth Behind Addicting Games and Ad Spending

Mobile Personalization

Let’s face it: the majority of us have played Flappy Bird at least once.

It was such a simple yet so frustratingly difficult that it became extremely addicting. In fact, it was so addictive that creator Dong Nguyen yanked the game out of the app store for good, according to a Forbes Interview. Nguyen has also stated the game has caused him undue stress, which we can attribute to the numerous death threats and personal attacks. Nguyen tweeted in response to the game “I can call ‘Flappy Bird’ a success of mine.  But it also ruined my simple life.  So now I hate it”
The truly spectacular part of this whole ordeal is that even though the app was said to have been generating $50,000 in revenue a day from mobile ads alone, Nguyen decided to take if off the market anyway.
We have learned 3 things from the yanking of the game:

(1) Creating an immensely popular game app can have adverse reactions on the developer’s sanity

(2) Some game developers do have souls and aren’t just in this for the money.

(3) Mobile ad spending was outrageously high on this game.

Flappy Bird has been available in the App Store since May of 2013. It was not overly popular until January of this year when it became the most downloaded app in the store for that month with over 50 million downloads. Advertisers saw the potential in the amount of “eyeballs” in this free app and coordinated with Nguyen to insert and sponsor ads into the game for millions to see. Nguyen admitted that he was making around $50,000 per day in ad revenue alone.

 

There are two key insights marketers can glean from looking at an ultra-successful game like Flappy Birds:

Mobile Personalization

(1) Mobile ad spending is increasing and should be an area marketers should invest in. In fact, Gartner estimates that mobile ad spending will reach $18 billion in 2014, a 37% increase from 2013’s $13.1 billion mobile ad spend.
 
(2) Free games are one of the best platforms for mobile ads because they gain users rapidly due to the lack of barriers in downloading the game and the repetitive nature of playing the game. Advertising spend on mobile games will increase to $894 million in 2015, up from $87 in 2010. That’s ten times the amount spent in 2010.
 
With the death of Flappy Bird, it has become apparent that a popular game such as Flappy Bird can play a strategic role in a marketing plan. Marketers should be aware of the trends in ad spending and recognize that mobile ad spending can no longer be ignored.

 

 

3 Marketing Trends of 2014

Mobile Personalization

Marketing is just like any other tradition here in the United States: as time progresses it begins to change and adapt to new trends that emerge. In 2014, the marketing world has had a lot of new developments thanks to the innovations such as mobile apps, social media, big data breakthroughs, and other discoveries. As a result, there has been a noticeable shift in how marketers create their strategies to promote products and services. Today, we will discuss 3 of these new marketing trends that have emerged in 2014.

1. Don’t Just Personalize, Hyper-Personalize In 2013, personalization was the name of the marketing game. How was this accomplished exactly? By tracking spending habits and recording clicks while signed in to their website. Then the companies would take that information and use it to send personalized offers via email, text or through the website. Hyperpersonalization takes this one step further. By integrating various existing data sets such as personal information and social media data, companies are able to know more about their customers than just their spending data. For example, utilizing information from Susan’s Facebook page, a company might be able to learn that Susan is expecting a baby in a few months and to send her offers for baby clothes. Hyperpersonalization is like knowing what the customer wants before they actually want it

2. Measure Social Media ROI Accurately Measuring ROI from social media in the past has been anything but exact. Every company that has invested in social media has had a different method of measuring the effectiveness of their social media efforts with varied results. In the past, companies measured their social media success by how much revenue it directly generated for them. While this may work for other marketing avenues, it may not necessarily work for social media. In 2014, measuring social media ROI has evolved from looking at revenue generated to the buzz that is created from the efforts put in. Creating buzz around a company will increase a company’s audience and engagement by increasing word of mouth; hence the word “viral”. Understanding how to optimize content to go viral is key in the success of social media implementation.

Mobile Personalization

3. Real Time Geographic Marketing Geographic marketing is not a new innovation. It has been around since the early days albeit in a more primitive fashion; for example, a large billboard perched above a building has an arrow which points down, indicating it is a restaurant to stop at while driving. Over the past few years email has been the primary source of geographic marketing by sending offers to customers within certain distances from companies. In 2014 this will be taken one step further. With the rise in mobile device usage, real-time geographic marketing will be employed by sending SMS messages or emails to customers’ mobile devices when they are certain distance from a company. So if I am in a mall looking for a gift, I might get an SMS on my phone alerting me that a clothing store in the same mall has a sale. That is the power and convenience or geographic marketing.

Marketing will always have a place in any business strategy because it is the most basic form of communicating with potential customers. The best way to look at is summed up in the expression: “The players haven’t changed, but the game has.” By staying on top of the newest developments one can expect to enjoy the benefits of being top of mind.

 

 

3 Ways to Improve Mobile Personalization

Mobile Personalization

Mobile Personalization is one of the hottest new trends in marketing in 2014.  Mobile purchases make up about 20% of all eCommerce transactions and mobile sales are projected to increase from $139 Billion to $400 Billion in the next couple years alone.  It is apparent that mobile presence is growing rapidly, but the real question is “What is the best way to improve mobile presence and interaction?”

1. Push for increase in opt-ins: The first way to improve mobile presence is to push for an increase in opt-ins.  Opt-ins range from customers signing up via mobile devices with their personal information, allowing push notifications to their phone, and cross-promoting mobile offers through their desktop site.  By offering these opt-ins a company is able to gain more personal insight into customers that agree to this and personalize their mobile experience by including their name, deals and offers based on their geographic location, and more relevant product selection based on their previous transaction history.  In short, having these opted-in customers allows a company to associate more personally with the customer and create an opportunity for them to evolve from being a simple customer to an evangelist for your brand.

Mobile Personalization

2. Cross-channel Promotions: The second way to improve mobile presence is cross-channel promotions over mobile.  Within the mobile realm there are multiple ways to reach customers: SMS texts, Apps, social media, passbook, and mobile website.  There are various ways to get involved in this avenue of marketing and it can include text campaigns where potential customers can text a preset number for offers and rewards and thereby entering their phone numbers into a
database for a company.  Another method is to have an app developed for a brand.  This has the most flexibility as the app doesn’t have to serve any particular purpose other than collecting data.  It could be a game, a coupon generator, or any other form of entertainment.  As long as it gets downloaded then it is fulfilling its purpose and creating more personal contact with customers.

3. Geographic data: The final way to improve mobile presence is to tap into geographic data.  This can be done very simply just by having a feature in an app or website that utilizes the phone’s location services to determine
where a customer is and if there are any promotions that would benefit them at their current location.  One way to

Mobile Personalization

capitalize on location information is to send geographically defined text messages or emails to customers based on where they are.  If a customer in a shopping mall, for example, and then receive a text from a store offering a sale a clear call to action is created and it is more likely to be followed up with because of the proximity to the store.

As mobile presence increases and customers are more focused on their devices than ever before, marketers too must focus more on these devices.  The ability to capture customer data and create a more engaged experience for them is available but it’s a matter of acting on it and creating the avenues to acquire this data in the first place.  Once the mobile presence is improved, the results will be noticeable and by connecting with customers it can be expected that lifetime value and loyalty of those customers will be increased dramatically.

Mobile Personalization: Boost Mobile Revenues with Relevance

Mobile commerce is big. And getting bigger. It has only been six years since Apple introduced the iPhone, arguably the first shopping-friendly smartphone–though even that didn’t happen with the first generation.  And today we are spending billions of dollars shopping and buying on our phones.  Next up: Mobile Personalization!

“The runaway hit for retail this year will be mobile commerce. The best way to leave money on the table is not to have a commerce-enabled mobile site and application.”
-Mobile Commerce Outlook 2013

“Over the next five years, total mobile sales are expected to grow 33% annually to $31 billion [from $8 billion today], making up 9% of online sales in 2017.”
-Forrester Research

According to BI Intelligence, by January 2013, 29% of mobile users had made a purchase with their phones. According to Internet Retailer, Walmart estimated that 40% of all visits to their internet shopping site in December 2012 were from a mobile device.  And this is happening despite the small screens and the often difficult-to-navigate mobile sites that exist today.  Imagine what mobile personalization can do for this small screen.

There are a few retailers who are doing mobile commerce right.  Amazon leads in this area.  They not only save all your information and sync it across your digital devices, they also make checking out a breeze.  And on top of that, they offer mobile personalization for your shopping experience, which makes for a very easy and pleasant exchange; you almost WANT to give Amazon your money.

But how about retailers who don’t have the time (and money) already invested in building an e-commerce (and m-commerce) powerhouse?  How do these retailers take a bite of the growing mobile pie?

First and foremost, you have to optimize your website for mobile.  Without a mobile-optimized website, no one will shop on your site using their smartphone. Everything else is secondary.

But let’s say you have a mobile-optimized website. You even have an app for iOs and/or Android. How can you rise above all the noise of all the other retailers trying to get the consumer’s attention?  The most effective (and least disruptive) way to do this is mobile personalization:  making your customer’s mobile experience as relevant as possible for him or her.

Imagine shopping on that tiny screen and you are immediately shown products that are relevant for YOU.  You don’t have to try to fat-finger your way through several incorrect screens to get to the item you want.  I would certainly be less frustrated and more likely to purchase if I didn’t have to spend my valuable time repeating steps just to try to give a company my money.  This is what mobile personalization gives you.

Technology exists today to bring all the data you have together to paint a picture of each of your customers.  Powerful algorithms are applied to these customer pictures to determine the most relevant products, offers or messages for each of them.  Then if you have a mobile-optimized site, it’s just a matter of displaying the most relevant content in front of each customer.  And before you know it, mobile personalization has helped you take a bite out of that mobile pie.

Nectar Online Media

can help you integrate your data (and even gather some), personalize your content and deliver that content for display on your mobile site.  Find out more!

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