As mobile devices grow more powerful, the mobile internet gets faster and mobile apps become more sophisticated, it’s only logical for mobile marketing to become more important. However, since business often use a wider variety of marketing tactics, they may often not realize how much of their business is being generated as a result of mobile marketing. A recent study suggests that not properly utilizing mobile marketing to drive phone calls can be a costly mistake for marketers.
DialogTech released a study that suggests nearly half (49%) of mobile conversions are because of calls to businesses that are result from information seen in mobile advertising. Without those calls being properly attributed, brands could pull money from mobile budgets, putting their mobile ROI in jeopardy. This is why DialogTech refers mobile misattribution as the “49% ROI Mistake”
The research is based on a representative sample of over 60 million website sessions and over 400,000 resulting inbound phone calls processed through our DialogTech Voice360™ platform.
The study found that among DialogTech customers, calls from mobile marketing have increased more than a third (34%) over the past 6 months. Similarly, the study found that most business calls are the result of searches on mobile browsers and not from ads. A little more than four out of five (81%) mobile calls to businesses were the result of mobile SEO (i.e. search results and landing pages). Mobile display ads accounted for the remaining 19 percent.
Ignoring the benefits of using mobile marketing to increase calls to a business can be a costly decision for some industries. According to the report, for verticals including insurance, healthcare and home services, calls as a result of mobile marketing accounted for a tenth of the conversions rate from phone calls.
“Today’s mobile-first world has fundamentally shifted the way consumers interact with marketing and engage with businesses,” said Steve Griffiths, SVP of marketing, strategy & analytics at DialogTech, according to media reports. “As marketers shift greater percentages of their budgets to mobile channels, getting closed-loop attribution for both digital conversions and phone calls is critical. Our latest research illustrates marketers who analyze and understand the impact of phone calls in the mobile path to purchase have a significant advantage in developing impactful programs and accelerating customer acquisition.”
To be fair, DialogTech sells phone marketing software, so it’s important to acknowledge the potential for biased research. All the same, even if the numbers might be a little skewed, the main idea is almost certainly true. Marketers should remember that there mobile marketing strategy needs to keep in mind that smartphone work well as phone and mobile marketing can be used to drive phone calls to a business.
The DialogTech report also has information they say can help marketers increase their ROI. The report covers things like attribution, personalization, and more. The report can be downloaded for free from the DialogTech website, or to be more accurate, it’ll only cost marketers their email address and contact information for the download link.
For more information on mobile marketing, read this report on how marketers who still use Flash-based ads are killing their mobile marketing potential.