Tracking Mobile Campaigns, a Must

Amberly Dressler — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:35:00 GMT

From Gap and Groupon to Toys “R” Us and Ugg Australia, plenty of worldwide names have implemented affiliate tracking on their mobile site, allowing them to track any sales made through a mobile device.

According to Affiliate Window mobile devices (including tablets) accounted for nearly 10 percent of all sales in September, which is up slightly from the previous month. With the unprecedented growth of mobile in 2012, it’s safe to assume this number will only increase in 2013. And, as more advertisers launch mobile optimized versions of their sites, the user journey will become a smoother process to transact, which makes tracking even more imperative.

“We also expect to see more advertisers adding affiliate tracking to their mobile sites,” said Matt Swan client strategist for Affiliate Window. “A lack of affiliate tracking means advertisers will be missing out on a number of opportunities through their publisher base. Both of these aspects will see conversions increase. With mobile traffic/sales continuing to increase we will begin to see more affiliates develop their mobile presence.”

With this in mind, Affiliate Window, which has monitored mobile performance internally for the past 18 months, now offers mobile reporting within its interface. This allows advertisers and affiliates to monitor the device that their sales are originating from and truly see the impact of mobile on campaigns.

Unfortunately, what tracking cannot account for is the impact mobile traffic has on driving foot traffic to brick-and-mortar locations or through other channels. Thus, it is important to keep in mind, as well as to understand the motivation of visitors on a mobile site. Users aren’t always looking to transact through a mobile device. Locating information such as hours and nearest store locations could be the goal.

Additionally, mobile sales do fluctuate based on device. Affiliate Window's latest mobile and m-commerce figures show that the iPad dominates as the most popular handset for transactions – accounting for 58 percent of sales year to date, as opposed to 26 percent for iPhone, 12 percent for Android, 3 percent for Blackberry and 2 percent for “other”.

Mobile Traffic Declines in July (And More Statistics)

Michael Garrity — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:30:00 GMT

Affiliate Window, one of the United Kingdom’s leading performance marketing networks, has unleashed upon the world its July report concerning mobile and m-commerce statistics.

Most curiously, the company found that the share of Web traffic through mobile devices actually dropped from over 12 percent in June to making up around just nine percent of total traffic in July. This isn’t terribly peculiar, as May saw a slight decrease, as well, following month-by-month increases for the first four months of the year.

On the upside, however, the volume of mobile clicks actually increased. And not only that, but the share of sales through mobile devices also rose, finally crossing the nine percent threshold at 9.42 percent. Ultimately, this figure, coupled with the drop in traffic, seems to show a closer alignment between mobile conversion rates and those of their desktop counterparts, as mobile conversion rates improved throughout July, increasing to 3.14 percent.

The report also breaks down mobile and m-commerce statistics by mobile device. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that Apple is (still) leading the pack, with the iPhone driving 38 percent of all mobile traffic by the end of the month. However, it’s not all sunshine for the brand, as iPad traffic actually ended up dropping below 40 percent. On the other hand, iPad sales reached a high of 63 percent of all mobile sales by the end of the month, and the iPhone ended up accounting for 24.87 percent.

Android devices saw traffic increases in July, with the number resting between 18 and 19 percent, up from June’s 17.5 percent. BlackBerry and “Other” devices both decreased, driving 1.5 and two percent of July’s mobile traffic, respectively. In terms of sales, Android saw another increase, ranging between 11.5 and 13 percent throughout the four weeks of July, while BlackBerry and “Other” devices both stayed below two percent.

From a year-to-date perspective, iPads have driven 57 percent of all mobile sales, with iPhones coming in second at 27 percent, and followed by Android (11 percent), BlackBerry (3 percent) and other devices (2 percent). Adding to this, Affiliate Window found that the iPhone, Android and “Other” devices allow showed an improvement in conversion rates in July; in fact, they were all almost identical at around 2.1 percent.

I think it’s fair to say that if you take anything away from this report, it’s not to put too much stock in the future of BlackBerry.

'Net Features : affilate window

Tracking Mobile Campaigns, a Must

Mobile Traffic Declines in July (And More Statistics)