Mobile Payments – Replacing Wallets with Smartphones

Make Life Easier with Mobile Payments

These days we can forget our wallet at home but not our smartphones. Mobile devices are dominating the users’ lives. Their world exists in these magical devices, where in they can connect with their family and friends, keep themselves updated on events happening around them. They have adapted themselves to all the features introduced in the mobile devices.

And like so many other things, users welcomed the mobile payment feature and adopted it with a big smile. In a recent study by Carlisle & Gallagher, a consultancy group, “48 percent of respondents in the United States expressed interest in some form of a mobile wallet.” The number clearly shows that customers are looking forward to innovations, in the form of convergence of marketing and payment in the tech field. They too are inclined in turning their mobile devices as the powerhouse through which they can share, connect and now pay their bills. And why not? It is another feature in the mobile devices which will make their lives easier and even more comfortable.

What are Mobile Payments?

eMarketer defines Mobile Payments as, “Transactions for goods or services made by scanning, tapping, swiping or checking in with a mobile phone at the point of sale.” For instance, users can install a mobile payment app such as Google Wallet or Isis on an NFC-equipped phone and can pay from the account by tapping the phone on an NFC payment terminal.

Mobile payment apps enable users to use their smartphones to:

• Make online purchases,
• Make in-store payments,
• Receive offers,
• And to manage their debit cards, credit cards, reward/loyalty/discount cards
• Number of mobile payment users

Number of Mobile Payment Users

The number of mobile payment users is growing rapidly. It is estimated that the number of mobile payment users will increase to 13.3 million users as compared to 7.9 million users in 2012. And by 2016 there will be 48.1 million users in the United States. [fig.1]

According to a new study by Yankee Group, “The volume of transactions made via mobile will also continue to grow and is expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2015.”

Fig. 1

Retailers Offering Mobile Payment Solutions 

Big retailers such as, 7-Eleven, Best Buy, CVS and Wal-Mart all are offering easy mobile payment solutions to their customers. However, Starbucks is leading the mobile payment battle as the company said its customers do 2.1 million mobile transactions at Starbucks every week—about 5% of all its sales transactions in U.S. stores.

“Over 7 million customers now use one of our mobile payment apps, translating into 2.1 million mobile payment transactions each week, with hundreds of thousands of additional Starbucks mobile app downloads each week,” says the Starbucks chief executive, Howard Schultz. And he gives the credit of this success to Starbucks gifts card, which is increasingly growing popular among their users.

Starbucks is putting in a lot of efforts in the form of, the Starbucks mobile app, Apple’s Passbook and Square Wallet in their mobile digital initiatives. And now the coffee shop chain is reaping the benefits of understanding the importance of mobile payment solutions.

Most popular Mobile Payment Apps

Google Wallet – A Google Wallet app let users store their current credit and debit cards. And to make a payment, all they have to do is wave their smartphone or tap it on the NFC enabled phone or machine. Users can also redeem discount points stored in the app just by tapping on their phone while paying at retail stores such as Macy’s or Old Navy.

ISIS mobile wallet – Users can store their credit and debit card information, reloadable ISIS cash card, loyalty cards, personalized offers, account details and purchase records.

Pay with Square app – Want to go for a cup of coffee? Just browse your favorite local coffee shop and look for square enabled merchants near your location in the app. Just say your name at the payment counter and you are ready to clear your bills.
This easy to use app works with iOS and Android phones. The app requires users to link their credit card information and their image in the app. And at the checkout counter tell your name and the square enabled merchant will click your picture to charge you.

Venmo – Venmo is a simple iPhone, Android and Blackberry phone app, which is getting popular for its sharing feature. Users can store their credit card and bank account information and can pay or share bills with their friends. Just enter the name, phone number or email of any of your friend in your contact list, enter the amount and click pay. In case if the receiver is not using the app, the person will get a message to set up an account to claim the amount.

Paypal – Just like Venmo, Paypal let users send money to other Paypal users and track previous transactions’ details. The app is available for both iOS and Android.

Mobile wallets: A Comparison

The picture [fig. 2] below highlights the differences between the big four mobile wallet apps, including who supports them, what’s unique about them, in which locations they are active, and on which technology they rely on.

Fig. 2

Mobile Payments : The Future of Online Commerce

Convenient and safe online payment solutions have revolutionized the way consumers shop. A Forrester Research predicts that by the end of 2017, U.S. mobile users will spend $90B via mobile payments, a 48% increase over the $12.8B spent in 2012.

With more and more mobile payment solutions coming to the fore, the brick-and-mortar businesses are undergoing through major transformations. And businesses opting for simple and convenient mobile payment solutions are expected to be the winners in terms of adoption and transactions.

For more information on iPhone app developers and marketing strategy send in your email to marketing@ymedialabs.com

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How Does Mobile Retargeting Works?

Mobile Retargeting – Turning a Potential Customer into a Happy Customer

The growing mobile landscape

The number of the mobile device users is growing exponentially. Smartphones and tablets have taken their place as the third and fourth screen after TV and desktop, in the consumers lives. According to the ComScore new report, “State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy, Q1 2013,” there are 137 million smartphone users and 60 million tablet users in the U.S. This increase in the number of mobile users is bridging the gap between users and the online retailers. Mobile devices are increasingly being used for online shopping.

The report also finds out that the amount of time consumers spent with online retail jumped 104% to 34.9 billion minutes in February 2013 compared with 17.1 billion minutes in February 2010. Therefore, it is important for the marketers to understand the mobile consumers’ behavior to ensure the success of their marketing campaigns.

What is mobile retargeting?

As we know, mobile devices are everywhere and the users are spending more time on the online retail sites, marketers must devise strategies which helps in improving the conversion rates. As per the statistics, for most websites, only 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit. So what about the remaining 98% is the question that perturbs marketers?

Online advertising strategies such as, mobile retargeting is one of the most important strategies which help marketers in bringing back those 98% visitors to the site and also help in improving he conversion rate.

Mobile retargeting help you keep your brand in front of bounced traffic after they leave your website, thus, allowing marketers to identify the potential customers. Once you know who really is interested in your site/products, you can optimize your spend by serving ads to a specific group of visitors only.

How does retargeting works?

Technically, retargeting is a cookie-based technology that uses a simple JavaScript code to anonymously ‘follow’ your audience all over the web. So all it requires is a simple JavaScript code that you can place on your website. This code will keep a track of visitors, who leave your website, by keeping anonymous retargeting "cookies" in their browser. And when next time these users browse the web, the cookie will let your retargeting provider know when to serve ads, thus, ensuring that your ads are served only to people who have previously visited your site. Fig. 1 describes the process of “How retargeting works”?

Fig. 1

Why you should be doing retargeting?

Before looking for the answer, ask yourself;

• Do you want to save money?
• Do you want to reach the potential customers who have shown a little interest by visiting your website?
• Do you want to increase the conversion rate?
• Do you want to improve brand awareness for your business?
• Do you want to serve customized ads to your potential customers, which are tailored to their immediate interests and behavior?

If the answer to all these questions is “yes” then you know mobile retargeting is your strategic approach to reach all those potential customers. 

How to retarget your mobile customers – Case study

Deeplink.me, a new retarget networking service launched by Cellogic, links the audience directly to the inside of the app. How? Figure 2 shows how the retarget service works for the marketers and bring them back to their mobile apps.

Marketers can get started with Deeplink.me’s retargeting networking by using a 300×50 template, provided to them or uploading their own creative. This way they can keep a track of their ads performance using the provided analytics which shows numbers of ads shown, clicks, geography, and more. It can also be integrated with other third-party analytics providers, too. The ad units themselves will be improved over time as well, allow for more interactivity, and more customization possibilities with regards to their look-and-feel.

Fig. 2

The retarget service let marketers’ choose who they want to retarget. Marketers can target right people with right messages, i.e. they can target their audiences with custom messages. They are given the option to serve different ad messages to both the dormant users and the most frequent users. Also, marketers can serve different messages to people at different locations.

Marketers can analyze reports to make sure whether the service is generating the desired results.

The service let app marketers create ads that are app-enabled, thus, creating a high conversion environment for the customers. 

For more information on iPhone app developers and marketing strategy send in your email to marketing@ymedialabs.com

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5 Best Paid and Free iPad Apps for Preschool Kids

Tablet Apps Are Becoming the Easiest Way to Teach Preschoolers

Tablets are the new devices to educate and entertain kids. Parents too are adopting the new age tools and let their kids use their tablets for homework and other school assignments.

Here is the latest Connected Devices Report from Nielsen, according to which,

- Approximately 78 percent of parents with tablets admitted they let their kids under the age of 11 uses their tablets at home

- 54 percent, i.e. more than half of parents, who let their kids use their tablets at home, says that their children used tablets for educational purposes.

- Fig. 1 shows some of the most popular activities of kids on tablets. Kids are more engaged in activities such as, reading books on tablet (42 percent), taking notes (40 percent), and finishing homework (30 percent) than watching videos (26 percent) or using tablets for social networking purposes (25 percent).

Fig. 1

That was about kids who are going to school. And kids who have yet to start their journey in the education world are equally hooked on to the tablets.

According to developmental psychologist Peter Gray, “Engaging with an app seems more attracting instead of indulging in a passive activity such as watching TV. Kids are interested in tools where they can actually make something happen.”

Tablet apps make for good time pass and can prove beneficial for preschoolers as they help in mental development and physical dexterity. These apps have become the easiest way to teach preschoolers about alphabets, numerical, plants, animals, shapes, colors etc.

A good app is a perfect combination of entertainment and education. There are scores of apps available in the app stores for preschoolers, which makes it difficult for the parents to choose the best one for their kids’ learning process. We are publishing a list of the best paid and free educational iPad apps for preschoolers that you can download on your iPad to make your kid’s learning process easier and simpler. [Links given at the end]

For more information on iPhone app developers and app marketing strategy send in your email to marketing@ymedialabs.com

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Tablets or Smartphones

Which is the Most Effective Device for Advertisers?

Do you know?

• In 2013, about 20 percent of Internet traffic is projected to be mobile (KPCB)
• Use of mobile search has grown by 500 percent over the past two years (Econsultancy)
• 82% percent of mobile shoppers use search to influence their purchasing decisions (Google Online Shopper Study)
• Across all industries, mobile traffic is increasing by 3.5 percent per month (Televox)
• Of the estimated 30 billion annual mobile searches, about 12 billion are local searches (Search Engine Land)
• Seventy-seven percent of mobile searches occur at home or work—even if a PC is nearby (Search Engine Land)

It is evident from the above statistics that mobile marketing will be the significant growth driver for brands globally. Many businesses have already directed their marketing strategies towards mobile devices in order to engage and acquire customers online. But the most important decision lies ahead for many is, which is the most effective device for advertising, i.e. a smartphone or a tablet? Here are three determinants which shows that tablets are far more popular among the users as compared to smartphones, thus, making them a preferred choice of many marketers to advertise.

I. Usage

1. Tablet usage is growing at a striking speed, with traffic from tablet devices doubling over the past year, according to new data from Adobe's Digital Index. Additionally, tablets surpassed smartphones for the first time in February 2013, when looking at global traffic share.

Adobe looked at more than 100 billion visits to more than 1,000 websites worldwide, and found that 8% of visits came from tablets in February, slightly more than the 7% of visits that came from smartphones. [Fig. 1]

Fig. 1

Smartphones continue to be more common among consumers, but tablets, obviously, offer a better option for browsing, shopping, and engaging with content, and a more in-depth experience overall. Adobe found that tablet users visit 70% more pages per visit while using a tablet compared with a smartphone. [Source:adexchanger]

2. Based on a survey of more than 13,000 consumers, a Forrester report shows that, “Tablets are being used primarily at home, with 67% of U.S. tablet owners access them in the living room, and 57% in the bedroom.” On the contrary, smartphones are used on-the-go and at home for communication, content-snacking, chat/messaging and gaming apps.

Fig. 2

With more and more users using their tablet devices at home shows that the users are in no hurry and are using the device in a relaxed mood. There is high probability that the tablet users may not be annoyed with the ads and remain unperturbed with their presence on the screen while using the device. Thus, giving advertisers more opportunities to advertise their products and services on tablets as compared to smartphones

Smartphones are more “Type A” devices, where users are inclined in completing a specific task and getting things done. For example, the study found that 75% of mobile consumers use smartphones while shopping in stores; and only 8% use tablets (size does matter, as users cannot carry their tablets everywhere and every-time).

II. Ad Recall Value

A collective study of about 8,300 people by IPG Media Lab and digital video advertiser YuMe suggests that viewers remember ads better when they watch them on tablets than when they watch them on smartphones, computers or TVs. [Fig. 3]

Fig. 3

III. Growth in Revenue
According to a report released by MarketLive, “Revenue is growing at a faster rate on tablets than smartphones.”  During the first half of 2013, tablet revenue is growing eight times [Fig. 4] faster as compared to smartphones.

Fig. 4

“The biggest news is the dramatic increase in revenue and visits on both mobile phones and tablets, 40 percent revenue increase has seen on phones, where as there is 77 percent increase on tablets; there is 40 percent increase in traffic on phones and 74 percent increase of visits on tablets,” said Ken Burke, founder and chairman of MarketLive.

However, in terms of reach, smartphones are far ahead of tablets as the number of smartphone users is higher than that of tablets. We have explained this here.

One approach does not fit all marketers alike. You need to keep in mind several other factors such as;

• Who is your target audience?
• Which is the best method to disseminate your message among users, a smartphone or a tablet?
• Which device can carry your brand image or identity? For instance, a luxury car ad looks good on a tablet, where advertiser can publish the car image with all its features and other details.

Mobile devices are increasingly becoming the shoppers’ devices. And since the 2013 holiday shopping season is close by it is always good for retailers to offer a strong user experience to their potential customers to avoid the risk of losing potential customers to their competitors. Therefore, advertisers need to create a marketing strategy based on behavioral preferences of users/audience while using them.

For more information on mobile app development and marketing strategy send in your email to marketing@ymedialabs.com

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