Mobile Marketing By the Numbers

Mobile Marketing By the Numbers Your personal guide to the ever-changing mobile marketing landscape

The future is calling—and it’s using a smart device. By 2020 there will be 75 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things. Yes, some of those devices will be fridges and air conditioners—but considering there are only about seven billion people on the planet, it’s clear that if marketers want to talk to their customers, they’re going to have to develop a smart mobile strategy that goes beyond banner ads. What follows is a collection of articles meant to catalyze you into action. Consumers are hyper-connected and transitioning to mobile at unprecedented speed; your marketing strategy needs to keep up.

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Mobile Video Ad Dollars to Rival Desktop in Five Years People already watch more video on smartphones and tablets than they do on desktops and laptops. By Al Urbanski obile devices currently claim a mere 16% of the video ad spend, but their share will balloon to 40% in five years due to the rapid adoption of video viewing on devices—especially tablets. According to an eMarketer forecast, Americans already watch more video on mobile devices than on PCs. Still, desktop spending will continue to dominate video media in 2014, claiming $4.45 billion to mobile’s $1.44 billion, says eMarketer. By 2018, however, mobile spending is figured to hit $5.44 billion, compared to $6.83 billion for desktop.

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A big reason for this, says the researcher, is the tablet’s replacement of the desktop and laptop computer in many American homes. More than three quarters of the 113 million tablet users in the U.S. watch videos on the device at least once a month, and eMarketer sees penetration rising to 87% in five years. As for video viewing time, mobile is already dominant, claiming 33 minutes a day to desktop’s 22 minutes. Emarketer predicts that video viewing on tablets will increase by 54% this year to 20 minutes a day, while smartphones will rise 44% to 13 minutes.

Hold the Phone

250M

Number of smartphones sold worldwide in 3Q 2013 Gartner

$3B

Mobile ad spending in first half of 2013

Interactive Advertising Bureau

85%

Share of consumers receptive to mobile coupons Yankee Group

25%

Share of consumers already using mobile coupons Yankee Group

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6 Mobile Marketing Must-Have’s Responsive design is but one of many features experts say are essential to successful mobile marketing. By Perry Simpson here’s never been a more critical time to optimize your mobile marketing efforts. Keep these do’s and dont’s in mind and you’ll be on your way to success:

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DEEP-LINKING Apps stand as the most integrated and seamless user experiences in mobile, simply by virtue of being created for the sole purpose of mobile use. It follows then that emails or links on mobile sites should link to apps, especially if the brand already has a mobile app. “Apps like Seamless make great use of deep-linking,” says Jordan Cohen, VP of marketing at email platform Movable Ink. “It’s unintuitive to link from email to a mobile website when your brand has a functional app. It’s a missed opportunity at best.” INVEST IN VIDEO The widespread popularity of video apps such as Vine and YouTube make mobile the premiere channel for video content. Even Instagram, an app previously used exclusively for photos, instituted a video feature in the wake of the video craze following apps such as Vine. “Having video content is really important these days,” says Christopher Lester, director of the concierge team at email marketing service provider Emma Inc. “People spend more time watching video on smartphones and tablets than they do on desktops, with people watching the most video on tablets. I might not spend time reading on my phone, but I’ll watch a video.” DON’T TRY TO MONETIZE EVERYONE IMMEDIATELY Generally, users who download apps and then abandoned them or use them infrequently aren’t likely to resume use if they’re prompted to pay. Indeed, experts recommend

that monetization come after a fair bit of nurturing, and only if the user is already engaged with the app. Engagement doesn’t start with a download. “Try to turn a new app customer into an engaged customer as soon as possible,” says Len Shneyder, senior marketing manager at mobile marketing platform OtherLevels. “You’re missing the foreplay bit if you start immediately trying to monetize new users. You need to move them up the funnel.” ALL RESPONSIVE EVERYTHING The importance of responsive design simply can’t be overstated. Emails and websites absolutely must be opti-

42%

of marketers say they rarely or never use responsive design Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud

mized for mobile. “It used to be best to get your site or email crafted first, and then make sure it’s optimized for mobile. Mobile should come first now, especially for email,” Lester explains. “If websites aren’t optimized for mobile then banner ads become increasingly ineffective,” adds Tom Bash, manager of product strategy and operations at ad intelligence and digital media solutions provider Exponential. BE CAUTIOUS OF GEOLOCATION With the impending frenzy around the “Internet of things,” geolocation could become a major factor in mobile marketing——emphasis on could. Geolocation and other GPSbased operations have proven major contributors to the rampant battery issues ailing the mobile device market. Beyond issues of battery, there’s a fair bit of opting-in involved in mobile location services. With the various data and security concerns over the past few years, it’s unlikely these opt-ins will increase significantly. “Geolocation is a great, awesome idea, but generally only for about 1% of your audience,” says OtherLevel’s Shneyder. “Geolocation isn’t at all useless, but it requires a different strategy. “ REDUCE TAP-THROUGH PATHS Traditional email marketing has always focused on the ubiquitous click-through rate. But many users can attest to their waning attention span as forms or other actions demand more and more clicks, or taps. “You want to drive consumers where you want them in as few taps as possible”, Cohen says. “The more taps, the less likely they are to complete the action.”

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Is the Inbox Out for Mobile? Even the most data-centric marketers find it challenging to analyze a key mobile touchpoint: email. By Perry Simpson s consumers continue to adopt mobile in more aspects of their daily lives, marketers are close on their heels. However, even the most data-centric marketers find it challenging to analyze a key mobile touchpoint: email. One reason is the way customers interact with mobile email. Often the mobile email experience doesn’t extend much farther than the inbox list. “A lot of people simply aren’t opening emails on their mobiles devices,” says Craig Vore, insights manager at digital marketing company Outsell. “They see the email in their notification bar and wait until they’re at a desktop computer to actually view the message.” Take Android users, for example. According to the developer dashboards page for Google’s Android, more than 35% of Android devices run version 4.1, also known as Jelly Bean—the first version of Android to include email previews in the notification bar by default. Smartphone users don’t have to open their emails when they can triage them using a preview screen. Given Android’s substantial 80% mobile market share, according to market intelligence company IDC, more than one third of target customers on the most popular mobile operating system aren’t actually opening emails on mobile—if at all. Even if recipients fully open an email message on their mobile device, results might be skewed. Marketers often gauge open rates by image downloads, but Android doesn’t download email images by default, potentially leading to dismal mobile email metrics.

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EMAIL ANALYTICS IN A MOBILE WORLD Where does this leave marketers? They can’t afford to ignore the Android platform, given its massive market share, nor can marketers rely on iOS’s default image download feature, which can favorably skew email performance. Perhaps open rate is less than ideal for measuring mobile email performance. “Open rate measures the quality of your subject line and the quality of past messaging,” says Christopher Lester, director of the concierge team at email marketing services provider Emma Inc. “Unless opening the email is the call-to-action, it’s a lost analytic.” Dave Michaud, VP of product marketing at Oracle Eloqua, echoes this sentiment. “Open rates are not only an unreliable metric regarding mobile devices, they’re unreliable on other devices, as well, due to user preferences on email clients,” Michaud notes. “Today’s modern marketer needs to consider all mobile touchpoints, such as email, SMS, MMS, social, and apps.” In fact, in terms of mobile email, marketers have pre-

cious little content real estate to engage their users. “You’ve got the subject line. That’s it. About 14 to 16 words,” says Jerry Jao, CEO and cofounder of customer retention solutions provider Retention Science. “That first paragraph is where your money is going.” This is one reason marketers may increase their use of email to drive customers to mobile apps. “The email-toapp exchange investment needs to increase,” says Quinn Jalli, SVP of digital marketing technology at Epsilon. “Apps can store payment and other information, and can be a one-stop shop for users.” Clearly marketers have options, but what of analyzing the performance of these mobile marketing efforts? If open rates aren’t an effective success measure, what about click-through rates or other engagement metrics? “Even click-through rates are less telling than they used to be,” Jalli says. “Not all clicks are equal. Where does that click come from?” The ultimate shift, according to Emma’s Lester, lies in where marketers place their efforts. “A lot of businesses are looking for the next answer instead of learning their audience,” Lester explains. “You have to pay attention to what your audience is doing, not these averages. Stop holding yourself to open or click rates.”

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Mobile Trends That Make Registers Ring M-commerce is changing the game for marketers by building a bridge between brick-and-mortar stores and online shopping. By Elyse Dupré etail m-commerce sales are expected to surge about 37% this year to about $58 billion—or roughly 20% of retail e-commerce sales, according to eMarketer. In fact, m-commerce is changing the game for marketers by building a bridge between brick-and-mortar stores and online shopping. “You have to be where your customers are and where they’re interacting with brands,” says Cal Bouchard, director of e-commerce at The North Face. “If you’re not on mobile, you’re missing out pretty significantly.” Here are three m-commerce trends that are helping to fuse in-store and online shopping into one seamless experience.

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BEACONS Beacons are Bluetooth-powered devices that communicate with shoppers’ smartphones while in-store or outside a store. They allow marketers to send relevant messages by using timely, geo-precise targeting. Beacons give marketers the opportunity to connect with consumers at the most opportune time, notes Michael Becker, North American marketing development and strategic advisor for mobile solutions company Somo. Why marketers should care: Beacons can be solid measurement tools for marketers, Becker says. These devices allow marketers to track incoming store traffic, measure engagement, and assess sales. But marketers must then use that information to communicate with consumers in a way that’s authentic to the brand, Bouchard says. “People are willing to give up their information if they’re going to get a relevant message back in return,” she says. MOBILE WALLETS A mere 19% of consumers say they’ve received mobile wallet–specific offers from retailers, according to the 2013 Mobile Wallet Consumer Report from mobile marketing solutions provider Vibes. This may be a missed opportunity. Mobile wallets—like Apple’s Passbook and Google Wallet—benefit consumers and marketers, notes Alex Campbell, cofounder and chief innovation officer of Vibes. Mobile wallets provide a paperless way for consumers not only to purchase, but also to store everything from boarding passes to loyalty cards. Marketers can set geo-fences for their mobile wallet content, Campbell notes, including reminding consumers of saved offers when they enter a store. One success story is Starbucks’s Square Wallet, which en-

ables mobile transactions and receipt management for its U.S. stores. According to Starbucks’s Fiscal 2013 Annual Report, U.S. customers make more than four million mobile transactions per week via the brand’s mobile payment apps. Why marketers should care: In addition to driving loyalty, mobile wallets allow marketers to revise offers instantly. “If [an offer] expires, or you see it not working as you thought it would, [you] can now update that,” Campbell says. IN-STORE TABLETS Retailers should also consider their sales associates when building their mobile commerce strategies. Armed with in-store tablets, staffers can access customer data——including wish lists and online buying behavior——to greatly enhance in-store CX. Why marketers should care: In addition to helping associates engage consumers, tablets can be used to combat showrooming. For marketers who want to use tablets instore to allow customers to self-serve, it’s important make sure those devices enhance the customer experience——or those retailers may find that tablets are ignored in favor of speaking with an associate, notes Valerie Hoecke, Benefit Cosmetics’ SVP of digital. “Digital has to supplement the… customer service experience that you have in your stores,” she says. “It’s not going to replace [it].”

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Four Out of Five Mobile Searchers Buy—Despite Poor Search Quality Study augurs huge upside for local businesses that provide their hours and driving directions. By Al Urbanski ore than half of all local searches end in a purchase, but 80% of local searches made on mobile devices result in pay dirt—three quarters of the time in brick-and-mortar stores. This, despite the fact that more local searchers surveyed for the 7th Annual Neustar Localeze-15th Mile study preferred the quality of PC and laptop search to mobile (67% to 50%). Some 85% of local searches continue to be made on desktop machines. That indicates bigger paydays for smarter mobile marketers, and the route to the pot of gold is an easy one, says the survey’s sponsor. “When people are doing local search, they’re looking for the name and number of a business, but

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now they’re also looking for hours of operation and driving directions. Yet many businesses still don’t provide this information,” says Mike Pycha, executive director of Neustar Localeze. “There’s a tremendous opportunity here for companies to gain a competitive edge.” Mobile marketers also could benefit by paying closer attention to their creative displays. Some 54% of the 3,000 consumers surveyed said the quality of screen designs influenced their purchase decisions. More than 247 billion local searches took place in the U.S. in 2013. About a third sought restaurants, 27% local businesses, and 13% driving directions.

(P)honing in on the Sale

$1T

Worldwide mobile transactions to hit up to $1 trillion by 2015*

47%

Marketers who have an app**

30%

Marketers who leverage location-based functionality**

80%

Marketers who say that mobile will or does provide ROI** *Yankee Group **Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud

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Geo-Precise Targeting Shows Marked Rise Nearly four-fifths of mobile ads in the first quarter homed in on specific locations and behaviors, xAd reports. By Al Urbanski obile advertisers employed geo-precise targeting in 79% of their campaigns in the first quarter of 2014, compared to only 58% of campaigns during the same period last year, according to mobile ad platform xAd’s evaluation of its traffic. Ninety-five percent of retail, restaurant, and automotive brand campaigns were geo-precise. Geo-precise ads target specific behavior or GPS coordinates instead of cities or ZIP codes used in standard geo-targeting. Such high usage levels had been observed previously only during holiday periods, when time-sensitive conversions are the paramount goals of promotions, according to xAd’s Q1 overview, “Reaching Your Audience on Mobile.” Geo-location techniques vary slightly by vertical. While retail, restaurants, and auto companies are the three biggest users of mobile geo-location tactics overall, the three leading verticals using xAd’s location-based demographic and behavioral targeting services are telecoms, retailers, and entertainment companies. xAd’s clients include Columbia Sportswear, Dunkin’ Donuts, Outback Steakhouse, and Pinkberry.

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The New Path to Purchase

74% 6X 15 hours 93%

Consumers who use mobile search during the shopping process Average number of times mobile users who make a purchase visit mobile websites Time spend on mobile research by consumers every week People who use mobile to research who then go on to purchase Google, Neilson

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Tablet Usage Is on a Serious Upswing New research says that 18.5% of all marketing emails were opened on a tablet in Q1 2014. That’s up more than 5% since just nine months ago.

By Allison Schiff ordan Cohen called it. When we last spoke with Cohen, VP of marketing at agile email company Movable Ink back in August 2013, he predicted major growth potential in the tablet market, noting that while still “in its infancy,” it was definitely an area to watch. And just about nine months down the road, here we are: According to new research from Movable Ink, the number of marketing emails opened on a tablet shot up from 13.8% in Q2 2013 to 18.5% in the first quarter of this year. “From a consumer electronic shopping perspective, it seems like more consumers are using tablets as their goto device, rather than the desktop,” Cohen says. “Desktops won’t go away completely—we still have phones and the postal mail, too—but I do see room for tablets to gain more and more market share from the desktop.” If not yet king, tablets are definitely doing their part to chip away at desktop usage. But, for the first time this year, tablets are also taking a bit of market share away from their mobile brother, the smartphone. While more than 47% of email opens took place on a smartphone in Q1 2014—66% of all email opens happened on a mobile device (tablets and smartphones combined)—that number is actually down slightly from 48.2% last quarter. Another interesting bit of data from the report: Consumers open more emails on Apple devices—but spend more time with their emails on Android devices. Apple products accounted for 54.5% of all email opens in Q1 2014 (up from 49.9% in Q4 2013); by comparison, only 10.8% of email opens took place on an Android device, down from 14.4% last quarter. But Android users viewed their emails for 15 seconds longer, on average, than their iOS counterparts. While Cohen admitted it’s a bit of a puzzler, he did posit a theory—namely, that images don’t render consistently or quickly on Android devices, meaning users have to wait to see their messages.

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“Newer devices, like the latest Galaxy, render images well, but legacy Android devices—as opposed to the iPhone, which automatically resizes emails to fit all screens—will only show the upper left-hand quadrant so that you not only have to scroll down, you have to side-scroll as well,” Cohen says. “You’re spending more time with your emails because you need to if you want to understand them.” The merits or disadvantages of particular devices aside, one thing is not under debate: Mobile usage is on the rise. Movable Ink found that email opens on smartphones surpassed that of email opens on desktops in all but 13 U.S. states. Just nine months ago, desktops beat smartphones in only 24 states. “This is the fourth report we’ve done, and every quarter the map is getting pinker,” Cohen says. “I think that number will continue to shrink until we get to a place, maybe even by the end of the year, when the entire map is pink and we don’t even have to produce it anymore.”

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Mobile Marketers Aren’t Pushing Push Notifications Only 31% of retailers send push notifications to users that opt-in to receive them.

By Perry Simpson hough many mobile marketers continue to invest in push notifications, few actually use the medium for marketing messaging. All told, 62% of the top 100 online retailers prompt users to opt in to push notifications, 27% more than 2012, according to a recent study from mobile marketing platform OtherLevels. However only 31% of these retailers actually send push notifications to opt-in consumers. Throughout 2013, OtherLevels downloaded and tested mobile apps from the top 500 online retailers as ranked by InternetRetailer.com, and compiled the findings in the study. The study found that 80% of consumers’ mobile interactions take place in apps. At 77%, most of the top 100 online retailers have responded to consumer preference by publishing apps; 40% of the top 500 retailers have done so, as well. About 66% of the top 100 e-retailers publish both iOS and Android versions of their app. Just 16% of the top 100 online retailers integrate with social media for login credentials, and only 40% prompt users to opt in to share their GPS locations. Less than 2% of the top 500 online retailers have a rich inbox in their app, which allows for email-esque content inside the app. Only 35% of consumers prefer mobile apps over mobile Web when it comes to shopping; an unsurprising fact considering the varying degrees of user experience for mobile apps.

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Don’t be a Mobile Pushover

32%

Executives who say push is an “essential channel” for their business Urban Airship

11%

Executives who say SMS is essential to their business Urban Airship

68%

Consumers who opt in to receive push notifications from a band app Responsys

75B

Number of devices that will be connected to the Internet of Things by 2020 Business Insider

Endless

The possibilities

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App Attack A roundup of our favorite productivity apps curated just for you. By Andrew Corselli

FLIPBOARD

COLLECTS CONTENT FROM THE WEB AND REFORMATS IT FOR USERS A single place to receive and read all pertinent news, Flipboard’s mission is to improve how people discover, view, and share content across their social networks. Flipboard collects content from Web pages and reformats it to look more like magazine content. Users are able to toggle through items on Facebook, Instagram, The New York Times, YouTube, and many other sources as if the stories were featured together in one periodical. Additionally, users are able to promote interesting stories via their social networks. What might surprise marketers are full-page ads that not only provide information on relevant products to users in a more reader-friendly, magazine-like style, but also help Flipboard monetize the content.

KEYNOTE

HELPS CREATE EVERYTHING FROM FLASHY PORTFOLIOS TO SLICK BUSINESS PRESENTATIONS Watch out PowerPoint. Presentation app Keynote, with its easy-to-use tools, is gaining fans. The app provides numerous templates that users can choose from to create and edit slides, add animations, and more—all to help create everything from flashy portfolios to slick business presentations. Optimized for Macs, Keynote is one of three apps from Apple’s productivity suite that includes Pages and Numbers. Up to 20 people can simultaneously work on the same file within the trifecta of iWork apps, with the work shown in real time. A color coding system lets each participant know who’s doing what; Keynote also has a feature that allows all collaborators to send comments to each other. Sharing work is easy, too; the main presentation index screen includes a share button that allows users to share files via iCloud, iMessage, or email. Synching the work to iTunes or a remote server is also possible with Keynote.

GOODREADS

THE DILEMMA OF CHOOSING A BOOK TO READ HAS BECOME A THING OF THE PAST The Goodreads app allows users to enter titles and genres of their favorite books, then doles out recommendations for new reads. To paraphrase Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, “You’re gonna like this book. It’s all right. It’s a Goodread.” Goodreads, whose recommendation engine analyzes 20 billion data points to give specifically designed suggestions, also allows users to see which books their friends are reading; track books they’re currently read-

ing, have read, and want to read; and peruse reviews from the app’s community. In March of 2013 Amazon acquired the app, and its functionality is now supported on Kindle, Kindle Fire tablets, and new and first-generation Kindle Paperwhite e-readers. In addition, users may now add prior Kindle purchases— both print and e-books—to their Goodreads account.

MUSTBIN

A MUST HAVE FOR PRIVACY-MINDED MARKETERS This iOS7 app enables users to capture information and data, and then securely store, organize, and share it with

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App Attack (cont.) contacts on Mustbin’s private social network. Users are also able to like and comment on their contacts’ bin contents. Via their smartphone camera, users can take photos of important items and information—such as receipts, credit cards, business cards, contracts, etc.—and place it into a “bin” for safe storage. Custom or prebuilt bins are available; and each bin offers guides that walk the user through specific information to capture. Since Mustbin stores highly sensitive information, it takes its security seriously. Not only has a third-party security analysis business verified the system, but the app also boasts security technology that offers bin-level encryption, AES-256 encryption on each file, and end-to-end encryption during cloud sync. Furthermore, the encryption keys are owned by each user, so nobody—not even Mustbin employees—can see any of the data without a user’s consent.

DAILYBURN

users accomplish tasks on all ends of the difficulty spectrum— the app provides all the necessary tools to track everything from shopping lists to vacation plans to running a business. Users can schedule recurring to-dos; break down large, imposing tasks into smaller, more manageable subtasks; receive push, email, and in-app notifications; add Web content straight from a browser; and sync lists seamlessly across all devices. The app boasts numerous useful features. Through “Detail View” users can add due dates, reminders, subtasks, and notes to tasks. The “Mail to Wunderlist” feature lets users send or forward emails to the app to add tasks remotely; and with the company’s browser extension, “Add to Wunderlist,” users can add content from Amazon, Gmail, eBay, YouTube, and other sites. According to The New York Times, Wunderlist “is a powerful app” that’s both “easy to use” and “a pleasure to use.” For more visit dmnews.com/AppOfTheWeek

WELL-TRAVELED MARKETERS MAY FIND THIS FITNESS APP TO BE A HEALTHY COMPANION A fitness-oriented social networking and workout website and app, DailyBurn aims to help users achieve their fitness goals and maintain a healthy diet, in part by making it easy to fit exercise into their already jam-packed daily routines. Users can choose from 12 DailyBurn trainers who host their own programs, which comprise more than 100 combined workout sessions that range between six minutes and an hour. The programs include cardio, dance, resistance training, and yoga. The app also offers nutrition tips and healthy recipes. When users register with DailyBurn they enter their name, age, current and desired weights, and email address, in addition to answering questions such as ‘What is your current level of fitness?’ Then, DailyBurn recommends a program based on the responses. However, users can select from any of the workouts offered. DailyBurn, which is accessible via any Internet-connected device, provides the ability to track progress and interact with other users in the program. The mobile app is intuitive, and it’s just as easy to follow along with workouts on a smartphone as on a larger screen, so it’s great for road warriors like well-traveled marketers.

WUNDERLIST

AIMS TO HELP USERS ACCOMPLISH ANY AND ALL TASKS Ever feel overwhelmed by trying to effectively manage and share to-do lists? Well, those days may soon be over, leaving no more excuses for procrastination. Wunderlist aims to help

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@Messenger_121 Did you know? 33 percent of U.S. mobile users prefer offers via text to mobile Web (21 percent) #mobilemarketing

@SAPPHIRENOW 50% of GenY say they would rather lose their sense of smell than their mobile device. #SAPPHIRENOW

@Anchor_Mobile 47 percent of consumers want mobile offers on their devices when they pass by a store. #GeoLocation #MobileMarketing #MobileCoupons

@howielb “If you have a mobile phone & a Facebook page, you have a mobile marketing strategy.” - Dan Levy, @facebook #FacebookFIT

@NomenUK The marketing industry needs to be less risk-averse on mobile and make better use of data #marketing #data

@dcborn61 Think of your tweets being read on a mobile device. They are 86% of the time. #marketing

@timoketonen Smartphone adoption still has a huge upside globally, from 1 B to 5 B #mobile #smartphones

@PotratzADV There are now around 143 million smart phones in use in the U.S., and 71 million tablets. #mobilemarketing #facts #automarketing

@Obeo 79 percent of #mobile users who find a site difficult to use will leave and never return Via @inmannext

@danagundlach @FotoTaker can’t wait until my bathroom tells my smartphone that I am almost out of toilet paper...