In late 2015, mobile web traffic surpassed desktop for the very first time. Since then, we’ve been living in a mobile world, and mobile device usage has skyrocketed.
One problem—most articles on mobile marketing and mobile usage statistics are terribly outdated. Considering digital technology adoption is speeding along at an ever-increasing rate, things have changed since 2015. Below you’ll find more than 60 of the top (and most recent) mobile marketing statistics to guide your mobile marketing strategy in 2018 and beyond.
Your Biggest Mobile Marketing Questions—Answered!
Below are the top four questions users usually have about mobile usage and online activity:
How Much Time Do Consumers Spend on a Smartphone Daily?
- Consumers now spend more than five hours a day on their smartphones, and a recent AdWeek survey found 88% growth year over year in time spent watching videos on a smartphone
What percentage of online traffic is mobile?
- In 2018, 52.2% of all worldwide online traffic was generated through mobile phones, up from 50.3% in the previous year (Statista, 2018)
- 57% of all U.S. online traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets (BrightEdge, 2017)
What Percentage of Emails Are Opened on a Mobile Device?
- About 3 in 5 consumers check their email on the go and 75% of Americans say they use their smartphones most often to check email
- As a whole, in 2017, 61% of U.S. email opens occurred on mobile, 15% on desktop and 24% in a webmail client (Adestra)
What Is Facebook’s Mobile vs. Desktop Usage? What About Other Social media Platforms?
- In 2017, 95.1 percent of active Facebook user accounts accessed the social network via a mobile device (Statista, 2018)
- As of 2016, 80% of its users access Pinterest through a mobile device (Pinterest)
- 85% of the time users spend on Twitter is on a mobile device (Wall Street Journal)
- 60% of LinkedIn traffic comes from mobile devices (Fortune, 2017)
Consumer Behavior and Mobile Usage Statistics
- Mobile searches for “best” have grown over 80 percent in the past 2 years (Google, 2017)
- 51% of customers say that they use mobile devices to discover new brands and products (BrightEdge, 2017)
- 69% of smartphone users also say that they are more likely to buy from companies with mobile sites that easily address their questions or concerns (BrightEdge, 2017)
- Worldwide, more people own a cell phone than a toothbrush. (Consumer Technology Association, 2015)
- 89% of people are likely to recommend a brand after a positive brand experience on Mobile (Google, 2017)
- People today have 2X more interactions with brands on mobile than anywhere else—that includes TV, in-store, you name it (Google, 2017)
- 46% of people say they would not purchase from a brand again if they had an interruptive mobile experience (Google, 2017)
- Users spend on average 69% of their media time on smartphones (Comscore, 2017)
- 57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site (socPub)
- By 2018, American adults are expected to spend on average 3 hours and 23 minutes on nonvoice mobile media. (eMarketer)
- Apps account for 89% of mobile media time, with the other 11% spent on websites. (Smart Insights)
- 80% of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies with mobile sites or apps that help them easily answer their questions. (Google, 2018)
- Over 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while conducting a search on their smartphone. (Google, 2018)
Mobile Video Marketing
- 94% of respondents in a Facebook survey (of one million people) have a smartphone on hand while watching TV, and viewers focus on the TV screen just 53% of the time (Facebook, 2018)
- Millennials’ mobile consumption has now eclipsed their live TV consumption (comScore, 2018)
- During TV shows, viewers paid attention to mobile 28% of the time, and during TV ads, they paid attention to mobile more than half the time. People ages 18–24 looked at their smartphones 60% of the time during TV ads, and people ages 45 and over did so 41% of the time (Facebook, 2018)
- In the past 2 years, videos with the word “review” in the title had more than 50,000 years worth of watch time on mobile alone (Google, 2017)
- Watch time of “does it work” videos grew by more than 11X in the past two years as consumers seek out visual proof that the items they’re considering are worth it (Google, 2017)
- More than 50% of videos are watched on mobile (Ooyala, 2016)
- 93% of Twitter videos are watched on mobile (Twitter, 2016)
Mobile Marketing and Ecommerce
- Mobile can fast-track time to purchase by 20% through facilitating efficiencies in decision-making and enhanced team collaboration, particularly with more complex purchases (Google, 2017)
- Over 40% of online transactions are now done on mobile (Google, 2017)
- Mobile searches related to “same-day shipping” have grown over 120% since 2015 (Google, 2017)
- Nearly 2/3 of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies whose mobile sites or apps customize information to their location (Google, 2017)
- Smartphone users are 50% more likely to expect to purchase something immediately while using their smartphone compared to a year ago (Google, 2017)
- 91% of smartphone owners purchased or plan to purchase something after seeing an ad they described as relevant (Google, 2017)
- When people have a negative brand experience on mobile, they are 62% less likely to purchase from that brand in the future than if they had a positive experience (Google, 2017)
- 70% of smartphone users who bought something in a store first turned to their phone for information about a purchase (Google, 2017)
- 35% of people who searched on their phone spent more than they expected in the store (Google, 2017)
Mobile Marketing for B2B Industries
- 80% of B2B executives research products or services on a tablet in the evening (IDG Global Solutions)
- 80% of B2B buyers are using mobile at work (Boston Consulting Group, 2017)
- More than 60% of B2B buyers report that mobile played a significant role in a recent purchase (Boston Consulting Group, 2017)
- The majority of senior executives (92%) own a smartphone used for business, with 77% reporting they use their smartphone to research a product or service for their business. While the majority (93%) go on to purchase that product via the Internet using a laptop or desktop, 50% of these executives have purchased IT products for business using their smartphone, with 13% reporting making a purchase between $1,000 to $4,999 (IDG Global Solutions)
- Mobile usage per B2B worker is expected to increase from two hours a day to three by 2020, driven by millennials, Gen Z, and the increasing use of smartphones by older workers (Google, 2017)
- Mobile drives, or influences, an average of more than 40% of revenue in leading B2B organizations (Google, 2017)
- 50% of B2B search queries today are made on smartphones, and will grow to 70% by 2020
- Mobile marketing can accelerate time to B2B purchase by 20% (Boston Consulting Group, 2017)
- More than 90% of buyers reporting a superior mobile experience say they are likely to buy from the same vendor again, compared to only 50% of those who had a poor experience
The State of Mobile Advertising
- By 2019, mobile advertising is expected to represent 72% of all U.S. digital ad spending. (MarketingLand)
- Users spend 25% of their total offline and online media consumption time on mobile, yet advertisers only devote 12% of their budgets to mobile (Boston Consulting Group, 2017)
- Leading marketers are more than 3X as likely as the mainstream to be significantly increasing their investment in mobile customer experience (Google, 2017)
- 87% of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from mobile (AdWeek)
- It’s estimated that U.S. mobile search spending will reach $25.11 billion in 2018 and $28.25 billion in 2019 (AUM Core)
- 68% of companies have integrated mobile marketing into their overall marketing strategy. (Salesforce)
- 71% of marketers believe mobile marketing is core to their business (Salesforce)
Mobile Search and SEO Stats
- 42% of all mobile brand experiences involve search (Google, 2017)
- 79% of keywords overall and 47% of keywords in positions 1-20 rank differently in search on mobile and desktop SERPs (BrightEdge, 2017)
- 35% of the time the first page that ranks for a domain on a query is different on mobile and desktop SERPs (BrightEdge, 2017)
- 53% of mobile website visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. For every one second delay in site load time, conversions fall by 12% (Google, 2018)
- The average mobile webpage still takes 15.3 seconds to load (Google, 2018)
- 3 in 4 smartphone owners turn to mobile search first to address their immediate needs (Google, 2017)
- “Same-day shipping” searches on mobile spike first thing in the morning (Google, 2017)
- Search interest in ”open now” has tripled in the past two years (Google, 2017)
- More than half of searches related to auto parts, services, and maintenance come from mobile (Google, 2017)
- Google has seen 1.5X more mobile searches ending with “to avoid” in the past two years
- Nearly 1/3 of all mobile searches are related to location (Google, 2016)
- Google drives 96% of mobile search traffic, followed by Yahoo at 2% and Bing at 1%. Google Search is also one of the most popular mobile apps in the United (NetMarketShare)
- In 2017, mobile devices account for 61.9% of Google’s paid-search clicks – up from 53% in 2016 (iProspect)
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About The Author: Betsy is Blue Corona's in-house Digital Marketing Specialist. When she’s not directing Blue Corona's corporate digital content campaigns she’s urban exploring with her wife, diving into the latest marketing trends, or teaching horseback riding lessons. Twitter: @educatedbets
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