How can you convert your mobile traffic in the e-commerce industry?

Posted on Monday, 13. May 2019 in category e-commerce. 4 min read • Written by

Simon Herem

Did you know that your users are coming to your website mainly from mobile devices? Is mobile becoming more important? We are constantly carrying our phones with us, and looking at them. But we are not only looking at them, we are buying with them more and more. We have analysed the best of our e-commerce clients and observed the behaviour of 26 million users on their devices. We have highlighted the most important data observed in 2018. The data show that mobile is taking the lead in many fields and changing our behaviour, e.g. buying directly on mobile devices and opening our e-mails.

Mobile Traffic Continues to Grow, but Desktop Retains Revenue Dominance for Now

In 2018, the proportion of mobile users is increasing (a 19.06% increase) compared to the decline in desktop users (a 4.24% decrease in users). Mobile users are not only browsing the website but are bringing more value. Transaction revenue is still being generated on desktop with more than €12,413,118 generated, while €5,198,928 of revenue came from mobile devices. Desktop revenue is decreasing with a 5,32% decrease, but the switch is happening towards mobile with a 42% increase.

A New Era for Smartphones in Europe Is Coming

In 2017, we saw the rise of Asian smartphone brands, with the number of users increasing for Huawei (126.32%) and Xiaomi (130.5%). These two brands overtook the Samsung and Apple brands not only in terms of users, but also in the revenue generated on e-commerce websites. As regards transaction revenue, the revenue generated on Huawei devices increased by 201.74%, on Xiaomi by 186.91%, on Apple by 21.87% and on Samsung by 31.35%. This is happening thanks to their good price/specifications ratio and the fact that they are cheaper, but offer similar specifications. Users want mobiles with dual cameras and want to share their pictures on social networks. Asian smartphone brands are offering this feature, which is popular among the 18-24 demographics as can be seen in the increase from 2016 to 2017 (Huawei, +17.34%, Samsung -46.8%, Apple -78.28%, Xiaomi +20.74%).

If you are targeting millennials on digital devices, you still need to target established brands like Samsung or Apple, but you should not forget about the mobile trends – millennials often choose the Huawei and Xiaomi brands when buying a new device.

The Best Day of the Week to Make More Revenue

The conversion rate is at its highest at the beginning of the week, i.e. on Monday and Tuesday.

If you were wondering on which day of the week you could convert more users, there is your answer. As you can see, they are the most valuable days of the week, with each day generating more than 16% of total revenue.

On the contrary, Fridays and weekends do not have a good conversion rate, especially Friday with one of the lowest conversion rates (0.28%) and the lowest share of revenue (12.54%). You should adjust your strategy at the end of the week and over the weekends by lowering your budget or your bid, and spending your budget wisely.

Black Friday Online Sales Climb to Record High on Mobile

In 2017, the Black Friday sale generated the highest mobile revenue of the year with €81,662.06 of revenue, in comparison with the average daily revenue on mobile of €15,178.

If you are planning to promote a special offer and flash sales, make sure that your webpage is working perfectly on a mobile device. Apply the same trend throughout the year to get more from mobile devices. The key to converting users is providing a simple payment funnel so you do not lose your customers when finalizing a transaction.

49% of All Email Is Opened First on a Mobile Device

In October 2015, traffic from newsletters using mobile devices stood for 24.71%. In 2018, it’s 49.25%.
Email is one of the most effective ways of converting your user. It provides one-to-one communication and makes sure your design (UX) is adjusted to mobile devices. This should be your focus in 2018/2019. For ease of design, keep email layouts as simple as possible. Too many columns will distract customers or make them overlook important CTAs. Use a single column layout.

You have to focus on how your users are getting your newsletter, and make the font size bigger. Many mobile devices, such as iPhone, automatically resize tiny text. Others leave it up to the users to expand their screens to make fonts readable. A minimum font size of 14 pixels for body text is a good choice. Make sure you are using the best type of image for email to maximize your clicks on mobile. It’s also important to measure the amount of graphics, videos and images attached to the text. The longer it takes to load, the greater the chances of your email being deleted.

Mobile Takes the Lead in 2018 and It’s Not Over Yet

Mobile users have changed their behaviour regarding how they browse the Internet. If we focus on the 3 main sources of traffic (organic, paid and direct), sources from Google Analytics show us that browsing the Internet to find information is increasing (Google organic has increased on mobile by 42.76% while desktop traffic has increased by 15%). On the other hand, direct traffic has decreased by 2.26%.

Secondly, a similar trend applies to paid traffic on Google, with a 28.36% increase in clicks on mobile, whereas traffic from desktop devices has decreased by 21.63%.
This trend could still be increasing because Google released their Mobile-First Index, so mobile could become even more predominant. Nevertheless, desktop remains a major player in the e-commerce vertical, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

So ask yourself this question: “Is my site ready for the switch to mobile-first index?”

If not, we have three tips to fix this:

  1. Follow Google announcements to make progress towards mobile first;
  2. Your website must become responsive;
  3. Make a super-fast website.
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