Tablets Are Taking Over Ecommerce. Are You Ready?

Back in September we saw predictions from Google about the role of mobile devices in holiday shopping. Google predicted that 15% of all “Black Friday” searches will be from mobile devices and 44% of all searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices. Pulling from historical data, Google identified a double peak in mobile search traffic around Black Friday and again the week before Christmas.

This week we see the results of the Prosper Mobile Insights™ Mobile Survey (October-11) from JumpTap that was conducted 10/25-10/27/11 among 329 smartphone and tablet users on their devices.

The insights and advertising opportunity uncovered in this survey are very interesting. We see that mobile apps are going to play a huge part in holiday shopping this year. According to the results of the survey, the top mobile shopping app this season will be Amazon with 18.2% planning to use this app to purchase products for the holidays while 8.5% will use it to help plan their shopping.

Other top apps for purchasing products include eBay (6.1%), Google (2.2%), a barcode scanner (1.9%) and PayPal (1.9%). Other popular planning apps include Google (5.8%), Notes (4.0%), Shop Savvy (2.9%) and Safari (2.1%).

If you’re ahead of the game and have already put out a mobile shopping application you’re sure to reap the rewards. If the mobile application strategy doesn’t suit your business or it’s too late in the game for such a strategy, why not buy ads on the top shopping apps?

Utilizing an in-application mobile ad network like AdMob can be a quick and painless way to get your products in front of these mobile users beyond mobile search results this holiday season.

Adding in-application ads alongside your AdWords mobile and tablet targeted campaigns will increase your reach and frequency of messaging to this audience.

The survey also reveals that the majority of mobile shoppers (56.7%) anticipate using their device mostly during the planning and research stage. 2 in 5 (40.2%) plan to use their device mainly during the shopping/in-store stage.

This coupled with Google’s prediction of when this research will be taking place on each type of mobile device we can appropriately stack our ad strategy in accordance with the appropriate phase of the buying cycle hitting customers on the right device with the right message.

If you’ve gotten a late start on your holiday ad strategy, now is the time! Mobile shoppers are researching Black Friday deals and planning their holiday shopping strategy NOW. Make sure you’re in front of them as they research on their iPad’s, Android tablets, and smartphones to get a leg up over the competition and increase your holiday revenue this year and also get jump on 2012. This is only the beginning, these strategies should be continued well into 2012 as Forrester Research projects that U.S. tablet sales will almost double from 26 million this year to more than 50 million in 2012.