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Finding ways to choose the right mobile measurement infrastructure

IN-DEPTH: Measuring mobile has historically been very hard to do given the fragmentation of devices, operating systems, and carrier restrictions. The majority of these hurdles have been eliminated over recent years with the advent of the smartphone and mobile application measurement SDKs, says Greg Dowling, Vice President of Mobile Strategy and Measurement, Semphonic.

By Ritesh Gupta

Mobile is a fast evolving channel and as part of the learning process, the travel industry needs to find ways to make sure that the right mobile measurement infrastructure is in place.

To initiate investments in this arena is the easy part. But to make sure your investment pays off is quite tricky, believes Greg Dowling, Vice President of Mobile Strategy and Measurement, Semphonic.

Dowling spoke to EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta about the same in detail. Excerpts:

As an expert in mobile measurement and enterprise analytics, what do you recommend when it comes to making the most of mobile strategy especially in the travel sector? How should travel companies go about making the most of their investments in this arena?

Greg Dowling:

When thinking about mobile strategy in the travel sector, the primary place to look for direction is within your existing site analytics. Start by looking at which specific mobile devices and operating systems are visiting your site - where are they coming from, what are they doing, and what content are they consuming. By understanding the mobile usage of your current site and the areas where users are succeeding or failing, along with what devices they are using, you will be able to inform your mobile product strategy greatly. Understanding what site content or features resonate with mobile users will allow organisations to address the primary need of their site visitors and help direct the mobile strategy. Determining your overall product suitability to a mobile offering and which devices or experiences you need to support will ultimately drive mobile strategy and identify where you need to focus your mobile efforts.

It is highlighted that understanding how customers behave when using mobile devices is a major challenge. What are your observations and how do you think understanding behaviour is significant in assessing the overall measurement of any mobile product strategy and related initiatives?

Greg Dowling:

Measuring mobile has historically been very hard to do given the fragmentation of devices, operating systems, and carrier restrictions. The majority of these hurdles have been eliminated over recent years with the advent of the smartphone and mobile application measurement SDKs. Previously, feature phones incapable of executing JavaScript posed a significant measurement problem as they relied heavily on manually (or server) generated image requests making measurement of mobile initiatives and device side experiences difficult. Current smartphones can execute JavaScript and device resident applications making traditional web measurement methods viable for mobile websites and applications. Device and operating system fragmentation still persists complicating measurement deployment and organisations need to focus on their current user technographic to understand which devices they need to support from a measurement perspective in order to ensure measurability.

Understanding mobile user behaviour is critical to evaluating and optimising mobile strategy. After all, you can't improve what you don't measure.

The expectations and demands of smartphone customers are significantly higher than website visitors. What sort of benchmark should travel companies set for themselves when it comes to measurement of mobile web and app-related initiatives vis-à-vis any other component of digital strategy?

Greg Dowling:

The mobile user expects immediate satisfaction and demands simple and clean interfaces. It is the nature of the mobile user. They are not 'surfing' (generally) and are attempting to complete a specific task when engaging with a mobile website or application. This can be booking a flight, hotel room, or dinner reservations as well as researching destination highlights but all of these have a singular focus - completing a task. For all intents and purposes, mobile users should be converting on these tasks at higher rates and engaging more frequently than traditional website visitors. Often this is not the case due to complicated checkout flows and of course this varies with the utility and appropriateness of the mobile experience. Organisations should focus mobile benchmarks at or above their traditional website rates and optimise the user experience and conversion flow of their mobile initiatives accordingly.

How do you assess the maturity level of mobile application measurement framework at this juncture? What should travel companies learn when it comes to measurement?

Greg Dowling:

Historically, mobile applications were developed and released without any inherit device side measurement and the primary metric was downloads. While downloads are an important metric, we have come to realise that user engagement along with recency, frequency, intensity and duration are more actionable metrics providing a holistic view of application success. Mobile application measurement has improved greatly over the last two years and releasing a mobile application today without measurement is heresy. Niche mobile application analytics vendors held a lock on this market until recently and in some cases still provide a superior solution, however all enterprise analytics vendors currently offer robust SDKs. The SDKs allow for the ability to measure all device side interactions (even when the device is offline) and by instrumenting your application with the appropriate level of tracking to capture metrics such as install date, app launches, daily usage, and key event success organisations will gain a greater understanding of actual application usage not just application downloads.

Considering the varied utility and engagement level of mobile web and mobile apps, how should one approach measurement for both? What should one avoid in order to have unjustified expectations?

Greg Dowling:

Mobile web measurement should align with fixed web measurement wherever possible. Existing measurement frameworks and implementation methodologies translate well to the mobile web environment and should be leveraged wherever possible as to not reinvent or double efforts. Technology frameworks aside, the mobile website experience is inherently different than the fixed web experience and organisations should avoid a wholesale migration of all of their content or site functionality to their mobile web experience. Screen size and input methods weigh heavily in mobile product strategy decisions and determining which elements and in what format to display these elements is crucial to mobile website success and ultimately mobile website usability.

Conversely, mobile application measurement shares little with traditional fixed web measurement and only the high level success frameworks and key metrics will translate well to this medium. Aside from the technical differences in implementation from mobile web measurement, application measurement focuses primarily on a subset of achievable tasks. Organisations should avoid porting all website content and functionality into their mobile application and focus on the key aspect or element of their product offering that would make the user want to engage with them in a mobile environment. Simple, direct, and facile task resolution should be the primary component of a mobile application.

What do you make of the “Web Versus Application” debate in the mobile product strategy at this juncture? Would it be right to say that the pros and cons settled down now?

Greg Dowling:

Mobile websites and mobile applications both have their appropriate place within a mobile product strategy - it is not an either/or debate. Ensuring the appropriate user experience is present in each is the true debate. All too often organisations will make a technology decision rather than a strategic decision in the form of "We need an iPhone app" or "We need to run an SMS campaign" without considering the product suitability to a mobile environment or why the customer would want to engage with their brand in the first place. At this point, a mobile website is a must and should be at the top of your mobile strategy list if you don't have one. Once that is in place and you have gleaned actionable insights into how customers are interacting with your product offering then, and only then, should you craft a mobile application strategy.

Where do you foresee mobile application measurement framework headed in the next 12 months?

Greg Dowling:

Mobile application measurement needs to become much simpler to implement. A few vendors have succeeded in simplifying the development process by enabling automatic capture of device side events and variables but this needs to improve considerably for continued widespread adoption. Currently developers are expending tremendous effort to instrument measurement in their mobile applications significantly increasing time to market for new applications - this needs to change. Additionally, location based services are changing the way we visualise data once collected from mobile applications. Given the fixed nature of traditional web browsing this element has not had much attention until now. Being able to see where and when a customer is interacting with your mobile application creates a whole new dimension to the traditional marketing strategy. It is no longer about getting the right offer to the right person at the right time - but about getting it to them at the right "place".

What do you make of the mobile product strategies especially the usage of mobile apps in the travel sector?

Greg Dowling:

The hospitality and travel industries have embraced mobile fairly well and have incorporated mobile strategies into their product marketing and service offerings adequately. However, some of the most innovative mobile product strategies I have seen recently in the travel sector have originated from capitalising on the "location aware" aspect of modern smartphones.

For example, Vail Resorts, using RFID technology, is able to tell when their customers are "on" or "off" mountain and provide appropriate messaging and content to them along with social network interaction opportunities. By capturing this location based data they are able to expand and optimise the on mountain experience for their customers. The ability to track your progress, vertical ascent, capture photos, share achievements with your social network, and have all this in your pocket is truly amazing!

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Mobile commerce sales to grow to $6.7b this year in the US

eMarketer estimates mobile commerce sales will reach $6.7 billion this year in the US—a tiny fraction of overall retail sales but a 91.4 percent increase over 2010. Next year, sales will rise another 73.1 percent to $11.6 billion.

M-commerce sales are on a steep upward trajectory, thanks in part to increasing adoption of smartphones and rising mobile internet usage, according to a new forecast by eMarketer. The company forecasts that 37.5 million US consumers ages 14 and up will make at least one purchase on their mobile phone next year, up from 26.8 million this year. The vast majority of that group will be smartphone owners, at 97 percent in 2012. Overall, 72.8 million mobile users will research or browse items on their phone next year but not necessarily make a purchase.

“For years, the trend has been for consumers to research products online, then go buy in-store,” said eMarketer principal analyst Jeffrey Grau. “But as the industry improves its slate of mobile offerings, consumers are increasingly visiting stores to research products, then go buy something else on their mobile devices.”

The projected mobile sales are based on a meta-analysis of data from research firms as well as overall trends in mobile ownership and usage. M-commerce sales include sales of physical goods as well as travel and event tickets purchased via mobile, but exclude digital downloads and usage of mobile phones as a point-of-sale payment mechanism. eMarketer’s estimates for m-commerce sales do not include purchases made from tablet devices.

Recently, eBay stated that mobile shopping is mainstream now, and the company expects this holiday to be the largest mobile shopping season ever. Steve Yankovich, vice president of eBay Mobile, highlighted that shoppers are in the driver’s seat, with mobile technology putting the mall right in one’s pocket. In 2011, eBay expects to see nearly $5 billion in mobile sales (Gross Merchandise Volume); PayPal expects more than $3.5 billion in mobile payment volume.

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Starwood ties up with Chinese location-based social mobile app

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has formed a partnership with Chinese location-based social mobile app, Jiepang, in order to offer Chinese Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) members check-in rewards.

China continues to be a major source of new loyalty travellers for Starwood as evidenced by the 71 percent jump in Chinese enrollment in SPG last year. The group says this initiative marks a new digital extension to its loyalty programme specifically designed for Chinese travellers.

Starwood is to provide a localised social networking platform tailored specifically to Chinese travellers. The partnership will pave way for hotels to engage with guests and reward SPG members for their geo-social behaviour, leveraging Starpoints as a form of social currency.

“SPG’s new partnership with Jiepang localises and redefines the `check-in’ for our Chinese SPG members, enabling rewarding experiences beyond their hotel stays,” said Janice Chan, director, Digital Distribution & Marketing, Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels & Resorts.

Now guests can earn Starpoints and Free Weekend Night Awards for Jiepang activity at over 200 Starwood hotels and resorts in Asia Pacific. From December 1, 2011 to January 31, 2012, SPG members can now earn bonus Starpoints by checking in via Jiepang with a confirmed reservation.

Every month, the SPG member with the greatest number of Jiepang check-ins across all Starwood hotels in Asia Pacific will be declared the SPG Mayor. In addition to status and special SPG perks, the Mayor will be interviewed and featured within the specials landing page and will also be asked to contribute travel tips to the SPG Jiepang tips page, www.jiepang.com/spg.

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Barrhead Travel launches new rewards smartcard

Scotland-based-travel agency Barrhead Travel has launched a new rewards smartcard. The card will offer a five percent cashback reward for any travel booking made, with additional discounts offered to existing sQuid account holders.

The scheme will initially be piloted in Barrhead Travel’s Dundee store with a view to rolling it out across other branches in the near future.

“Our innovative smartcard-based rewards programme is another way of giving a little extra back, while acknowledging and maintaining a great relationship with our clients,” said Mark Brock, director, Barrhead Travel.

The company has tied up with sQuid, the eMoney payments network, for this initiative.

The contactless smartcard-based scheme will be operated by sQuid, which already provides a number of smartcard services in Dundee.

The company mentioned that loyalty cards cost £5, but give back £10 to the customer’s loyalty purse once registered online with sQuid. Cardholders are then rewarded with five percent of the booking value of all overseas holidays, which is credited to the customer’s card loyalty purse and can be redeemed against future bookings.

sQuid’s low cost pre-pay model enables contactless transactions in retail, digital and virtual commerce, bypassing bank and credit card networks, with its own FSA-compliant eMoney platform, featuring bank-grade security.

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Rich and seamless mobile shopping experiences drive mobile purchases: survey

A survey, reviewing how consumers respond to a bad shopping experience on their Internet-connected mobile device, has revealed that 62 percent abandon the site on their mobile device and return to the site at a later date using a computer.

According to Limelight Networks Research’s survey, 21 percent complete their research and/or purchase using their mobile device but will never return to the site in the future if they can avoid it. Also, 18 percent abandon the site on their mobile device and seek alternative brands using their mobile device.

Overall, the company highlighted that consumers are unwilling to suffer less than optimal mobile shopping experiences, with 80 percent reporting that they will instantly abandon a bad experience.

Of the 520 respondents who completed the survey, 83 percent have researched and purchased a product on a shopping site using their Internet-connected mobile device. And 17 percent have simply researched products on a shopping site using their Internet-connected mobile device.

The survey indicated that mobile shopping expectations mirror expectations for the desktop — respondents want speedy experiences, rich media like product videos, and easy-to-use sites.

Expectations

Survey respondents ranked the importance of mobile shopping features to making the experience of researching and/or purchasing products on their Internet-connected mobile device a good one:

• 88 percent ranked the time it takes for the site to load or appear on the screen as extremely important or important
• 88 percent ranked providing detailed product images on the site (for example, "zoom in" product photography or product videos) as extremely important or important
• 82 percent ranked mobile site optimization, or how the site appropriately fits the screen (for example, no side-to-side scrolling), as extremely important or important

“Consumers do not want to wait — they want to immediately begin shopping on their mobile devices, making the time it takes to begin viewing, searching, and clicking on a site absolutely critical,” said Jonathan Cobb, Mobility Solutions, Limelight Networks.

Equally important to speed is the availability of rich product imagery, which provides the detailed information that consumers need when purchasing on their phones or researching the products they will buy in store or on the computer.

Travel Industry

The travel industry, too, acknowledges that as smartphone adoption grows, consumers expect a faultless experience across all online channels, including mobile.

“We find that the expectations and demands of smartphone customers are significantly higher than website visitors. With the dynamic of the App Store and the user-review feedback loop, it's imperative to deliver a stellar customer experience, otherwise one can end up in a deep hole of negative app reviews,” says Sam Shank, CEO of mobile hotel bookings specialist Hoteltonight.com.

Building on mobile is a far greater challenge than that of any other channel or platform because one only has the smallest amount of time to surprise and delight customers as soon as they glance at their phones, says Dave Ambrose, Business Development Manager, Mobile for Travelzoo.

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Marriott International’s mobile app now available in five languages

Marriott International is now offering its mobile app for iPhone, iPod touch, and Android devices in Chinese, Spanish, German and French.

First introduced in English three months ago, the app has already been downloaded more than 500,000 times.

The company also announced the launch of its all new “app-like” Marriott mobile website in Chinese, Spanish, German and French, as well as English, that can be accessed from any web-enabled mobile device.

“As the Marriott International portfolio of hotels expands and diversifies worldwide, we are putting a premium on investing in our eCommerce channels, including mobile,” said Shafiq Khan, senior vice president, eCommerce for Marriott International.

The tools enable time-crunched travellers to quickly find nearby hotels, book a room, check their upcoming reservations and get details about their hotel, including photos. With the app and mobile website, travellers can also enroll in Marriott Rewards, check their point balance, and even find out what’s happening in the local area.

Earlier this year, the group shared that through June of this year, Marriott’s mobile website averaged nearly 2.6 million visits a month and $21 million in property-level revenue a month, which was more than three times the volume compared to the same time period from the year before. “We know that more than half of hotel reservations made using mobile devices are for same-day stays. This shows how rushed mobile travellers are; speed and choice are critical,” Khan said then.

Marriott’s mobile app for smartphones and its upgraded mobile website were developed by Kony Solutions.

The group’s mobile website and apps are hosted and managed by AT&T.

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Google to enhance the airport experience with indoor map navigation

Google has shared that now Google Maps for Android enables users to figure out where they are and see where they might want to go when they’re indoors.

The development has emerged as the company announced the next generation of Google Maps for Android, which is first to get indoor Google Maps.

“With Google Maps’ “My Location” feature, which shows your location as a blue dot, you can see where you are on the map to avoid walking the wrong direction on city streets, or to get your bearings if you’re hiking an unfamiliar trail. Google Maps also displays additional details, such as places, landmarks and geographical features, to give you context about what’s nearby,” wrote Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps on a company’s blog.

“When you’re inside an airport, shopping mall or retail store, a common way to figure out where you are is to look for a freestanding map directory or ask an employee for help. Starting today, with the release of Google Maps 6.0 for Android, that directory is brought to the palm of your hands, helping you determine where you are, what floor you're on, and where to go indoors.”

Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. The “blue dot” icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on.

Google initially partnered with some of the largest retailers, airports and transit stations in the U.S. and Japan, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Chicago O’Hare (ORD), San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Narita International (NRT), among others.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, too, confirmed that it has tied up with Google to become one of the first airports in the world to give Android phone users access to indoor maps in Google Maps.

Airport’s aviation general manager Louis Miller said, “To us, good way-finding means the customer never has to ask for directions and easily can find a restaurant, a gate or the nearest restroom.”

Users of Android devices will need to update the Google Maps application in order to access these indoor maps, but no updates will be required after that one-time installation to get new or updated indoor maps.

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TripCase to integrate with agency systems and policies

Sabre Holdings has stated that TripCase will be the first consumer mobile and web solution that integrates with the systems and policies used by travel agencies, travel management companies, and corporations.

Southlake, Texas-based Sabre has enhanced TripCase to offer travellers a complete on-the-go travel management product. It will offer access to travel documents, expense reporting, agency and corporate messaging, navigational capabilities, in-policy bookings, traveller extras, and trip eInvoices and eTickets in more than 20 languages.

The company expects to bring the first set of capabilities to market through TripCase in Q1 2012 and will deliver additional capabilities throughout the year.

Sabre highlighted that its global research of all traveller types shows travellers are demanding increasing levels of personalisation, convenience and functionality from their mobile devices.

John Samuel, senior vice president of Sabre Studios and Traveller Solutions group, said, “The data tells us that travellers increasingly mix leisure and business trips.” For its part, TripCase allows travellers to do so by allowing attractions, business meetings, and restaurant reservations in their itineraries.

Samuel mentioned that TripCase empowers agents to better serve travellers throughout their trip, providing information and tools at the right time in their trip. Policy reminders, baggage claim information, and thank you messages are examples of the way agencies will be able to interact with their travellers.

Samuel said agents can also use TripCase to proactively respond to anticipated requests like a flight change from a missed connection, often before the traveller has requested it.

As per the plans, TripCase will recognise agency imported trips and these bookings will be credited to the agency. There will be new storage capabilities that will allow agencies to save and retrieve e-invoice and e-ticket documents. Travellers will also have access to this documentation via TripCase.

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LBS revenues in Europe to reach €435 million by 2016

Mobile location-based service (LBS) revenues in Europe are being tipped to grow from €205 million in 2010 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.4 percent to reach €435 million in 2016.

According to a new research report by Berg Insight, 20 percent of all mobile subscribers in Europe already use some kind of location-enhanced application on a regular basis. Local search, social networking and navigation services are the top application categories in terms of number of users. The social networking category is forecasted to experience the highest growth in the coming years.

In North America, the larger installed base of GPS-enabled handsets and smartphones has enabled higher uptake of LBS. Berg Insight estimates that about one third of mobile subscribers now access LBS on a regular basis. The total North American LBS market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 2.3 percent from US$ 620 million in 2010 to reach US$ 710 million in 2016.

The installed base of GPS handsets in Europe has reached 35 percent of total handsets and surpassed 70 percent in North America.

Berg Insight highlighted that the revenue model for many mobile apps in the consumer segment is shifting from premium fees to ad-funding. This is also the case for LBS where now also navigation services are becoming free for end-users and developers monetise their offerings through ads and various service bundles. However, revenues may not grow at the same rate as usage since the mobile advertising ecosystem is still nascent. It will take some years before a successful model has been established that allows advertisers to reach out to a critical mass of active users. This is especially true for emerging location-based advertising, added the report.

Travel industry

The underlying trend driving LBS is smartphone adoption. They are quickly becoming users’ primary source for communication, information and entertainment in general but more specifically when they are traveling.

If the travel industry wants to meet consumers where they are, it has to participate and maintain a strong presence in platforms because it’s growing fast.

Location-based applications give marketers a chance to engage with customers or prospects in a whole new way. Using location-based marketing can be both an acquisition and retention/loyalty tool. Perhaps the most promising area is social sharing/ word-of-mouth because users are already sharing their activities via smartphones.

One of the most consistent premises behind location-based marketing is the ability to reach the right person, at the right time, in the right place, with the right message. So, for instance, a hotel may reach business travellers when they are at an airport. Because mobile phones have become integral to the lives of most consumers, it makes sense to leverage opportunities for engagement when users are out in the world. And because travel / tourism is all about exploration and experience, the category has a unique opportunity to use the combination of location, activity, demographic and time targeting to engage.

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First airline co-brand card featuring EMV chip-with-signature technology unveiled

Chase Card Services, a division of JPMorgan Chase & Co., and British Airways recently shared that EMV chip-with-signature technology is now available on the British Airways Visa Card. Cardmembers can now use the British Airways Card at any chip-enabled, point-of-sale device, such as train ticket kiosk, restaurant or gas station.

The addition of EMV chip-with-signature technology makes the British Airways Visa card the first airline cobranded credit card issued in the US that is chip-enabled, said Andrea Burchett of The Mileage Company, operators of British Airways’ Avios currency and rewards.

“The new EMV chip-with-signature provides our globally minded flyers with a safe and convenient way to make transactions when overseas,” said Burchett.

The British Airways Visa Card has EMV chip-with-signature technology that features a microchip as well as a traditional magnetic strip to accommodate merchants in the US.

The companies highlighted that the embedded microchip makes the card extremely difficult to copy, because the encrypted chip enables safer processing and storage of data.

The British Airways Visa Card does not charge foreign transaction fees, delivering up to three percent savings on international purchases. Cardmembers earn 2.5 Avios, the new British Airways Executive Club currency, for every $1 spent on British Airways purchases. All other purchases earn 1.25 Avios for every $1 spent. Cardmembers also have the option to redeem Avios for future travel on British Airways or any one of its 11 oneworld alliance partners.

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