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Why Mobile Optimization Matters and How to Do It Successfully

Learn the basics of mobile commerce: what m-commerce is and actionable tips for how to optimize for mobile to grow your business.

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The Maze Group logo Kenzie Ansari
Conversion Rate Optimization Manager

What is mobile commerce? M-commerce (mobile commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless handheld devices such as smartphones and tablets. M-commerce is a form of eCommerce that enables users to access online shopping platforms without the use of a desktop computer.

Here at The Maze Group, we specialize in optimizing mobile experiences and partnering with our clients to create long-term strategies to ensure they are maximizing the most revenue possible through the highest utilized commerce experience: mobile.

By optimizing mobile experiences, eCommerce revenue opportunities are maximized, users can easily accomplish placing an order, and a strict site maintenance process provides a seamless user experience no matter the user’s device type or location. By utilizing the right tools and continuously investing in the mobile experience, businesses are all but guaranteed an ever-growing increase in conversion rate and ROIs. If the m-commerce experience is left unmaintained, or high friction points and new experiences aren’t tested and vetted, then the business is missing out on valuable revenue.

Optimization in Mobile Commerce – Why it Matters

At The Maze Group, we find that the majority of our clients’ users are new and, no surprise, on mobile devices. As of now, approximately 84% of internet usage in the US happens on mobile devices with a predicted 187.5 million people shopping via mobile commerce by 2024. With an estimated 7.1 billion users on mobile devices globally in 2021, the opportunity to maximize revenue from mobile commerce for global brands becomes increasingly more important. Maintaining consistent mobile optimization and establishing a seamless shopping environment can help maximize the m-commerce side of your business. In the past year, we have seen clients average a 3% to 5% increase in conversions when they perform consistent mobile experience tests in under 3 months.

Top Tricks for an Optimized Mobile Commerce Experience

While reinventing the wheel isn’t necessary, with an ever-changing mobile landscape it’s important to know where time, money, and attention are best invested when developing an optimal mobile experience. That being said, an ideal m-commerce experience is not something to be left unattended; even after a brand goes through a completely updated redesign with new features it’s important to continue to test and monitor how users respond to the new mobile experience. The four most important things to focus on when optimizing the m-commerce experience are:

  • Mobile-first mindset
  • Personalized content
  • Simplified customer journey
  • Usability and site speed

Mobile-First Responsive Design

Mobile-first design is an approach in which web designers start product design for mobile devices first, and then add more functionalities for bigger screen sizes.

Of top-ranked websites, 80% are designed with this mindset and are considered mobile-friendly. Mobile-first design is a great way to build a foundation, make sure everything works, and ensure the most important content is presented clearly. Unlike sites designed with a desktop-first approach, where brands try to remove information-rich content and features to shrink down the site for smaller screens.

Mobile devices have become an integral part of the web landscape and the importance of optimized design will be vital for the future as well, as mobile contributes to approximately half of the overall web traffic. One must also bear in mind that the number of mobile users has surpassed desktop users. As per Statcounter GlobalStats, overall mobile users continue to grow with a leading market share of 60.43% compared to desktop users.

The growth in the emphasis on a mobile-first design has been a long time coming. In the early years of branding, marketing websites were content-forward. However, as users began to gravitate towards different-sized user platforms, responsive web design came into play to help create similar user experiences regardless of the device or screen size. Then as of 2019, Google began mobile-first indexing, using the mobile version of a website for ranking and indexing and making it imperative that brands consider a mobile-first approach to design.

Personalized Content

In this mobile age, each user’s personal information and data can be stored on their mobile device. Brands now have the opportunity to leverage all of that aggregated data to create highly personalized experiences for consumers — consumers who crave personalization and are much more likely to take their business to brands that offer it.

According to McKinsey and Company, 71% of consumers expect personalization, and 76% get frustrated when it doesn’t happen. It’s imperative to choose methodical merchandising strategies to maximize conversion opportunities for each product destination.

Simplify the Customer Journey

Consumers shopping on mobile devices want the convenience and the immediacy that it brings with the least amount of friction points. Factors such as poor site speed, varying device size experiences, weak usability, and lack of helpful features like express checkout and autofill, may all discourage a mobile consumer from following through to purchase.

One study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that 79% of users only scan new pages they visit compared to 16% who read every word. By providing customers with a simplified customer journey and scannable content, users can easily search to find what they are looking for, quickly add products to their cart, and check out with their digital wallet, all of which greatly improves the m-commerce experience and maximizes revenue.

Our tip: Simplify the customer’s journey and path to purchase by focusing on the core pages of the brand’s site. Evaluate traffic channels and ensure that the most heavily visited pages are easy to navigate and include the necessary information to help support conversion.

Brands can drive the majority of their site traffic using socially campaign-driven implementations with the intent to navigate users to land directly on the brand’s product page by:

  • Simplifying the path to purchase by serving personalized content based on where the user came from and including a clear call to action. A call to action acts as a prompt to encourage users to act such as an add-to-cart button or an incentive to subscribe and receive back-in-stock emails.
  • Using historical data that may be available from previous site visits/purchases for returning users.
  • Creating a high-converting product detail page (PDP). This is something brands are continuously working towards as the emphasis on driving users directly to a product page from social advertising has become a common user path and introduction to the brand.

Another critical area  of focus for simplifying the customer journey is optimizing the checkout experience. Some 18% of people will abandon their online cart if the checkout process feels too long or complicated. Having to reenter basic details like credit card numbers and shipping details entices mobile shoppers to head for the exit button instead.

According to the Baymard Institute, even the top-grossing eCommerce websites’ checkout flows contain on average about 39 usability issues. A brand may think that they have an optimized cart and checkout page, but there is always room for improvement with the ever-changing mobile landscape. Platforms like Shopify can help ease brand anxiety about future landscape changes as their checkout process is constantly being optimized through UX guidelines.

Site Speed

Brands are constantly concerned about mobile loading times and rightly so. Customers live in a time of instant gratification and, while site speed is important on the desktop, it is especially important if not crucial on mobile. Users shopping on a mobile device want the convenience and immediacy that mobile shopping can bring; therefore, websites with faster load times can lead to decreased bounce rates and higher conversions.

Site speed influences bounce rates so much that pages that load within 2 seconds have an average bounce rate of 9% whereas anything within 5 seconds can see bounce rates above 38%. Google PageSpeed Insights, which shows average loading times across mobile devices and supplies recommendations for fixing them, is a good starting point for optimization and a highly available tool for brands to use. Shopify recommends aiming for a site speed of no less than 100.

Assess Your Current Approach

To understand these opportunities for optimization in the m-commerce experience, you first have to know where your mobile website stands. Through analysis of key data points, as well as evaluation of the current m-commerce experience, you can get an idea of what is working and what is not working, and then adjust your strategy accordingly for the best possible results.

Addressing Drop-Off Points

Understanding drop-off points from top traffic channels will help to maximize potential revenue and identify optimization opportunities to capitalize on. Drop-off points can be improved through personalized content, a revenue-driven ad approach, strategic email flows, and SEO-driven organic content. As the m-commerce experience is optimized you can avoid adding to the 265 billion customer support requests that are made every year, costing businesses a whopping $1.3 trillion to service.

Social Strategy

Most likely for mobile experiences, the majority of traffic will be coming from social strategies. For the best customer experience, a user’s first touchpoint after clicking an ad should not be a slow-loading page with blurry images and an unclear next step or action.

Social strategies navigate customers to landing pages that will then be responsible for their first impression of the brand and the site. If the landing page experience doesn’t feel relevant or consistent to the user based on the ad experience that led them to this page, then it is more likely that the brand will receive increased drop-offs and decreased ROI on social campaigns.

Campaign Landing Pages

The goal of a campaign landing page is to create a curated landing page experience that overcomes all user anxiety or concerns with an irresistible offer. Use personalized marketing strategies such as customer segmentation through qualitative and quantitative research to implement the highest converting content possible. Platforms such as Shogun and Unbounce can accelerate the process of building campaign pages and remove developmental obstacles that might be encountered, such as tedious timelines and high costs.

At The Maze Group, our clients with an inconsistent landing page experience have bounce rates that range anywhere from 60% to 70%, and in some cases even higher. Whereas following an engagement with our Acquisition and CRO teams we find that these same brands have seen an average decrease in bounce rate to 30% to 40%. Instead of cutting back acquisition budgets, try rethinking the on-site experience and where your users are landing. At The Maze Group, our clients haven’t only seen a decrease in bounce rates but have also doubled conversion rates with optimized mobile landing page experiences.

This first-touch experience can vary depending on the brand, product, or platform where the ad will be seen. Octane AI reports that Jones Road Beauty spends $8,000 on TikTok advertising per day, driving potential customers toward a quiz versus some other brands driving customers to a product page. Notably, it’s the social strategy that has paid off — educating new mobile users first and then leading them to a quiz, providing a personalized product recommendation at its completion.

Like Jones Road Beauty, a different landing page experience may be needed depending on the product and traffic source. Whether it is Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Youtube, Google, or others, users coming from different sources will be looking for and interested in different aspects of a brand and product.

Actionable PDPs

While the first touchpoint from an ad may not always be a PDP, it is still vital to have an optimized product page to ensure conversions and purchases are maximized. While this varies depending on the brand and product, there are key items to be considered when optimizing product pages. The design of this page will also vary from device to device, but the core elements that help drive conversion will remain the same.

At The Maze Group, our team partners with brands to adhere to PDP strategies that will optimize existing value propositions and uncover additional opportunities to maximize revenue. We’ve developed a Conversion PDP checklist, focusing on key elements of a PDP that can have a huge impact on mobile conversion rate and what we at the Maze Group consider the best places to start when optimizing PDPs. If you can check off the following, you’ll be on the right track:

  • Important content above the fold
  • Product images or visual representation of your product
  • Clear call to action(s) ie. add to bag, notify when, subscribe for discount %
  • Product features and unique value benefits, as well as what sets you and your product apart from competitors
  • Product recommendations and suggestions
  • Credibility & Trust: Customer Reviews, Visual UGC, security badges

Engage With Users Post-Purchase

For a truly optimized mobile experience, brands should think beyond acquisition and one-time sales to how you are going to ultimately retain customers. Retention strategies focus on engaging one-on-one with users, keeping them engaged with regular and relevant content, or re-engaging them after they’ve hopefully completed a purchase on your site or rather, abandoned your site to bring them back.

Mobile Retention Strategy

Engaging with users doesn’t end with the on-site mobile experience. Brands of all sizes should tap into the primary product use of mobile devices, communication, to hold customer attention and drive mobile commerce success. Email marketing and SMS marketing in particular are effective tools to communicate your brand’s products, offers, and updates directly to users. At The Maze Group, our retention department utilizes both of these strategies in combination with constant testing to extract the highest lifetime value from each customer acquired. One optimized email strategy for a CBD beverage client increased revenue by 80%.

Keep reading to dive deeper into top mobile channels like these and other valuable optimization strategies from industry experts.

About The Maze Group

The Maze Group uses technical solutions and full-funnel marketing tactics to maximize business outcomes in companies with a mandate to change. At Maze, we believe that companies need partners who operate like owners. Working at the intersection of marketing and technology, we identify opportunities to fundamentally improve businesses. www.themazegroup.com