By Michael Craig, VP Sales, Comscore
Audiences around the world are shifting their behaviour to be more mobile-oriented than ever before. It has never been more important for marketers to understand the dynamics of this evolving behaviour, which is why Comscore recently published its 2019 Global State of Mobile report.
The report provides interesting insights into the mobile landscape, with a mixture of trends, some we anticipated and some which surprised us. As someone who has been in and around the media industry for the past 20 years, I understand the value of actionable insights in driving strategy, and below are some key takeaways to help marketers do just that.
Audiences are spending their mobile time on apps
The fact that audiences around the world are spending more time online doesn’t really come as a surprise, but being able to drill down into where that time is being spent is extremely valuable for marketers.
What we found in this report is that the majority of time online is now being spent on mobile, 77% in the UK. Digging deeper it became clear that apps are dominating time spent on mobile, across all ten markets we detailed in the image below.
For all 10 countries, over 80% of time spent on mobile came from apps, for the UK that number was 86%. Time spent in apps is an increasingly big indictor of engagement so clearly marketers need to take this into consideration when planning.
Mobile-first categories are becoming entrenched
Not only is there a need to focus on mobile, apps specifically, but should marketers consider mobile-only?
Of course, certain categories lend themselves to this, for example instant messengers and dating, given their on-the-go nature. We found a meaningful increase in the percentage of the total digital audience who access these app categories using mobile only. In 2017 60% of food app users did so solely on mobile, increasing to 76% by 2019.
Gaming is big for women
Mobile gaming is such a fast-growing industry that it has become a big focus for marketers. The important thing to keep in mind is, know your audience. In another recent report Comscore published, we considered the implications of advertising truisms, essentially the pre-conceptions which prevent maximising advertising budgets.
This is something we see with dwell time in mobile gaming audiences, where the assumption might be predominantly young males. However, our research found that in the UK women spend 31% more time on mobile gaming apps than men. This presents an opportunity for marketers to reach an engaged audience they may not have considered before.
There’s always more to learn
At the outset of this report, we thought it might be a ‘so what?’. We know that mobile is important, but should it dominate? From focusing on times spent in apps, to a better understanding of category demographics, Comscore’s State of Mobile report provides these insights and so many more, helping marketers make better informed decisions.
