Mobile has continued its rise in online shopping, setting new records on Christmas Day in 2013 in the US
mobile devices accounted for 48.1 percent of Online traffic.

Cyber Monday mobile traffic accounted for 41.2 percent of all online traffic, up 30.1 percent over 2013. Mobile sales were also strong, reaching 22 percent of total Cyber Monday online sales, an increase of 27.6 percent year-over-year. As the new digital shopping companion for many consumers, smartphones drove 28.5 percent of all Cyber Monday online traffic, more than double that of tablets, which accounted for 12.5 percent of all traffic. Yet, when it comes to mobile sales, tablets continue to win the shopping war – driving 12.9 percent of online sales compared to 9.1 percent for smartphones, a difference of 41.5 percent.

The sales from Mobile devices have several traffic referrals and the top channels for Mobile Search are not limited to Search. However, some of the key uses for Mobile Devices while visiting the stores are to check prices, look for product information, take photos of the product and check availability in other stores.

Brand Sites remain the leading source of information in addition to discount coupon sites, blogs , Shopping Apps and Online Advertising being the key sources or channels of information for the Mobile Shopper.

Mobile Shopping also termed as Commuter Commerce may not have significant growth in Online sales but Mobile search and email marketing from Brands in certain Consumer categories may have significant impact on the purchase behavior of on the go shoppers where almost 80 percent of mobile search results in a purchase . The buyer journey for these consumers typically begins with Mobile browsing and the key channels for the Mobile shopper according to research by Geometry Global are varied with Brand sites being the most popular channel.

The Online Purchase Intent has grown by 100 percent in most consumer product categories. High-growth categories include e-books, event tickets, computer software, sporting goods, toys and dolls, music, videos/DVDs/games, baby supplies, flowers, cars, alcoholic drinks and pet-related products.

The most popular online shopping categories are non-consumable—durables and entertainment-related products. The online market for buying groceries and many other consumable products is smaller by comparison—but it is starting to show promise.

The categories that have seen an increase in Purchase intent are cosmetics and groceries with purchase intent increasing by 6 percent and 5 percent.

Purchase Intention Shift Leads to More Online Purchases

China, Korea, France, the U.S. and the U.K. to name a few countries where purchase intent has also led to increased online purchases. For example, sales of baby supplies already comprise three of the top 10 most popular categories sold online in China, in Korea, baby supplies make up two of the top 10 categories, and in France, they account for five.

Browse to Buy Trend

The change in online purchase and online purchase intent data is backed by browse to buy trend where the categories where online purchases are trending the browsers are also buying products.

Getting Your Campaign Ready For The Mobile Shopper

Update your site with a responsive design that is mobile friendly in case you do not have a mobile site.

Emails have proven to be very effective for Holiday Season Marketing and 46 percent of emails were opened on mobile browsers.

Optimize your campaigns to appear in mobile searches by choosing the right media mix. Channels and devices in Campaigns while setting up the campaign. This can be done by understanding the devices that are popular with your targeted audience and optimize the campaign for the mobile sites.

Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns can help you optimize your campaign to appear in the right context and helps you adjust the bit to optimize your Mobile marketing campaigns.

Enhanced campaigns are designed for today’s multi-screen world, offering the ability to manage bids across devices, locations and times of day, all from a single, scalable campaign. By setting multiple bid adjustments to target what’s most important to your business, AdWords automatically determines the best ad to appear. This helps businesses reach their most valuable customers and connect with them anytime, anywhere and from any device.

With commuter commerce on the rise, Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns can help you determine where the lead was generated from with advanced analytics that let you know if the customer contacted you from the website or called on location.

Enhanced Campaigns you can customize the creative based on the context. If the customer is near your store location the creative displayed can be customized to encourage walk-ins while the creative for in-home consumption can be different.

Enhanced Campaigns  can also help you adjust the bid based on location. This means you can bid a higher amount for customers who are more likely to make a purchse.

Shopping Apps Can help your campaigns get featured in the right context with the offers and in-app advertising.

Video Advertising optimization to create a buzz for your offer has a viral effect and can engage mobile shoppers in a context.

Use Facebook Behaviors and Interests while creating an Ad to make your offers appear in a targeted location and optimized for the mobile shopper with the right key words to target the holiday shopper. Choosing Partner Apps at no additional cost can help you optimize and increase the campaign reach.

Use Mobile Video on Social Networks such as Vine to gat people to favorite your brand so that you can target them with your campaigns. Optimize Mobile Video Campaigns with hashtags.

Google Shopping Campaigns can be optimized to display offers specific to the Holiday Shopper. Product Listing Ads include rich product information like an image, title, price, and your store or business name.

 Source : Nielsen, Geometry Global, IBM Retail Digital Analytics and Google AdWords