A recent study provided more evidence — as if any more was needed — of the ever-growing importance of mobile marketing. It also provided yet another example of how inextricably mobile devices have become entangled in every fiber of our daily lives.

According to the Mobile Path-To-Purchase report from xAd and Telmetrics, some 60 percent of all consumers used a mobile device to make a purchase decision when shopping in entertainment, restaurant, telecommunications or auto markets.

As Jessica Lee noted in a June 3 blog post at Search Engine Watch, consumer satisfaction with their mobile devices — be they smartphones or tablets — increased again in the past year, and with the growing satisfaction came a willingness to spend more time utilizing those devices.

Lee writes that 61 percent of smartphone users and 68 percent of tablet users reported being satisfied with the information they were able to find on their devices, up two percent from last year’s survey in both categories.

According to Lee, the survey data showed that almost half of mobile users sought information either browsed purchasing options in the aforementioned retail categories, or researched particular businesses. And when they found the information they were looking for, 73 percent said they preferred to find and dial a local phone number for a brick-and-mortar business.

The survey also showed a 26 percent increase from 2013 in the use of smartphones alone as a primary shopping device, with 29 percent of respondents saying their smartphone was their most important shopping tool in the past year.

“The impact of this increased mobile usage is significant and it isn’t limited to on-device activity,” said xAd senior vice president of marketing Monica Ho. “With mobile consumers looking to make decisions quickly and locally, mobile is also serving as a tool to drive in-store activity.”

One in four mobile device users queried reported using their smartphone or tablet for the entire shopping process, from browsing, to comparisons, to research, to the purchase.

Other highlights of the survey:

  • smartphone and tablet use is the equal of laptops and desktop PCs as the primary source for news and information
  • mobile users cited coupons and customer reviews as the most important information they find on restaurants, while contact information topped telecom, auto and entertainment searches
  • smartphones were used for 10.6 billion website visits in the past year, compared to 5.8 billion visits on laptops and PCs
  • activity in the restaurant category was at its peak in the early evening hours, shortly after the close of business hours

Reference:

Lee, Jessica. “60% of Consumers Use Mobile Exclusively to Make Purchase Decisions [Study]“; Search Engine Watch. June 3, 2014.