Mobile Dominates Consumers’ Gas & Convenience Searching Says xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path-to-Purchase Study
New York and Toronto (PRWEB) July 16, 2013 -- With the summer travel season at its peak and gas prices continuing to fluctuate, mobile is the go-to search medium for Gas & Convenience searches according to the ongoing xAd/Telmetrics 2013 U.S. Mobile Path-to-Purchase Study. With two out of three Gas & Convenience searchers using mobile exclusively, the study—conducted by Nielsen—includes new behavioral data revealing that 85 percent of search time in this category is spent on a smartphone with most conducting gas price comparisons/searches.
The Gas & Convenience category offers one of the highest mobile conversion rates – nearly 90 percent – as most mobile users who search for these services are ultimately making a purchase.
xAd-Telmetrics Mobile Path-to-Purchase Gas & Convenience Infographic
“Mobile is the dominant media used in this on-the-go category and while searchers are making most decisions within an hour, they are paying attention to advertising and taking time to conduct price and location searches,” said Monica Ho, vice president of marketing, xAd. “With the majority of searchers open to purchase options, advertisers have a strong opportunity to influence mobile Gas & Convenience buying decisions.”
Gas & Convenience Searchers Make Quick Decisions but Open to Advertising Influence
With a very high conversion rate, the number one reason mobile Gas & Convenience searchers say they use their device in this category is to ‘find a Gas & Convenience business to purchase from’. More than half of smartphone searchers plan to make a purchase within the hour and 88 percent of those smartphone and tablet purchases will be made the same day. While these are relatively quick decisions, Gas & Convenience searchers spend an average of 6 minutes per mobile search session – 50 percent longer than the average Retail mobile search session. Advertisers have an opportunity to impact these searchers as 75 percent of mobile Gas & Convenience searchers notice ads and only 10 percent have a specific brand or business location in mind.
App Use High in Gas & Convenience Mobile Searches
Mobile consumers prefer Gas & Convenience apps vs. websites, as app reach and engagement levels are the highest among the categories studied this year (Retail, Banking & Finance and Insurance). Half (49 percent) of Gas & Convenience smartphone searchers use apps exclusively and, according to behavioral data, overall mobile searchers are spending 97 percent of their Gas & Convenience search time in apps. Comparison sites/apps, such as GasBuddy.com, are the most commonly used among 52 percent of mobile searchers as price and location are key search factors.
“With some of the heaviest app usage and highest conversion rates we’ve seen in our Mobile Path-to-Purchase research series, it is important that Gas & Convenience advertisers work with marketing providers that ensure their businesses can be found in apps in addition to mobile sites,” says Bill Dinan, president of Telmetrics. “Advertisers have a chance to drive more purchases by ensuring their mobile presence is optimized with location and pricing info.”
Price and Location Top Drivers for Gas & Convenience Purchases
Price and location are the number one and two reasons driving Gas & Convenience mobile searches and 69 percent of smartphone searchers made a purchase because of price or location. 3 out of 4 Gas & Convenience mobile searchers are looking for a location within a five-mile radius, and a “close business location” is the most important feature, even more so for smartphone users. Location cues are important to mobile Gas & Convenience searchers as more than half (55 percent) say they use their device to look up locations, 35 percent look for contact info and 34 percent look up directions. Overall, 89 percent of the category’s mobile users searched for Gas while Oil Change and Convenience Stores searches each were conducted by 20 percent of searchers.
About the Study
The behavioral data is part of a greater study, which is the first to measure what consumers report they are doing via mobile devices and capture their actual preferences and behaviors across the Retail, Gas/Convenience, Banking/Finance and Insurance categories. Results from the 2nd Annual U.S. Mobile Path-to-Purchase Study are based on data from an online survey of 2,000 U.S. smartphone and tablet users and actual observed consumer behaviors from Nielsen’s Smartphone Analytics Panel of 6,000 Apple and Android users. The study included a Retail findings release and will include two additional releases of specific market findings for the Banking/Finance and Insurance categories.
More details are available at mobilepathtopurchase.com
About xAd
Founded in 2009, xAd is one of the largest mobile advertising networks in the U.S. and the leader in delivering targeted mobile ads based on accurate user location and search context. Across its network, the company aggregates and manages billions of monthly ad impressions from which it derives the largest supply of location-based advertising inventory in the market. xAd delivers targeted mobile location@scale for over a million national and local advertisers, including brands like Pinkberry, Home Depot and Wells Fargo.
xAd is based in New York City with several satellite offices across the U.S. and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.xAd.com.
About Telmetrics, Inc.
For more than 20 years, Telmetrics has been the call measurement industry leader. Telmetrics’ call tracking solutions, which are available in North America and across Europe, track the lead generation quality of local search advertising and pay per call programs for the leading brands in local search. This includes both publishers and agencies that serve millions of SMBs and national franchise locations across North America and Europe. With greater visibility into advertising performance across all media channels—digital, mobile, print and more—media publishers, agencies and advertisers can optimize the media mix for higher quality lead generation, resulting in increased revenues and a more complete picture of ROI across converging media. For more information, visit Telmetrics.com.
Eve Sheridan, Young & Associates, 303-469-3587, [email protected]
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