Consumers may say they prefer to buy on their desktop or laptop computers, or in-store – but almost half of them use their mobile in commerce. They use it to research products they later go on to buy through another route, a new study suggests.
Some 49% of consumers say they rarely or never buy via their mobile devices, but performance marketing company Tradedoubler has now carried out analysis that suggests while 80% prefer to buy on a desktop or laptop, 49% still use their mobile to research the products of services that they buy through other channels.
It Digital Connections Study found that European consumers spend more time researching purchases on their mobile than any other device. A significant minority (43%) of the 4,493 consumers that were questioned in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, said that their mobile had, indeed, changed the way they shop. More than half (55%) of all consumers said their smartphones were a valuable tool for research.
Half of consumers that make a purchase on a desktop or laptop, research that purchase on a mobile or tablet first, the study suggests. When buying a product in-store, more than half (54%) of consumers research the purchase they’re about to make on their mobile, while a quarter of European consumers have made a purchase on their mobile phone while in a store.
The performance marketing company has now responded by developing cross-device tracking technology that goes beyond tracking consumer behaviour using cookies and uses deterministic matching to connect users and their devices. The connection creates a profile, with activity tracked each time a user profile interacts with a website.
Dan Cohen, regional director, Tradedoubler said: “Our Cross Device Tracking solution prevents our clients paying for false sales, that often occur when using probabilistic cross-device solutions. With more accurate tracking we can work with our clients to further optimise their digital marketing budgets and improve the customer experience.”
