Written by Lindsay Bettcher, Digital Analyist

With mobile app downloads expected to reach 76.9 billion yearly downloads in 2014 with revenues surpassing $35 billion[1], companies are adding mobile to their marketing mix in order to better connect with their tech-savvy consumer. While companies are willing to the take the initial step to plan and create an app, not always do they think full circle about analyzing and leveraging the data they can receive from their consumers. Marketers should consider taking the following steps to measure and optimize their mobile experience.?

• Planning your Metrics and Goal Setting
• Tracking and Measuring
• Optimization

1.     Planning your Metrics and Goal Setting

Every mobile app is a gold mine of data that can be used to help better understand your consumer. With so many different points to measure, the challenge is to focus on the most relevant data points in order to help optimize your app in the future. Examples of important metrics that measure success in mobile apps are:

Purchase Intent Activity: To determine the return on investment of your app, the most direct way is to track users buying behavior through items they purchase through the app. Most apps, however, do not support mobile commerce so the next best way to measure success is to identify areas that indicate future purchase intent. For example, while a user cannot purchase something from the Sam’s Club Mobile app, users can do various activities that signify intent to visit a Club at a future date. Other examples of purchase intent metrics are, viewing a product information page, using a store locator or requesting more information.

Active User Base:  The true measurement that guarantees a thriving app is how many people are actively using it. Brands that have a healthy active base, such as Kraft’s widely popular iFood Assistant, can expect their app to survive for a long period of time. Some examples that signify a healthy active user base are time spent on app, return visitors, or pages per visit.

Feedback: Listening to your consumers is important to learn what your consumers expect out of a mobile experience with your brand.  Brands that successfully react to their consumer’s insights will be able to create a better app that caters to their consumer needs and wants. Mobile apps have the unique ability to easily capture feedback from consumers through reviews in app stores, login capture, or simple suggestion forms. 

2.     Tracking and Measuring

Since mobile apps are more prevalent, there now exists an abundance of measurement tools that can be helpful in tracking your app. Companies should have a couple measurement systems in their arsenal in order to fully track all aspects of their mobile app. Some of the most common tools used by brands are Adobe SiteCatalyst and Flurry Analytics.

The next step for tracking your app is to set a timeframe on when to evaluate data. Data should be collected at a reasonable consistency to accurately see trends and make recommendations, but also have time to react and optimize. 

3.     Optimization

Even the best apps have room for improvement and some parts will succeed, while others will unfortunately fail. While marketers keep track of the data and measurements, companies need to optimize their app and enact changes based on their findings. Doing the first two steps is not enough if you cannot take the time to actually act on what the data is telling you and optimize your app based on your successes and failures.  For the Sam’s Club Mobile app, Rockfish captured user suggestions for new features through app store reviews and a feedback microapp. With this knowledge, Rockfish was able to successfully develop a future strategy and optimize with new features that consumers suggested.

Planning and creating an app is a great first step to integrate mobile into a company’s marketing mix, but creating a robust measurement plan in parallel will help marketers take their mobile app to the next level. Developing a plan from creation to optimization takes expertise and a wide variety of knowledge to execute correctly. Rockfish has a team of mobile and measurement experts that can help you plan and develop a mobile application experience as well as measure and optimize the consumers’ experience.

Written by Dawn Maire, Chief Strategy Officer

It all started in a little supermarket in Troy, Ohio on June 26, 1974. Clyde Dawson took a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum out of his basket and Sharon Buchanan, who was working the register, scanned it. This was the first commercial appearance of the UPC and barcode scanning in retail - such a significant transaction that the pack of gum and receipt are now on display at the Smithsonian.

There are many barcode applications in our society, and they are not all specific to the retailing and CPG space. They are intertwined into processes such as boarding an airplane, getting into a movie, identifying hospital patients, filing documents and the list goes on. Industries use barcodes as a means to an end, but that construct is radically changing. Today the power is in the hands of the consumer. Barcodes have become the link between the physical and digital worlds.

With the rapidly expanding smartphone market and the widespread adoption of shopping applications like ShopSavvy and RedLaser, mobile barcode scanning is quickly becoming a staple in today’s shopping trip. These two applications alone have been downloaded 12 million times. Many major retailers such as Sam’s Club, Target and Best Buy have included a barcode scanner in their smartphone applications to empower the consumer to access relevant product information via their own branded channel. All of these factors have led to a 700% increase in barcode scanning since January 2010 (ScanLife, Mobile Barcode Trend Report, September 2010).

Why are consumers so enamored with this new shopping power you might ask? The answers are simple.

- Comparison Shopping - Consumers want to bargain shop and compare prices between retailers. Finding prices and availability for any item in an area is the primary case for scanning a barcode.

- Ratings and Reviews - Scanning is also a decision support mechanism. Users want to know from other shoppers how a product met their expectations.

- Rich Media Content - A secondary form of decision support comes in the form of rich media. Video and online content can help to entice shoppers into making a purchase.

- Discounts - Today everyone wants a discount on goods and services. Businesses are beginning to leverage the power of barcode scanning to deliver real time discounts and coupons.

Another evolution of the barcode has been the shift from a 1-dimensional image to 2D form. The most prevalent of these 2D codes is the QR, or Quick Response, code. QR codes are beginning to creep into all forms of marketing from print material and billboards to websites and product packaging. Rockfish is now leveraging barcode and QR scanning technology as part of the Sam’s Club mobile app. Users can scan product barcodes and retrieve product details, ratings and reviews, as well as stock status for their local Club.

From Clyde Dawson to QR Codes, the evolution of the barcode has made significant strides, but we have yet to see its true potential. Imagine the ability to know individual consumers and suggest products in this equation. Let’s say in one trip Sally scans spaghetti and then pasta sauce. Since we know what Sally is planning to cook, we could then offer her up a recipe for a great side salad and coupon for freshly baked French bread from the bakery. The opportunity for real time one-to-one marketing is upon us!

Today we’re excited to announce that we’ve made our second Rockfish Brand Ventures investment in MomentFeed, a platform that centralizes access to analytics and campaign management tools for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Gowalla. Location-based social media platforms present new challenges and opportunities for brick-and-mortar retailer, and MomentFeed aims to help make sense out the data that is available across this emerging channel. By using MomentFeed, retailers can see aggregated data across four of the most popular location-based service platforms and easily learn how their stores are performing individually and compared to their competitors.

Click here to check out the official press release. 

If you're in New York City for Advertising Week check out Rockfish sponsored panel "Be A Little Scrappy. Think Like A Startup", featuring Kenny Tomlin, Rockfish CEO, Chris Erb, VP of Brand Marketing, EA Sports, Josh Hernandez, CEO, Tap.Me, and Ben Lerer, Co-founder & CEO, Thrillist.

Check out Advertising Week to RSVP.  

Written by Becky Gruebmeyer, Technical Strategy Architect

When people reference “digital marketing”, the first thought is regarding websites, banner ads and anything online, but digital marketing can be extended to include so much more!  

There has been a lot of discussion around QR codes as they slowly emerge in the United States.  Companies are beginning to place QR codes on packaging and incorporate them into their advertising campaigns, but one company in South Korea has taken QR codes to another level. 

                                                                              

Tesco has created a virtual store and they are seeing amazing results!  The store has no real products on their shelves.  Their shelves are pictures of the products with a QR code displaying next to them.  Consumers scan the codes for all of the items they want to order.  The items are dropped into their shopping cart on their mobile device.  They can then schedule a delivery time and pay for their order all via their mobile phone.  This is a great example of taking print media to digital media using an innovative idea!

Looking around, you can find many new technologies emerging to blend the line between print and digital media.  Scrolling through Seventeen Magazine, you may run across an ad with a Digimarc tagline included.  Digimarc has created a technology that allows for a watermark to be included in print that is not noticed by the consumer.  This allows for companies to develop print advertising with the same appearance, but allow the consumer to get additional information on their mobile phone by simply pointing at the page with the watermark using Digimarc’s free app.

Another company pushing the edge of digital technologies can be found in Americhip. Their whole goal is “finding ways to blend these technologies into a sensory showcase”.  Imagine opening a brochure to see a video playing.  What if you could turn the page of a magazine to hear music playing and experience the smell of your favorite drink? 

Technology encompasses so many areas in digital marketing.  How can you push the edge to bring another dimension to your business?  What other great use of technology have you seen at work?