More Mobile Phone Access Than Toothbrushes, says Google

There are now more people on earth that have access to a mobile phone, than have access to a toothbrush, stated Ian Carrington, mobile and social advertising sales director at Google, speaking from Mobile Marketing Live.

In the UK 51% of people have a smartphone he said. Carrington pointed to research from Google that shows that 90% of all media interactions happen on a screen, with 38% of those on screen daily media interactions on smartphones, beating the desktop. This means this medium cannot be ignored by the marketing fraternity, he claimed.

Smartphones are the most common starting place for a purchase, according to Google’s research, which shows that 65% of purchases begin on the smartphone before 61% move onto a PC to complete the purchase, or a tablet with the remaining 4%.

Carrington added that there are lots of instances where mobile impacts the conversion rate but does not get credit for it; he said: “The first one is in store, although stores are given full credit when mobile should get some credit. The next is via phone call, again, mobile is here. Then there is apps, and mobile web, and then cross device tracking; completing a purchase elsewhere after starting on a mobile phone. Again, the PC of wherever the sale is completed will get the full credit, but we don’t think that’s right.”

“Mobile often has high conversion rates compared to the desktop,” said Carrington. “Click to call often has higher conversion rates on the mobile versus the desktop as well. So m-commerce is big.

“There are going to be over £15 billion in UK retail sales influenced by mobile in 2012, [according to Deloitte Digital]; eBay has said it expects to have $10 billion in revenue from mobile in 2012, while a more traditional company, Paddy Power, said 49% of its online customers bet via mobile,” he noted.

Google +, which has been going for a year now, is there to help marketeers Carrington stated. He commented that with help from Google +, marketing companies need to remember to develop and integrate mobile into everything they are doing, to localise content and campaigns to markets, and to be social about everything they do.