People are consumed by their mobile devices, with mobile usage continuing to grow. The question for marketers is what is the best mobile engagement marketing channel in order to reach out to customers for each specific purpose? In this article, I will look at when is it beneficial to use SMS, push notifications or in-app messaging.

Why SMS?

SMS still matters in the age of smartphones! SMS provides an easy and immediate way to interact with customers directly in their personal message application. But if done...

A feature of modern life so innocuous and widespread, the humble text message seems like it has been around forever. The first SMS (Short Message Service) was sent on 3 December 1992.

Which means the text message is now officially 25 years old.

With Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love you number one in the US and Home Alone 2 sitting on top of the Box Office, the first SMS was sent by 22-year old Sema Group software architect Neil Papworth.

The message said simply, ‘Merry Christmas’ and was sent over Vodafone’s...

It is just over 10 years since the first iPhone. It is incredible to think how much we’ve allowed mobile communications devices such as smartphones and tablets to significantly impact our lives.

According to Deloitte, in the UK for most smartphone owners, checking their phone is the first and last thing they do in day. Many of us feel now dependant on our devices. We’ve become obsessed with having access to the internet at all times to the point where 41% of respondents think their partner uses...

Millennials – those who have come of age in a period of vast technological change – are a sought-after group among marketers. They are internet savvy, smartphone-wielding and eager to establish themselves as valued workers and prospective property owners.

They are also not a single, uniform entity.

For marketers, who already have a habit of pigeonholing people into conceptually neat categories, the need to acquire as much user data as possible has made understanding what makes young consumers tick...

Consumer willingness to share their mobile device’s location data with apps has grown in the last two years, although many still harbour significant concerns

The figures come from new research by mobile marketing platform Verve that asked 2,000 UK adults how comfortable they were letting independent apps know their whereabouts.

55% of respondents said that they were more comfortable sharing the information now than they were two years ago, with 73% allowing select apps to access the information....

As far as I am concerned, every marketer — mobile or otherwise — should be data-driven, so hopefully the title of this article hasn’t put you off!

Paying attention to data analytics is the ultimate way of measuring the results of a marketing campaign, guiding you into making smart choices about future marketing strategies to ensure your messages are not falling on deaf ears - and mobile is no exception.

The fabulous thing about mobile marketing is that, no matter what type of campaign you...

According to new research by Kantar TNS, smartphone usage has fallen among 16 – 24-year olds for the first time.

The report states that mobile device owners in that age group spend an average of 2.8 hours using their phones daily. This is down from 3.9 hours last year. While this doesn’t sound like a lot, it is significant for a number of reasons.

Firstly, if accurate, it seems to fly contrary to the conventional wisdom that people (especially young people) are...

Born between the years of 1980 and 2000, millennials consist of approximately 80 million people in the US alone. Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is that they have grown up parallel to the digital revolution and the development of the Internet. In a Selz article on selling products online, Kristen DeCosta points out that you need to be on different digital channels while promoting your store. These include Google search, forums, social networks, and review sites.

Marketing to this particular...

As marketers continue to become better able to measure and utilise the data they collect about consumers, the focus is starting to shift. Whereas the first wave was all about where a consumer is and how exactly they interact with an app or website, the next stage is trying to work out how consumers feel when they come into contact with marketing content.

Mobile advertising platform AdColony has conducted a survey of over 1,500 consumers in North America and Europe to try and work out their sentiment while...

Retargeting ads exist because only 4% of people on desktop convert the first time they visit a website. For mobile, this figure is around 1.5%. That makes sense, though, right? After all, the mobile internet isn’t where people do serious shopping, is it? It’s just for WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat. The serious stuff happens on desktop. The mobile internet is just there for