Mobile fundamentals – tracking mobile sales
Written by Kevin Edwards on 2 minute read
Typically, this is additional activity rather than mobile replacing desktop activity. With mobile commerce accelerating, it has become increasingly important for advertisers to ensure they have the fundamentals in place to correctly track, and ultimately reward publishers for the sales they have generated through mobile devices.
It is important to outline the benefits of tracking mobile activity as well as the pitfalls of failing to do so:
Fairly rewarding affiliates – by not rewarding affiliates for the sales tracked through mobile devices, they will be missing out on a significant amount of revenue. Given that it is common for advertisers to see over half of their traffic originating from a mobile device, the significance of this can’t be under estimated. In this day and age, all advertisers should be tracking sales through a mobile device. There are no excuses for advertisers not to be tracking mobile sales. Publishers should be fairly rewarded for the sales they drive, regardless of the device a consumer purchased through.
Additional insights - A lack of mobile tracking will also detract from the insights available to advertisers. For example, it won’t be possible to clearly understand the devices that are driving conversions and the publishers that are effective at driving mobile activity. With mobile tracking enabled, advertisers are able to track mobile activity more accurately. This data can be broken down more precisely to indicate specific handset performance, which could be tied back to specific mobile affiliate activity.
Smoother customer journeys – With consumers turning more readily to mobile devices to purchase, a smooth customer journey is essential. If an advertiser is not tracking mobile sales, a redirect will need to be put in place diverting visitors to the desktop version of the site to ensure any transactions are tracked. With visitors expecting to land on a mobile version of the site to have a truly mobile experience, conversion rates can be hit significantly if the site is not fully optimized for mobile.
Not losing sales to competitors – Failing to track mobile sales will inevitably result in affiliates promoting competitors over you. An affiliate’s potential to earn commission is severely hampered by not tracking mobile activity. Affiliates will always promote advertisers that fairly reward them for all sales, regardless of device, over those that do not.
Benefit from additional affiliate activity – certain affiliates are over indexing in terms of mobile activity. By tracking mobile sales you are likely to benefit from additional activity from sites that generate a lot of traffic through mobile devices. Affiliates that use social media to generate a significant volume of traffic for example typically over index through mobile devices. By not tracking mobile sales you will be missing out on a number of opportunities.
