Traffic & Branding Through The App Market
With the recent news that Android’s share of market has passed Blackberry and taken a larger lead against Apple, it makes us all wonder how large mobile can grow and when we should all jump into the mobile game as well. There are many ways to get into the mobile space as an advertiser whether it is running ads on the search engine mobile sites, banners in apps, optimizing your own website for mobile, or even creating your own brand app.
Most advertisers pay to drive users to their mobile website through banners and ads in search engine mobile sites, but place minimal attention to using the same medium to drive traffic to their own brand apps. Sure, the app market is still young and you might think that there is nothing for you to gain by sending traffic to your own application or even in justifying that you should build one to begin with. Recent studies suggest that my previous statement could soon be false. IHS Screen Digest reported that the app market (run by Apple, Google, Nokia, and Palm) is going to be worth over $8 billion by 2014, with a predicted 78% growth in 2011. If you have your own app, Google Adwords allows you to drive traffic to the Apple App Store or Android Market and claim your piece of the pie. Currently Apple is expected to retain 60% of the paid apps market but with the increased use of Android smartphones, the Android market is only expected to increase its market share to close in on Apple.
With constant reports and studies showing that the mobile market is quickly growing and new mobile web strategies developed, it may be time to think of mobile advertising as an entirely new branch to your online campaigns. The internet is changing daily and with these types of new developments, it would be smart to forget about the internet we grew up with and view this as a new world with the app market as your playground. With your own application, you have the opportunity to reach an increasing number of consumers. By 2014, downloaded applications (paid and free) is expected to top 33 billion.
A recent study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX revealed that “Consumers use smartphones as an extension of their desktop computers and use it as they multi-task and consume other media.” The study showed that 81% of smartphone users browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone. Also, 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home, which shows the transition of people moving away from their desktop and on to their mobile device. With such a large of smartphone owners using apps, this can be an untapped resource for addition revenue and traffic to the rest of your mobile efforts.
If you were still thinking of developing your own branded application, you may want to think about the traffic that you are missing without the application.
