Mobile marketing.

What mobile marketing is

Mobile marketing is all promotion aimed at a person with a phone in their hand. Not a separate channel, but the condition in which almost all the others now operate: search, advertising, social networks, mailings, the website.

The difference from desktop is not only screen size. Behaviour changes: people look in snatches, often on the move, in a noisy place, on an unstable connection, and are ready to abandon a page within a few seconds.

The practical conclusion is simple. Anything that requires patience — long forms, heavy pages, small buttons, mandatory registration — loses a noticeable share of people on a phone.

Where the work begins

First and foremost — a website fit for a phone. This is not “the layout shrinks” but a different order of design: first decide what absolutely must fit on the small screen, and only then lay it out wider.

• Speed — on mobile internet a heavy page loses people before it opens.
• Element size — buttons sized for a finger, readable type, no horizontal scrolling.
• Short forms — a minimum of fields, the right keyboards for phone and e-mail.
• Quick contact — call, messenger and directions in one tap.
• Closable windows — a pop-up with no visible close button on a phone equals a closed tab.

These five points deliver more than any new advertising formats. Until they are done, it is too early to bother with the rest.

Channels for contacting the client

Messages to the phone — short mailings, order status notifications, appointment reminders. They work when they contain useful information and arrive for a reason, and irritate when they turn into a stream of promotions.

Messengers are gradually replacing calls: it is easier for a person to write than to talk, and the conversation keeps a history. For a service business this is often the main channel of enquiries.

There is one rule for all channels: write only to those who have agreed, and leave a simple way to opt out. A mailing without consent damages both the sender's reputation and the relationship with the client.

Advertising and content for the phone

The formats differ. Vertical video, short clips, large text, the point in the first seconds — on a small screen there is no room for a long run-up.

An important detail: a significant share of video is watched without sound. If the key idea is only in the voiceover, it will not be heard — you need subtitles or on-screen text.

Advertising must lead to a page adapted to the phone. The most common waste of money in mobile advertising is a good ad leading to a desktop page where the form cannot be filled in.

Fast networks and new formats

Each generation of mobile communications speeds up loading and reduces latency. Fifth-generation networks offer noticeably higher speed, response times of a few milliseconds and the ability to connect more devices at once.

For marketing this opens up formats that used to be awkward on a phone: high-quality video with no waiting, interactive material, augmented reality, trying on and viewing a product in a space.

A sober caveat: in Russia fifth-generation networks have not yet become mainstream, and it is too early to build current campaigns on them. The practical conclusion is different and works right now — people's connections vary, so the website must open properly on a slow connection too.

What to measure

It is useful to look at data separately for mobile and desktop visitors. Overall figures hide the problem: a site can show decent conversion in general and almost none from phones.

The minimum set: the share of mobile traffic, loading speed on a phone, the share of enquiries from mobile, the form steps at which people abandon it.

Recordings of mobile visits give the most: you can see a finger missing a button, a page having to be stretched, where the person gets stuck and leaves.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a separate app?

For most small companies — no. An app is justified when the client returns often and needs functions the browser does not have. In all other cases the money is better invested in the website.

How do I tell that my site is bad on a phone?

Open it on your own phone out on the street, not on home Wi-Fi, and try to submit an enquiry. Most problems come to light within five minutes.

Can I message clients in a messenger without consent?

No. Messages can only be sent to those who have agreed, and each one must include a clear way to opt out.

What matters more — speed or design?

Speed. A beautiful page that takes five seconds to open is one most people simply will not see.

What to do next

Look in your analytics at the share of visitors from phones and, separately, the share of enquiries from phones. If the second figure is noticeably lower than the first, the problem is not the advertising but the mobile version, and that is where to start.

We set up promotion with regard to where and on what clients come from — that is geo promotion. After that, you will find our guides on how to optimise a site for mobile and how to use video in marketing useful.