The app is becoming the piece for loyalty to a brand: Becky Tasker

Make sure you are looking at how consumers are engaging with the website. Stickiness is very important as it can indicate if you need to optimise and improve, Becky Tasker tells Ritwik Sharma.

When we look at the data you shared from the Adobe Digital Insights report (Japan + Asia Pacific Best of the Best 2016), could you point out any significant steps taken by the top performing companies?
 

The data is anonymised, so I wouldn’t have specific use cases. But I will tell you that we did a survey in the US, where we asked consumers what makes a good smartphone experience. And the two top frustrations were that the mobile experience was too small, and that it was too slow. So I think the companies that have done well have probably acknowledged that people on the go want their information rapidly and they are not only showing it quicker but are coming up with some interface that gets them that information. Some of the other answers were poor navigation or poor navigation design and a poor checkout process. So those are indicators where consumers are frustrated.

Could you comment on factors that could work well for a marketplace like India, when we consider marketing steps in the digital or smartphone?
 

If you look at our data on time spent, for India we did see that year over year it decreased. To me that indicates websites are getting better at optimising or delivering experience. They are also recognising that the smartphone experience is different from desktop. A lot of the websites that don’t do so well have experience that doesn’t kind of ebb and flow according to the need of the customer. I do think probably there are some winners that are driving the visits and giving consumers a reason to return, and there are some websites that might not even be tracking that. So make sure you are looking at how consumers are engaging with the website and also, stickiness is very important as it can indicate if the experience on a web doesn’t meet an expectation that’s something you can test, optimise and improve.

Are we seeing comparatively less budget spends in countries like India on digital?
 

We released an advertising report for the Asia-Pacific region that gives a breakdown on what’s going on. But in the US, what we’ve found is the creative industry is taking steps to pair itself with data and advertising, to make sure the creative experience or what they present to consumers match with the advertising as well, kind of coming up with this cookie set — data meets creative meets consumer expectations. So we saw that pattern in the US and we weren’t able to pull it for APAC, we didn’t have enough data, but overall it speaks again to that experience in making sure what you are offering is resonating with the consumers and makes sense again, based on the device how long they are spending or various indicators of what they are interested in.

Where does app come in and is it as important to convert customers?
 

The data I shared is only for desktop or mobile web. But we know app is an important part of that experience. In the US when apps were first available or became an in-thing we saw a daily increase of installs and launches of the number of times before opening an app. But over the last couple of years we have seen a decrease in the number of apps people are using, indicating that they are consolidating and being very selective on what they want to use. What we think is going on is that the app is becoming kind of the piece for loyalty, and if you want somebody to be loyal and integrated with your brand then you should absolutely have that app because it prevents them from crossing over to the competition.

I know it’s different here, and one of the things that we are seeing across Asia Pacific is some of the bigger app players trying to consolidate tasks into the app, and so these types of websites are enterprise websites that we’re referring. They should pay special attention to that consolidation of bigger players.

Could you comment on factors that could work well for a marketplace like India, when we consider marketing steps in the digital or smartphone?
 

If you look at our data on time spent, for India we did see that year over year it decreased. To me that indicates websites are getting better at optimising or delivering experience. They are also recognising that the smartphone experience is different from desktop. A lot of the websites that don’t do so well have experience that doesn’t kind of ebb and flow according to the need of the customer. I do think probably there are some winners that are driving the visits and giving consumers a reason to return, and there are some websites that might not even be tracking that. So make sure you are looking at how consumers are engaging with the website and also, stickiness is very important as it can indicate if the experience on a web doesn’t meet an expectation that’s something you can test, optimise and improve.