Mobile Commerce has released a Whitepaper, ‘Mobile Search: What are people searching for and how do they search for it’. The Whitepaper addresses how this affects search bidding, natural mobile Internet and web results, and shows how mobile sites can be monetised by adding a search box.
Mobile Commerce handles over 25% of the searches coming from the 17.38m mobile Internet users via UK operator portals plus a growing number of other portals seeking to monetise their mobile assets. Having built an analytic tool in 2002 to analyse the increasing numbers of search requests and clicks, a growing element of Mobile Commerce’s core business model is the development of monetised search using paid listings, thus connecting mobile users with advertisers. This generates additional revenue for network operators (through off-portal traffic) and gives advertisers distribution. Mobile Commerce says its solution gives up to a 70% uplift in search clicks compared to a raw search engine implementation.
The Whitepaper finds that the volume of searches on mobile devices has more than doubled in the last 12 months, and cites figures from the UK Mobile Data Association, showing that there were 17.38 million users using the mobile Internet in December 2008, up from 16.5 million in May 2008.
The reports says that part of the growth in search terms can be accounted for by new mobile Internet users buying flat rate data bundles and having handsets with improved capabilities that make them easier to use, plus existing users trying the search function for the first time.
The average number of searches per unique user is rising much faster. It has grown from eight searches per unique user per month to more than 13 searches per unique user in the last 12 months. This is a clear indication that once users try the search box, they continue to use it in greater and greater volume every month. This is because of changes in the behaviour of the use of the mobile phone, with users becoming more reliant on the mobile Internet.
The Whitepaper notes that a mobile phone has a much smaller text input device than the keyboard of a PC. This makes input errors much more likely. Mobile phone screens are small, so the user sees less information before there is a need to pan left or right or scroll down. This makes navigation around pages, or down through different levels on a portal, a greater challenge. Therefore, the number of searches for items/content that are already somewhere within the portal is much higher than for the PC.
Bookmarking on a mobile is much less prevalent than on the PC. Although it is possible to do, users tend not to – so they are much more inclined to use search to get to the content that they visit on a regular basis. This is one reason why ‘Facebook’ was the single most searched term of 2009.
Date and time are also strong drivers of search terms e.g. ‘The Boat Race’, ‘The Derby’ (the horserace not the city) and ‘The Eurovision Song Contest’. TV is also an influential driver of search terms and searches – ‘The X Factor’, ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Dancing on Ice’ all generate significant numbers of searches’ but only when the program is showing. These terms tend to last for a few weeks, increasing dramatically towards the final episode and then disappear until the following season. Perhaps not surprisingly, events and news are also big drivers of mobile search activity.
Mobile Commerce has a monetised search API that enables publishers to place a search box on their site. The API is configurable, so the publisher can decide on what results they want to display to produce an optimal experience for their consumers. The Monetised Search API also supports “Did You Mean” and “Also Try” functionality, which interprets requests and gives an alternative if relevant.
For ad network aggregators, the company provides a search feed, enabling ad network aggregators to offer their customers both display and search advertising. All customers have access to online reporting, and the company also supplies dynamic tag clouds, so that within a set of results for a subject like ‘games’, a list of the most searched games can be displayed, making it easier for users to select a game that they are probably familiar with and that other users have been searching for.
You can access the Whitepaper in full here.
Mobile Commerce handles over 25% of the searches coming from the 17.38m mobile Internet users via UK operator portals plus a growing number of other portals seeking to monetise their mobile assets. Having built an analytic tool in 2002 to analyse the increasing numbers of search requests and clicks, a growing element of Mobile Commerce’s core business model is the development of monetised search using paid listings, thus connecting mobile users with advertisers. This generates additional revenue for network operators (through off-portal traffic) and gives advertisers distribution. Mobile Commerce says its solution gives up to a 70% uplift in search clicks compared to a raw search engine implementation.
The Whitepaper finds that the volume of searches on mobile devices has more than doubled in the last 12 months, and cites figures from the UK Mobile Data Association, showing that there were 17.38 million users using the mobile Internet in December 2008, up from 16.5 million in May 2008.
The reports says that part of the growth in search terms can be accounted for by new mobile Internet users buying flat rate data bundles and having handsets with improved capabilities that make them easier to use, plus existing users trying the search function for the first time.
The average number of searches per unique user is rising much faster. It has grown from eight searches per unique user per month to more than 13 searches per unique user in the last 12 months. This is a clear indication that once users try the search box, they continue to use it in greater and greater volume every month. This is because of changes in the behaviour of the use of the mobile phone, with users becoming more reliant on the mobile Internet.
The Whitepaper notes that a mobile phone has a much smaller text input device than the keyboard of a PC. This makes input errors much more likely. Mobile phone screens are small, so the user sees less information before there is a need to pan left or right or scroll down. This makes navigation around pages, or down through different levels on a portal, a greater challenge. Therefore, the number of searches for items/content that are already somewhere within the portal is much higher than for the PC.
Bookmarking on a mobile is much less prevalent than on the PC. Although it is possible to do, users tend not to – so they are much more inclined to use search to get to the content that they visit on a regular basis. This is one reason why ‘Facebook’ was the single most searched term of 2009.
Date and time are also strong drivers of search terms e.g. ‘The Boat Race’, ‘The Derby’ (the horserace not the city) and ‘The Eurovision Song Contest’. TV is also an influential driver of search terms and searches – ‘The X Factor’, ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Dancing on Ice’ all generate significant numbers of searches’ but only when the program is showing. These terms tend to last for a few weeks, increasing dramatically towards the final episode and then disappear until the following season. Perhaps not surprisingly, events and news are also big drivers of mobile search activity.
Mobile Commerce has a monetised search API that enables publishers to place a search box on their site. The API is configurable, so the publisher can decide on what results they want to display to produce an optimal experience for their consumers. The Monetised Search API also supports “Did You Mean” and “Also Try” functionality, which interprets requests and gives an alternative if relevant.
For ad network aggregators, the company provides a search feed, enabling ad network aggregators to offer their customers both display and search advertising. All customers have access to online reporting, and the company also supplies dynamic tag clouds, so that within a set of results for a subject like ‘games’, a list of the most searched games can be displayed, making it easier for users to select a game that they are probably familiar with and that other users have been searching for.
You can access the Whitepaper in full here.
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