A sur­vey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults from the Inter­ac­tive Adver­tis­ing Bureau’s (IAB) Mobile Mar­ket­ing Cen­ter of Excel­lence and Pre­ci­sion Mar­ket Insights from Ver­i­zon, has revealed that men are even more like­ly to make a trans­ac­tion via their smart­phones than women, with 56 per­cent of men sur­veyed say­ing that they use their smart­phones to trans­act. The results have pro­vide some inter­est­ing insights for mar­keters look­ing to under­stand and tar­get con­sumers.

Accord­ing to the IAB study, enti­tled “Hol­i­day Shop­ping in a Cross-Screen World,” men from they key 18–34 age group are espe­cial­ly active in mak­ing trans­ac­tions via mobile, with 76 per­cent com­plet­ing at least one trans­ac­tion via their smart­phones in a typ­i­cal month. Among women the num­ber was just 59 per­cent, con­sid­er­ably low­er for the equiv­a­lent age group.

The 18–34 age group has long been a key demo­graph­ic for mar­keters and adver­tis­ers, and the sur­vey results con­firmed their val­ue, with 39 per­cent of the 18–34 age group sur­veyed say­ing that they spend at least $51 or more via their smart­phone in an aver­age month. Over­all, the per­cent­age who spent that amount amongst the entire sam­ple sur­veyed, as well as oth­er demo­graph­ics such as par­ents of young chil­dren, was gen­er­al­ly less than 30 per­cent.

Image Cred­it: IAB

The IAB report out­lined a key impli­ca­tion of the results on the state of mobile mar­ket­ing:

“We see this research as reflect­ing the grow­ing impor­tance of smart­phones among the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of screens, media, and devices at con­sumers’ dis­pos­al, sig­nal­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for mar­keters to reach con­sumers at the time and place where they are already hol­i­day shop­ping – on their phones.”

Understanding The Intent Of Mobile Shoppers

Ahead of the 2014 win­ter hol­i­day peri­od, the sur­vey asked U.S. smart­phone own­ers for the most impor­tant rea­sons they would use their smart­phones to shop. The top rea­sons con­sumers pro­vid­ed:

• 51 per­cent said they were look­ing at get­ting best price/saving mon­ey.
• 36 per­cent were look­ing to save time.
• 35 per­cent hoped to make it quick and easy to search, research, and find what they were look­ing for.
• 66 per­cent of smart­phone users said that they planned to use their devices in some way to research, shop for, or pur­chase prod­ucts via their smart­phones this hol­i­day sea­son.

The data reveals the intri­ca­cies in which con­sumers are using their smart­phones to shop. In that way, mar­keters can hone in on spe­cif­ic tim­ings and nich­es to be vis­i­ble and reach con­sumers at the right moments.

Image Cred­it: IAB

As the results show, mobile plays an impor­tant part through­out con­sumer pur­chase fun­nels. How­ev­er, the way in which con­sumers use their devices for dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es can vary, by gen­der and by demo­graph­ic as the ear­li­er sta­tis­tics show.

Anna Bager, IAB senior VP of mobile and video, gave the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“We see this research as reflect­ing the grow­ing impor­tance of smart­phones among the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of screens, media, and devices at con­sumers’ dis­pos­al, sig­nal­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for mar­keters to reach con­sumers at the time and place where they are already hol­i­day shop­ping – on their phones. In addi­tion, with smart­phones, tablets, and oth­er devices gain­ing trac­tion as shop­ping chan­nels year-round, it is impor­tant that we under­stand exact­ly how con­sumers inter­act with these screens to research, shop for, and pur­chase prod­ucts, so adver­tis­ers can accu­rate­ly tar­get them in a time­ly fash­ion, as they are doing on oth­er media plat­forms.”

The com­plete “Hol­i­day Shop­ping in a Cross-Screen World” study is avail­able to down­load here.