Mobile is the fastest growing ecosystem in history. 53% of the top 100 unicorns are mobile-only, mobile-first, or largely mobile.
It’s become clear that winning in mobile isn’t just about winning in mobile. To win in mobile is to win. Period.
First of all, we know all about the explosion in mobile. It’s everywhere around us.
Mobile is the fastest growing ecosystem in history
Now 2B smartphones
Time on device up 76% in 2014
35X growth in mobile data over the last 5 years
Secondly, we all know about the unicorns
There’s up to 165 or so at last count … depending on your data and how you count them
In fact 53% of the top 100 unicorns are mobile-only, mobile-first, or largely mobile, and most of the rest have significant, if not massive, mobile stories to tell.
Thirdly, we all know about the level of competition in the space
If you’re mobile-first or mobile-only, there’s a massive competition for users
(That horrible name we have for our customers)
You can easily pay $2-5 for new users
Not unheard of to pay $40-60 for very particular users
Catching whales is hard …
But 60% of the revenue in games comes from 1 out of every 500 users
It’s very rare, but there are people who have spent 6 figures on a “casual” mobile game
If you’re enterprise, that competition is a little more about converting existing customers to mobile users
B/C, of course, you want to be riding around with customers in their hip pockets … where you can send notifications to
Home Depot: people don’t wake up and check their Home Depot app
But Allianz, with 85M global insurance customers, boosted customer user of mobile to 40% over desktop with its app
Think about that. An insurance company. Riding with their customers in their pockets. On the device people always have within 3 feet. This is very, very powerful. Think retail, think fashion, think all kinds of consumer goods and services.
We see 3 waves of success in mobile:
- started with app success
- the company that really is a product or a series of products on mobile with a few big hits … look at app leaderboards
- we’ve seen the development of the mobile-first enterprise
- think ecosystems of value built entirely on mobile … Uber is the prototypical example … Chegg … Facebook has morphed into this, Google is in that process
- we’re seeing traditional enterprise add mobile, and maybe even reinvent itself around mobile
- so that a B2B2C brand … maybe in fashion … can have an actual personal relationship with end customers, even in situations where it was previously mediated by other parties
Each of them have different challenges, but each has to answer that question: How to win?
We’re been working to answer parts of that question at VB via research into:
- app analytics
- mobile marketing automation
- mobile user acquisition
- mobile monetization
- and there’s a lot more we need to do here …
To generate insight, we’re studying and surveying:
- 3K mobile developers
- 1.8M apps
- Hundreds of brands
- Thousands of digital marketers
One of our tools is something we’ve built with Spoke Intelligence and shared at VP Profiles
We’re also tracking what we’re calling the Mobile Success Landscape:
In 6 categories:
- development
- APIs
- UA
- analytics
- engagement
- monetization
Have to be very upfront … this probably v. .3 of this landscape. We owe a debt to Emergence Capital, who started something like this.
Will soon be more
The number of companies has doubled in the last 4 years
Especially in the Engagement and User Acquisition spaces
The lion’s share of the investment has gone to figuring out what’s going on in my app … and doing something about it.
Analytics has been very hot.
Engagement solutions – which we’ve call mobile marketing automation – that help me understand, reach, and communicate with actual people … not just “users” … are gaining ground.
4 of the layers are user-focused:
- Analytics
- User acquisition
- Engagement
- Monetization
If you think back to those unicorns …
They reflect that user or customer-centricity
…
In ways that a lot of old brands and enterprises do not …
Which is why that second wave of mobile success is a lot noiser and more obvious than the third wave
Lots of sectors where we’re investigating what leads to winning
The technologies that help you create, enhance, and amplify great user experience … and business growth
Want to take a few close-ups of some of our recent research ….
We’re studying mobile user acquisition. In fact, you’re getting that report free for attending this conference … it’ll be coming out in a week or two.
One thing we can already see is that CPI, which absolutely reigned last year as developers’ method of choice for user acquisition payment methods, is waning in popularity.
Last year … CPI was vastly the most popular
More than each of CPC, CPM, CPP
Now, for mobile-first companies, it’s barely first
Now it’s beginning to be all about measurable business results: CPA and CPE and CPP
And for big brands and traditional marketers, it doesn’t even crack the top 3
73% of developers are using FB to get new users … I have no idea why the other 27% are not …
They say it’s twice as effective as Google
Only 37.5% of mobile-first developers are using Google for user acquisition
Could change in the future
Google is investing a lot of resources into mobile
App analytics appears to be a foregone conclusion
But GA also has the highest uninstall ratio
And most mobile developers use multiple analytics tools
Or mobile engagement
We’re witnessing the emergence of this category right now
Tune bought one over the weekend: Artisan
86% of developers who have implemented a MMA solution report better results
Higher engagement, retention, and increased revenue
Massive increase in mobile advertising
And moving up the value chain to areas previously occupied by premium TV slots
Despite a significant amount of complexity …
The amount of advertising we’re seeing on mobile is increasing regularly
In fact, video advertising in the U.S. jumped 5X in the last 12 months
It’s having an effect …
Consumers are responding to it …
They’re engaging with it
And, yes, they’re going the last mile to purchase on mobile
We see the explosion of mobile
We see the unicorns, many of who are built on mobile
And we see the big brands scrambling to catch up
It’s become clear that winning in mobile isn’t just about winning in mobile
Instead …