It seems like for the past five years the industry has been saying, “it’s the year of mobile!” Well, it might finally be here. According to comScore, mobile now accounts for 69% of time spent on digital media.

Mobile is growing – capitalize on it!

First, you need a website that is mobile optimized or has a responsive design. Let’s say you’ve managed to do that. That’s a huge first step, but it is just the beginning. Just because your site technically qualifies as mobile friendly, that doesn’t mean people will suddenly love the user experience. Spend time on your site. Understand what it feels like to try to navigate through your site. Your customers don’t start on the booking confirmation page. Each page along the conversion path needs to be designed to enhance the user experience and make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for.

The greatest challenge of mobile

So, you’ve got a website that uses responsive design and you’re confident that the user experience is top notch. There is another hurdle you should be aware of – mobile apps. Currently, 52% of time spent on mobile is spent in mobile apps. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I’m in an app enjoying my experience and something I click on directs me to a website. Most of the time I didn’t even mean to click on it!

Adapt with innovative advertising

So how do you overcome users’ reluctance to leave the comfort of their apps? Adapt! You can’t avoid advertising in this space given how much time people spend using apps. So create experiences that allow people to stay within their app. Companies like Spotify have started offering 30 minutes of music ad free to their customers for interacting with ad units within their app. For those businesses who have mobile apps, a lot of mobile gaming apps now offer users rewards for installing the apps of advertisers. While the consumer is rewarded for installing the app, the advertiser can set it to only pay when the consumer takes an additional action like signing up for a class, placing an order, or downloading a guide.

The mobile space continues to change every day, and I’m sure next year we’ll be writing another blog about the year of mobile. No matter what hurdle comes next, Morgan & Co. is here to help you through them all.