Mobile Marketing: Newbies

Let's assume that you have your mobile marketing strategy in place. Maybe you built an app, and are taking live, actual orders. You are ready to get started.

There are plenty of good sources for measuring the basics of mobile marketing, so we aren't going to focus on basic metrics readily available in your web analytics application.

The very first metric worth calculating is new customers.

You already calculate simple metrics for your other channels.

• You know that 42% of all purchasers in April came were first time buyers.
• You know that 47% of offline/catalog purchasers in April were first time buyers.
• You know that 50% of branded paid search purchasers in April were first time buyers.
• You know that 61% of non-branded paid search purchasers in April were first time buyers.
• You know that 38% of organic search purchasers in April were first time buyers.
• You know that 19% of e-mail purchasers in April were first time buyers.
• You know that 40% of affiliate purchasers in April were first time buyers.

You know those things, right?

So the very first thing you do with any customer purchasing from a mobile app (or social media for that manner) is you identify how many of the customers are new, and how many are existing.

If, by comparing the numbers above, you find that 11% of your app buyers are new buyers, well, then there's going to be some fun analysis, right? We are going to have to determine whether the buyers would have purchased anyway, or if the app captured demand that would not have happened otherwise.

If, by comparing the numbers above, you find that 67% of your app buyers are new buyers, well, then you have something magical happening in the early stages of the channel.

Start simple. And communicate simple facts to your Executive Team. Stay away from making this stuff more complex than it has to be ... because as we work through this series, things are going to become more complex, and the more complex things become, the less people trust you!