Why Go Mo?
Case Studies
Quickbeds.com
The Opportunity
Sean Sutherland, Global head of Online & E-Commerce of quickbeds.com, saw the mobile trend emerging in the US while working there for 12 years, but saw less urgency when he came back to Australia.
The online hotel booking industry is very competitive, so it is extremely important to be in the right place at the right time when customers are looking for a hotel. With more than half of Australians now owning a smartphone, Quickbeds felt mobile was an essential part of their overall presence.We saw immediate increase in sales and conversion on the site and we attribute 20% of that specifically to mobile
-Sean Sutherland, Global Head of Online & E-Commerce
The Result
When creating a mSite, Quickbeds.com focused on creating an experience which fits with mobile, not just recreating website in a mobile format.
They worked out priorities and made the site easy to navigate for the users; cut down functionality to basic essentials, and made the conversion process simple and speedy.After launching the mobile optimised site, nearly 20% of Quickbeds.com’s traffic is now coming from mobile devices.
Foxtel
The Opportunity
With more than 50% of Australians now owning a smartphone, Foxtel felt it was really important to be where their consumers were.
Foxtel was looking at new ways of acquiring customers and realised that their customers were already on mobile. They wanted to deliver better service by offering some of the most popular functionality, in a simplified format on the mobile site for current subscribers.I would say to the companies that haven’t built a mobile site yet, do it as soon as you can as it will improve your business performance.
-Justin Robinson, Head of Media & Marketing Operations, Foxtel
The Approach and Result
Foxtel made the mSite really easy to use, making the links easily clickable and letting the users find the information they wanted within a couple of clicks.
They also included click-to-call as part of the mSite functionality and that improved the paid search performance almost two fold over night.SEEK Learning
The Opportunity
As a leading online education site, SEEK Learning wanted to provide a service where students could access their courses whenever and wherever they wanted. As they have been seeing mobile growth, SEEK Learning tried to offer the service that best suited the fast evolving mobile users’ behaviour and now they are launching the 3rd iteration of their mobile site in less than 2 years.
People are consuming content online on mobile devices now. It’s no longer about “should we”, it’s “why haven’t we.”
-James Murray-Beckman, Manager – Online & Mobile, SEEK Learning
The Approach and Result
SEEK Learning went through a few iterations of mobile site to build the optimal site to meet their user’s needs.
Phase 1: Started from a very simple mSite to test whether their users actually go to mobile.
Phase 2: Optimised the online site for mobile that included contents from their online site. It reduced some of the complexity of the online site to fit the mobile platform, but there was a limitation on what they could do.
Phase 3: Finally, SEEK Learning realised the importance of having a mobile specific version of a site that included contents specific for their mobile customers. One thing SEEK Learning always tries to do is incorporate feedback from the users – ask them what features and functionality they think are important.
BuySpares.co.uk
The Opportunity
BuySpares had noticed that a growing number of visitors were viewing their site through mobile devices, so the obvious next step was to create a dedicated mobile version. Their main goals are to increase traffic to the site, and once there, to ensure that the user can locate and order the part they need in as few clicks as possible.
We saw a sharp rise of mobile users accessing the full site and wanted to give them a much faster option through a mobile version.
-Richard Williams, Head of Marketing, BuySpares.co.uk
Mobile Site Highlights
BuySpares is the UK’s largest home and garden spares retailer with more than 40 years’ experience in the industry. They developed their site to recognise whether the user was accessing via a mobile or desktop device. Initially this just applied to the homepage, but was extended to cover all pages of the site, meaning that as soon as the user hit the site they would be automatically redirected to the mobile site. The site was launched after considerable internal testing, and was promoted through Adwords to increase online awareness, tracking performance using Google Analytics.
The Results
Since launching the site, mobile traffic increased by 40% and revenue by 31%. The time on-site remained steady and consistent with the desktop users, however the bounce rate decreased by 7%, suggesting that the mobile site was more user-friendly.
Preloved
The Oppportunity
Preloved is an online marketplace that allows people to buy and sell second-hand goods. It features hundreds of thousands of adverts and receives over 7 million visits every month. “We noticed a sharp increase in the number of people that were accessing our service using mobile devices,” says Managing Director, Ian Buzer, “and were keen to ensure that these users had the best experience possible”.
Just a few months after launch, nearly 25% of all the buying and selling activity on Preloved takes place on our mobile site.
-Ian Buzer, Managing Director, Preloved
Mobile Site Highlights
The Preloved team identified two key tasks that people do on mobile: searching for sale items and sending messages between buyer to seller. The new, mobile-friendly site focuses on these actions, and brings local search functionality to the forefront. A fluid design adapts to available screen size, ensuring a great experience on any device
The Results
Preloved’s mobile users have quadrupled in the past year. What’s more, the mobile site has a better track record of matching buyers and sellers. There’s been a 41% increase in conversion over the same time period, and, with mobile usage continuing to grow, this is just the beginning for Preloved.
Careerjet
The Opportunity
Careerjet is a leading job search engine with a large worldwide presence, aggregating over 40 million job ads from more than 70,000 websites across the globe. Knowing that 65% of commuters pass the time on their smartphones, Careerjet CTO and Co-Founder, Thomas Busch, wanted to let mobile users search for their next career move on the way to their current job.
Mobile is not a luxury but rather what users expect from a modern website.
-Thomas Busch, CTO, Co-Founder, Careerjet
Mobile Site Highlights
Careerjet decided to create a stripped-down mobile version of their desktop site. A simple, mobile-friendly interface kept clutter to a minimum, and users were able to save search results on their phones, and then retrieve them later on the desktop site for a closer look.
The Results
The first Careerjet mobile site launched in 2009, and Busch and his team have been expanding and optimizing ever since. More than 15% of Careerjet’s job seeker traffic now comes from mobile devices—a 285% increase in mobile traffic in 2011. With mobile making a huge strategic impact, the company is allocating more and more resources to mobile development.
Auto Trader
The Opportunity
The Auto Trader brand is nationally recognised as the UK’s largest new and used car marketplace. For Autotrader.co.uk, it was important that visitors enjoy a seamless experience regardless of the channel they used to access the site. “People want to have a seamless experience across all channels when they see your website. Focus on making the desktop-mobile experience seamless,” is a key takeaway for Nick Gee, Mobile Director, Autotrader.co.uk
In the old days, people bought an Auto Trader magazine and brought it with them to buy the car. We lost that a bit with desktop but now we’re back in people’s pockets. Mobile is growing and it’s not going to slow down.
-Nick Gee, Mobile Director, Autotrader.co.uk
Mobile Site Highlights
“At the time it was about focusing on what the user wants to do while on their mobile,” says Nick. They realised that key to this was the ability to refine searches, so they built their mobile website around that feature. “It was all about search and making the user experience quick to download and easy for the user to find what they are looking for when they are on their mobile,” continues Nick. They built more than 1,800 unique mobile websites for car dealerships in the UK.
The Results
Autotrader.co.uk currently receives 2.2 million unique visitors per month across all mobile channels, and has experienced a 138% traffic growth from mobile between September 2010 and September 2011. Mobile now accounts for more than 32% of all Auto Trader digital traffic and generates 25 million searches a month.
Mobile has become a key strategy for Auto Trader as they seek to tap into the ‘Always On’ mode of consumers having their mobile with them at all times. “We are developing industry-leading user experiences and focusing on understanding our user’s needs while we develop new products for our customers to reach the mobile audience,” states Amy Gale, Mobile Marketing Manager for Auto Trader. “We get mobile users all day and even into the evening,” continues Amy. “While both desktop and mobile use peak in the evening on weekends, mobile is strong all day while desktop activity is low. We estimate that 80% of our mobile users are using Auto Trader more because of their mobile access. It’s always to hand.”
