Mobile Analytics Tools with Bango’s Andy Bovingdon

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Mobile Analytics tools and mobile payment services are helping marketers better serve and understand phone user engagement.

As Andy Bovingdon, VP of Product Marketing for Bango remarks about the change in consumer adoption of the mobile channel: “…Analytics is less about measuring clicks and more about consumer engagement”

His company is the leading provider of mobile payment and analytics products for businesses targeting the fast growing market of internet enabled mobile phones and other devices.

Bango provides its worldwide clients  with accurate, actionable information, including smartphone mobile Internet usage via cellular networks or Wi-Fi

Mobile Analytics Tools in Practice

The firms’s reports are far more accurate and comprehensive than other service providers.  They identify mobile user behaviors as consumers browse websites and interact with mobile campaigns.

Bango  (see case studies) shows data in real-time, helping marketers better track mobile advertising and search results. This helps enterprise and smaller businesses better assess mobile campaign ROI.

Juniper Research estimated that mobile ad spend in 2009 was $500M. In 2010, 90% of surveyed brands said they’re increasing mobile expenditures, expanding the need for highly accurate, complete mobile analytics tools.

Yet, according to a 2009 consumer study,  brands, agencies and mobile providers are not adequately measuring critical factors that improve engagement, marketing and advertising success.

In the survey of 100 webinar participants, most from the United States and Europe, Bango discovered that 83% of brands don’t use mobile-specific analytic tools, leading to inaccurate campaign performance reports. 17% use some sort of measurement and 27%–around a third—don’t use mobile analytics tools at all.

According to Bovingdon, “…traditional PC Web analytics solutions rely on JavaScript, cookies and IP addresses to identify a visiting browser…these techniques alone simply do not deliver accurate results on mobile.” (See the Bango blog for additional articles.)

Mobile Relationships with Brands 

In 2009, the U.S. accounted for over 29% of the world’s total web browsing, beating out the U.K.  Mobile payment use is also growing faster in the U.S. than other countries, requiring better user engagement measurement over longer periods of time.

Due to increasing worldwide mobile Web use,  Bango’s CEO,  Ray Anderson, and Andy stress the importance of the “lifetime value of customers,” who demonstrate low churn and opt-out rates in mobile relationships with brands.

For an enlightening and rather humorous demonstration of Bango’s billing and mobile analytics tools, don’t miss the company’s online MobiSlim demo where you can test its services in real time with your mobile phone. (Learn how to lose weight by eating radishes and drinking lots of water instead of chocolate bars.)

Andy Bovingdon

Andy Bovingdon coordinates Bango products and markets, product requirements, positioning and promotion. He leads the company’s product proposition and strategy,  as well, and  has over 12 years experience within the global Internet market. He’s  worked for both start-ups and established brands.

Andy contributed to the world-wide Web from its inception and participated in the first Web conference at CERN in 1994. Andy integrated a wide range of Web technologies into the X-desktop product for IXI.

He also introduced the world to the Web-based Desktop (Webtop) while with SCO, and designed the first Internet-based remote application at Tarantella, improving mobile workforce use of mission-critical applications.

Before joining Bango, Andy was Head of Marketing and Product Management for ANT, the leading supplier of Web-based user interface platforms in the IPTV market. Prior to that, he headed up world-wide marketing for Microsoft Research in Cambridge. Andy has a BSc in Computer Science from Staffordshire University.

As he mentions in the podcast interview, he’s also an avid audiophile and lover of technology.

Podcast Interview Summary

During the podcast, Andy and Brian Prows discuss Bango mobile payments, mobile analytics tools and the 2009 study showing that brands are not adequately measuring mobile campaigns. Additional topics include:

• The importance of “relevance” in mobile interactions with consumers. User engagement with mobile devices and consumers lasts longer than any other communications channel. To maintain engagement, however, brands must deliver personalized mobile experiences, presenting information, products and services that are tailored to each consumer
• How mobile analytics tools increase marketing ROI and complement payment solutions.
• Why it’s critical that marketers and advertisers make consumer mobile transactions simple and seamless from end-to-end, whether engagement occurs via carrier cell towers or through Wi-Fi
• The proliferation of a growing number of mobile devices–phones, iPads, Kindles–and the importance of using mobile analytics tools to measure user behavior. Andy echoes comments made by other mobile experts saying “everything is going mobile.”
• Why many brands are throwing money away by not analyzing consumer mobile interactions beyond basic metrics like type of handset, screen resolution and location. Many marketers simply lack information and familiarity with the unique qualities of consumer behavior while on the the mobile Internet. Traditional PC Web analytics doesn’t produce accurate mobile measurements
• How 4G wireless networks and Wi-Fi impact reporting, critically important for iPhone and other smartphone users.
• The growth of entrepreneurial SMB’s with new business models targeted at untouched mobile markets
• Importance of mobile billing and analytics integration to measure ad campaigns correctly and comprehensively
• Integrated billing solutions allowing brands and advertisers to easily collect mobile payments, eliminating the need for SMS texting or the PayPal model for purchases. This creates a simple, click-to-buy experience.
• Bango’s partnerships with operators and others that enhance the company’s reporting accuracy
• Measuring and tracking new mobile Internet devices on cellular or Wi-Fi networks
• Growth of mobile engagement levels and messaging via Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites
• Future needs using mobile analytics tools, according to Andy, are greater accuracy, higher consumer relevance, increased marketing intelligence and tracking new interconnected mobile devices

Bango Analytics Tools Video