Adobe Digital Index shows 10% increase in marketing channel usage over past two years

The latest edition of the Adobe Digital Index (ADI) has revealed that the number of digital marketing channels has increased by 10% over the past two years in Europe. An analysis of more than 1.3 trillion page visits to more than 10,000 websites in Europe and North America shows that marketers are now making use of more touchpoints than ever before to reach customers.  The business goal tends to dictate the channel used with search, display and social employed for increasing brand awareness, and email for customer conversion.

 

Email as the king of conversion

 

Email traffic has shown steady growth in both mobile and desktop (8%), and the ADI shows that it plays an important part in driving conversion and loyalty with both the highest rates of all the channels analysed. Although display traffic on mobile declined by 10% in EMEA, the data reveals that it encourages previous purchasers to return to a website, and these visitors are 6 times more likely to convert than those who have not purchased before. This demonstrates the high value of both email and display in nurturing customer relationships.

 

Search brings the most mobile traffic to websites

[source: CMO]

Mobile, considered a catalyst of digital transformation, continues to gain traction with marketers using smartphones and tablets, to deliver delightful customer experiences. The ADI shows that direct traffic on mobile is being replaced by search traffic as today’s mobile browsers make it easier for consumers to search for content. With a usage increase of about 72% in the past two years, search generated 47% of all mobile visits in 2015, while the proportion of mobile visits originating from a mobile user entering a website directly has decreased by about 33%. The ADI report also signalled that social traffic was on the rise (65%), contributing noticeably to mobile gains.

 

First touch or last touch

“The increase in channels shows just how complex marketing interactions have become. For many marketers email remains the best channel for ‘last-touch’ conversion, but it’s important not to forget that search, display and social are important for awareness building, or ‘first and middle touch’,” said John Watton, Director Digital Marketing EMEA at Adobe Systems. “At the end of the day it’s all about building a consistent customer experience no matter what channel the consumer uses. And of course managing all of these manually is virtually impossible. So using programmatic tools to manage this complexity is becoming increasingly important for marketers.”