Marketing
In terms of advertising your smartphone site, there are also benefits, due simply to the lack of well designed mobile platforms that companies want to spend money advertising. According to Latitude, the cost of pay per click advertising is around 30% less for a mobile site on smartphone compared to desktop. The company has also found that unless your site is number one in the organic search results, a pay per click result is better.
“People look at the top of the page, see what’s there, and then flick, skipping everything in the middle, going straight to the bottom. Position 10 on mobile organic is really good, but everything in the middle is kind of wasted, it’s not a gradual move down,” explains Gregory.
Sekari’s Mancini agrees that an SEO strategy especially for mobile is essential: “The penetration of mobile in the Middle East is massive, so you need to optimise your different sites in different ways. People on mobile want to book instantly and generally at the last-minute, so the keywords and PPC campaigns need to reflect that.”
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Talking Tablets
While smartphones are the predominant platform for mobile sites and apps, tablets, our experts agree, is where the focus will, and should already, land. Google’s Ducla says: “People who own tablets have a higher income and we have seen that the average market price of hotels for people who have tablets is high, so it makes sense to work on their presence, and increase the amount spent, on tablets”
Gregory agrees, adding that while it may “balance out” when more entry levels tablets start entering the market, “right now there’s a big opportunity there in tablets, so it is worth it in terms of time and effort.”
Heyn says this has already been proven in Ritz-Carlton’s own research: “We see that especially leisure travellers tend to use tablet devices to discover our hotels online. As a result, we actually see a higher ADR for reservations made through tablets compared to the ADR originating from desktop computers.
We designed RitzCarlton.com specifically in a way to provide tablet users with a rich and intuitive experience — an investment that pays off since the traffic from tablet devices is steadily growing for our website.”
If for no other reason, Jeff Strachan, VP sales and marketing, Marriott International, Middle East & Africa, says that having dedicated mobile platforms gives the users the choice of which to use, while still having a great experience either way.
“It is important that we provide the solution that the customer requires, when they require it. If we have all of the solutions then at the very least the customer can choose their preferred method of searching and booking. We don’t want to push a customer down a certain channel, we want to have the channel connected that they want to use,” he comments.
Innocentin agrees: “Consumers expect that the brands should make it easy for them to do business together. If consumers are not able to complete their tasks using their preferred browser they will look to competitors that can fill that need.”
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