It's a Cross-Device World: Criteo's Q4 Mobile Commerce Report Reveals Top Companies Bet Big on Mobile Consumers

NEW YORK, Feb. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Criteo (NASDAQ:  CRTO), the performance marketing technology company, today released its Q4 2015 State of Mobile Commerce Report, which examines mCommerce trends on a quarterly basis and provides insight into online shopping behavior as consumers' path to purchase continues to evolve. Criteo's dive into 1.4 billion online transactions finds that four in 10 purchases occur across multiple devices or channels. Of that figure, close to one-third are completed on a mobile device, indicating that consumers are using numerous devices along their path to purchase and are regularly buying on mobile.

The proliferation of mCommerce is further fueling the desire for more personalized brand experiences from consumers. Digital marketers can no longer look at device use alone to identify and convert consumers into buyers. For companies to win, understanding user profiles across multiple devices, browsers, and apps in order to provide them with a meaningful and relevant experience throughout their shopping journey is key to success. Criteo's Universal Match capability within the Criteo Dynamic Retargeting product tailors online product recommendations, advertising and bidding for each user, so that marketers can maximize campaign performance and consumers get a seamless, one-to-one marketing experience.

"Criteo's quarterly Mobile Commerce Report demonstrates that mobile is an essential component of commerce today, with most consumers browsing and buying across multiple devices," said Jonathan Wolf, Chief Product Officer, Criteo. "In order to better understand this digitally-savvy consumer, marketers need to stop looking at each device on its own, and start understanding the user behind them. Multi-device behavior is the new normal. Criteo's new Universal Match solution enables advertisers to zero in on shoppers at the time they are most likely to purchase, with a targeted message across all of their devices."

Criteo's Universal Match solution processes more than 35 billion browsing events daily to understand cross-device shopping behavior for over 500 million exact-matched IDs. To date, the choices for marketers have been limited. Universal Match delivers precision and scale, in addition to bridging existing gaps across all devices and channels including mobile apps, mobile Web, independent Web ecosystems and desktops.

The Criteo Q4 2015 State of Mobile Commerce Report findings further highlight the fast-moving shift towards mCommerce and need for Criteo's unique Universal Match capability.

Report Highlights:

Mobile Shopping is Booming for Retailers
Retailers with a strong mobile shopping experience closed out 2015 with impressive sales results, shifting many mobile device browsers into buyers. For brands to win with the mobile friendly consumer, they need to invest in a mobile marketing strategy that meets consumer wants and needs across all devices:

• In Q4 2015, mobile transaction share saw 15 percent growth from 2014, reaching 30 percent of all eCommerce transactions.  
• Across mobile devices, tablets drove higher value sales than smartphones, but iOS devices saw higher order values than the average.  

Mobile Consumers Prefer to Shop on Smartphones
The smartphone is increasingly becoming the mobile purchase device of choice and accounts for a majority of mobile sales worldwide. As brands optimize their mobile shopping experience, they should focus on smartphones as a key vehicle for eCommerce:

• Smartphones accounted for 60 percent of all mobile transactions in the U.S., driven by the combination of better transaction ability, ubiquity, big bright screens and fast wireless broadband.
• The smartphone accounts for a majority of mobile sales globally, and this is most pronounced in Japan and South Korea.

Cross Device Use Continues to Rise
Consumers are comfortably using multiple devices—laptops, tablets and smartphones—in all stages of their shopping journey. The need to better understand consumer behavior, influence and intent are key components to engaging them in their cross-device journey. For brands to succeed, a strong consumer focus and use of technology like Criteo's Universal Match should be adopted:

• Nearly 40 percent of transactions occurred across multiple devices or channels in Q4 2015.
• 37 percent of desktop buyers browsed the same retailer's site on at least one other device before purchasing.
• Cross-device shoppers who completed their purchase on a tablet were the most likely to have used multiple devices in the path-to-purchase, with 43 percent of tablet shoppers using multiple devices in their shopping journey.

Apps' Ease of Purchase Drives Revenue
Retailers and brands with intuitive apps that highlight relevant products to consumers and remove barriers to purchase see stronger sales and higher values. Building an app that displays useful products and streamlines the path to purchase is necessary to driving engagement, conversion and revenue:

• Of those retailers that have prioritized the mobile experience, mobile apps accounted for 54 percent of all mobile transactions in the retail industry, and 58 percent of mobile transactions in the travel industry.
• Shoppers using mobile apps browsed 286 percent more products than mobile web shoppers, contributing to an add-to-basket rate 90 percent higher than mobile browsers.
• The overall conversion rate on an app was 120 percent higher than mobile browsers.  

No Stopping mCommerce Growth Globally  
Mobile as a share of eCommerce transactions is steadily growing worldwide with Japan, UK and South Korea in the lead. As consumers across the world turn to mobile for their purchasing device of choice, international brands need to ensure their mobile marketing strategies are meeting user standards:

• Mobile commerce accounted for 35 percent of retail eCommerce sales worldwide with the U.S. in the middle.
• 50 percent of all eCommerce transactions across the globe were cross-device.

About Criteo
Criteo (NASDAQ: CRTO) delivers personalized performance marketing at an extensive scale. Measuring return on post-click sales, Criteo makes ROI transparent and easy to measure. As of December 31, 2015, Criteo has over 1,800 employees in 27 offices across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, serving over 10,000 advertisers worldwide and with direct relationships with close to 14,000 publishers. For more information, please visit www.criteo.com.

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SOURCE Criteo