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Forecast: Mobile retail marketing spending to reach $15B in 2012

November 8, 2011 — 9:56am ET | By Jason Ankeny

Marketers will spend $15 billion globally on mobile retail campaigns in 2012--a 50 percent increase over 2011--according to a new forecast issued by Juniper Research. The firm adds that mobile retail marketing spend is accelerating faster in North America and Western Europe than it is in the Far East and China.

Juniper credits smartphones and tablets for increasing the capabilities of both shoppers and marketers, stating that mobile devices and technologies have not only given advertisers new channels to attract consumers but have also given shoppers new tools to access competitive product and pricing information. "We are starting to see an 'arms race' as the power of the mobile channel equips both the shopper and the retailer with capabilities they never had before," said report co-author David Snow in a statement. "Each side has to keep up with the other and gain an advantage in order to clinch the purchase transaction in their favor."

Juniper cites mobile point-of-sale technologies and Near Field Communications-based proximity marketing as two areas of rapid innovation, but stresses that marketers must be careful to leverage only the most appropriate mobile channels to connect with consumers, noting the danger in assuming that apps are the answer to all needs. Juniper also stresses the importance of securing opt-in consent to earn subscriber trust and loyalty.

Mobile retail traffic is on pace to more than double during the 2011 holiday shopping season, with 15 percent of U.S. consumers who log on to retailer websites during the next several weeks doing so via mobile device, according to a recent IBM Coremetrics Benchmark forecast. Almost 11 percent of consumer visits to retailer websites in October 2011 originated on a mobile device, up from 4.2 percent a year earlier, IBM reports; in addition, mobile transactions accounted for 9.6 percent of online sales last month, increasing from 3.4 percent in October 2010.

IBM anticipates that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android smartphone owners will generate almost as much mobile retail traffic as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS owners this season. In October, the iPhone yielded 4 percent of retail traffic, followed by Android devices at 3.5 percent. Apple's iPad is also driving mobile commerce--according to IBM, iPad sales conversion rates reached 6.8 percent in October, almost double the overall mobile device conversion rate of 3.6 percent.

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