In-Brief: The pros & cons of mobile analytics solutions from four vendors via Bryson Meunier, an authority on Natural Search & Mobile SEO best-practices and innovations. Another post from Bryson looks at the top 100 mobile search queries at AT&T and arrives at some surprising conclusions about user intent. His blog rocks (!) – and you can find it here.

Through past posts and, more recently, an exclusive podcast with Andy Bovingdon, VP Product Marketing, Bango, MSG has showcased some of the tools and technologies designed from the ground up to allow content publishers and marketers more visibility into their user base and their user’s search/click behavior. In the case of Bango, the focus was on Bango Analytics, a solution that relies on the company’s Unique ID technology to record and present publishers with detailed information on the overall patterns of traffic visiting a mobile site – right down to the behavior of individual users.

Naturally, there are other solutions on the market and this must-read post from Bryson Meunier evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of four: Amethon, Bango Analytics, GetMobile Analytics by Quattro Wireless, and Mobilytics.

If you think mobile analytics is a luxury, then think again. Bryson’s observation cuts straight to the crux of the matter: “While it’s possible to see mobile traffic in traditional web analytics, at this point there are multiple problems with using traditional web analytics to track mobile users, including inaccurate data and the lack of mobile-specific metrics….. Aside from the fact that data that results from these tracking methods is incomplete or inaccurate, it’s not currently possible for mobile search optimizers using traditional analytics to see crucial data such as mobile keywords, mobile search engines or mobile conversions.”

I encourage you to read the post and keep an eye open for this surprise: Mobile Vision’s Mobilytics is “in a position to become the Google Analytics of the mobile web.”

As Bryson sees it, the company may catch on quicker because it actively courts small content owners with free mobile web analytics. It may be just the gesture needed to win the confidence of mobile marketers and small businesses eager to put their toe in the water and experiment with mobile advertising. To sweeten the offer, Mobile Vision will pay publishers 70 percent of all ad revenue generated from their traffic – provided their site generates more than 10,000 page views per month.

In another post, Bryson walks us through his analysis of the top 100 mobile search queries collected in September 2007 via AT&T (as displayed in the public JumpTap Mobile keyword Tool). According to the classification, he found that the mobile queries were “overwhelmingly navigational in nature.” More specifically, a whopping 73 percent of queries were “navigational”, compared to “transactional” (15 percent) and informational (12 percent).
Bryson admits this is remarkable and offers some explanation for the volume of navigational queries. (I’m not clear on the precise definition of “navigational” from the post, but I am reminded of AccuraCast’s strong views and convincing arguments against the top-notch importance attached to local search –which Farhad Divecha, AccuraCast Managing Director, presented here and MSG covered here. Based on this, it is highly unlikely that navigational queries and intent dominate the mobile search experience.)

Bryson’s post also documents the some 13 top topics and interests mobile searchers have based on their queries. Computers & Electronics leads the pack (a category that includes mobile phones & accessories, social networks, email search engines, portals chats & forums, and blogs), followed by Sports & Recreation (a category dominated by terms like ESPN).

In a nutshell, his analysis underlines the importance of a rethink. A comparison of computer-based search queries and mobile search queries reveals distinct differences in users’ intent and demand, and intent and preferences, and points to the existence of a “Long Tail” in mobile search queries marketers would do well to consider when researching keywords and optimizing sites.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Local Search, Location-based services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Research, Mobile Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.