I’ve been through a whole bunch of meetings on an intense visit to London, today and tomorrow, but one fact keeps coming up again and again among content sellers. That’s the high level of apparent wastage involved in promoting mobile content.
As an example, one company I was talking to is running a serious offline ad campaign in the press, to promote their mobile and web-based service. The call to action is an inbound text message, which generates a WAP Push message to sign people up to the service. An amazing 75% never respond to the WAP Push.
So let’s look at exactly what’s happened here. The user has seen the details of the service (including billing information) and like the idea enough to send an sms to sign up for it. Now you’d expect some people not to go any further and change their minds. But never 75% at that stage in the game.
The only explanation I can think of is that a high proportion of the non-responders have been unable to get their phone to connect - possibly as their phone has the wrong settings. This failure of the mobile industry to make phones work “out of the box” has been a constant refrain of mine since I started blogging and indeed, in many of the occasional articles I wrote before that. I thought that the situation had improved of late, but maybe it hasn’t at all.
However, I find it hard to believe that as many as 75% of phones don’t work properly - I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was the inverse ratio, on the other hand.
This isn’t an isolated campaign, but remarkably consistent among the people who I’ve been talking to, including some leading and well-known publishers.
So what exactly is going on? Anyone, have any ideas? Do people simply not understand about clicking on links on mobiles, hard though this is to believe? But whatever’s causing this problem (and it can’t all be down to the wrong settings, surely) it needs fixing as a matter of urgency. As one of my contacts remarked wryly - in Lord Leverholme’s day, he used to say that 50% of his advertising was wasted. He was lucky, as 75% of ours is!
Well, I got a Sony Ericsson W810i a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t set up at all when I got it. The operator couldn’t even set it up over-the-air (the phone said “your account type doesn’t allow this service”; the service being vanilla GPRS/3G data). Finally I configured APN manually (from memory) and everything worked after that. A “normal” (less geeky) user would have been completely stumped. I hope this is rare.
On the Nokia 6630 I had before the browser crashed every time I launched it from a URL in an SMS. This was before and after I had it upgraded with the latest code. Most content is still provisioned via a URL in an SMS, so this would affect most content-buying users with phones running that version of Series 60.
A probably more important factor is that people don’t want to sign up to services if they need to hand over their proper identity (if they now had to). Also, if the service is subscription-based I fully understand why they became hesitant.
I don’t say the 75% accounts for the above, but at least some of it.
There’s an element of doing something else when the wap push arrives so you miss it and then just forget about it or think ‘I’ll click on that later’ and just never get round to it. And with some phones, those wap push messages get lost on the phone.
People also do text in even though their phone isn’t compatible anyway (let alone suffering technical issues as described above).
That still doesn’t account for 75% though…
You said: “Do people simply not understand about clicking on links on mobiles, hard though this is to believe?”
Believe it.
I have watched nearly 100 users attempt to use WAP push functionality on their phones, and the usability problems are daunting. Here’s a short list of the issues:
- Users accidentally dismiss notification of incoming messages.
- Many Motorola phones turn off notification for incoming WAP push messages by default. Seriously!
- WAP push messages are delievered to inboxes other than the standard SMS inbox on Motorola and Nokia Series 40 devices. Users have considerable trouble finding messages when not directly led to the inbox via the notification.
- Extracting the link on phones can take up to 5 confusing steps.
- Functionality labeling standards do not exist, and what exists does not map to real-world language.
We’ve been able to get our success rates up very high based on extensive usability testing and iterative design. Give it a shot. Hire a trained usability engineer and watch that 75% failure rate slowly fade away.
Russell, what kind of campaign is being offered here? I’ve run online and offline campaigns promoting mobile content for myself and my clients for over 6 years now and rarely see dropoff rates quite this low at this point of the process - while the dropoff for WAP Push responses can be high for a number of reasons, I would be surprised to see 75% drop off for services aimed at the typical mobile content buyer.
I imagine this is something with a more widespread appeal and therefore is fighting against a number of issues in addition to the one above where users’ phones aren’t pre-configured for WAP…
1. People who haven’t previously used the mobile internet have an understandable fear of doing so
2. The description of the service may not have made it clear that the user would have to use the mobile internet - a lot of people who respond to special offers and information expect the service to be SMS-only text based information
3. The advertiser has failed to back the WAP Push message up with a plain-text SMS. This is essential to ensure a high response rate. Without the plain-text SMS to explain what to do when the WAP Push arrives - and particularly the costs involved - people are less likely to respond to the WAP Push. And as has previously been mentioned, WAP Push messages can often be pretty well hidden from the user. SMS messages are stored in a place that’s very familiar to even the most inexperienced phone user
A lot of companies experimenting in this space don’t pay heed to the fear of many users - they see the apparent ‘ease of use’ of WAP Push and don’t want to spend the additional pennies on multiplying their response rate. This is crazy when the most expensive part of the campaign is always going to be the printa advertising. By not keeping the user in mind, they almost always doom their experiments to failure.
Also, another small point - in addition to the users whose phones aren’t configured for WAP access, there are also others who ARE configured for WAP but have WAP Push messages deactivated. Another reason to use plain text SMS and WAP Push - if it’s a case of one or the other, I would still go with the plain text message due to the small (160 characters) but vital ability to inform the user before they are asked to connect…
I have read the responses to What a Waste and think many of you touched on valid points as to why there seems to be such a high degree of pushback on content push campaigns (which I am surprised and do seem quite high).
It is interesting to note that mobile content warehouses that deliver content libraries are doing quite well in comparison to push campaigns (subscription based services). I attribute this to the general consumer pre-disposition to have an aversion to spam-like push campaigns and a general reluctance that one might find themself trapped in a subscription based service that he/she finds themselves regretting later (when they try to discontinue unsuccessfully - or worse yet, forgets to cancel only to find after 6 months they have been paying for something they dont want or never use).
On the other hand, look at mobile content libraries success. I believe “content on demand” is the way the average consumer wishes to buy today (as opposed to subscription based services). Let’s face it, it is the “Y generation” buying much of the content today - the early technology adopters - not us stodgy old folks who want the same techno-diet every day - young people want variety - the thing they jam on today they are tired of the very next day! Out with the old, in with the new.. so subscription doesn’t necessarily work with this audience (Mind you I am not saying “zero” but it’s not the best way to market this group).
I know it is somewhat not related but take the iTunes model (albeit not mobile but bet your bottom it will be soon) - amazing success buying one song at a time. Who is their primary audience? The early adopters of technology - and they don’t use the subscription model for a reason.
Just my two cents for what its worth but content pushers will have their day someday for sure but today the market is prime for highly specialized a la carte pay as you go consumption.
Hi Russell:
Just noticed this post.. and feel your pain.. #_#
Thought I would point to this article by Walter Adamson from i-mode Strategy, also wanted to mention that we had a great Mobile Monday event here in Tokyo last night with presentations from Double-Click (on topic) and Microsoft; Live Messenger for Mobile looks pretty interesting too. Will get their .ppt presentations online asap.
Meanwhile, I guess it’s fair to say that these ‘challenges’ are something that we don’t really see here in Japan so much. The DoCoMo Rule (if you will) has made for a fairly seemless and common platform that does not encounter, to such large degrees, the issues that now seem vexing in over-seas markets.
I cannot comment with any real authority outside the box that we see as ‘working’ in the domestic market, that being said I will offer this quick comment:
The so-called ‘mobile Internet’ (i-mode) model was pretty much drafted from scratch here, debugged and improved over the last 6 or 7 years. Yet despite the fact this track-proven working example - generating the highest data ARPU globally - existed for Intl. carriers adoption, they seem to have “problems” taking the simple recipe and deploying in their local markets. Everything from customer billing to revenue share for content, application and service providers and the handset spec. chaos appear to be at odds with that original formula. These changes, made in varied degrees, to the established model have crippled the entire value chain and it’s becoming more obvious than ever that a shake-out is looming.
This whole thread deserves a more detailed discussion and no doubt Wireless Watch Japan will publish our thoughts on the matter in due course.
Cheers,
Lars
If your hypothesis on the WAP page never being able to load is correct, then this shows the need for mobile testing. Companies like MobileComplete are focusing on this market.
A couple of years ago we launched a network aware j2me app into a business environment. The devices were on Orange or O2 and almost 50% needed seting up for GPRS etc.
For applications we have worked on in the last few months, things appear a lot better with most, say 85%, orange nokia devices being network ready out of the box, so I think the settings issue has definately imporoved. These are all business contract devices tho.
As for WAP push, in our experience you only get one shot at the user before he/she loses interest. This is made more difficult as, in the case of Bango, a default text SMS is sent out alongside with the WAP Push message. Often this text message arrives beofre the WAP push and confuses the hell out of everyone.
75% sounds way too high.
We’ve seen roughly 40% wastage on services. As you might expect, this %age increases for services which are promoted to the “mass market” (e.g. in the national press), and drops when you promote to audiences more attuned to mobile data usage (e.g. youth).
Explanations we’ve seen (and heard from follow-up research which a client conducted to look into this issue) include:
- WAP push message not arriving (lost in the network)
- Message arriving but going into separate “service inbox” rather than the general messaging inbox
- Handsets blocking WAP push completely (e.g. MS Smartphone)
- Users getting cold feet when seeing a service message, URL, etc.
- Users getting cold feet when being asked if they want to go online (mainly from not being sure how much it’ll cost them)
- Handsets not being configured for internet access (this is the most common explanation)
Interesting you mention ‘out of the box’ Russell, since this is exactly what O2 used as the name for an initiative they launched around 2.5 years ago, to make sure that when a handset was sold, it was configured straight away. Annoyingly we’d been telling them to sort this out years before.
Target demographics will definitely come into play. My dad likes to play Sudoku. He sees an advert for ‘Mobile Sudoku’ he texts in.. He doesn’t receive the Wap Push becuase he has a 2g non wap phone.
Most phones do support Wap Push these days (Okay in the US we’re talking a different playing field), but smartphones definitely don’t. Sending a plain text message with a link is a good second measure. This has to happen on Three UK anyway as they won’t accept Wap Push.
The ability of your aggregator to send a timely SMS/Wap Push is also key. We stopped using ‘cheap’ SMS years ago. Some aggregators still sell SMS that is dirt cheap, but they admit (not openly) that delivery is only 60-75% (because the routes won’t support delivery to ported numbers etc). As Seth says, if you’ve paid to attract the user what’s a few more pence to secure the purchase. Use the best routing money can buy.
That figure of 75% doesn’t surprise me as a fairly average benchmark (we don’t know what the offering is, and the circumstances around the service). It’s likely to be better than the stat would have been 2 years ago, and worse than it’ll be in 2 years time.
Good topic though..
nJaR
Incorrect settings have been the bane of the content industry’s lives for some time; a few things we’ve noticed:
1) Vodafone have different APNs for PAYG and contract customers; phones I’ve bought in their shops (most recently a GX29 last month) have both types of setting on with the contract settings as default, so if you buy with a PAYG SIM you can’t use networking. The technology to run everything through the same APN is not difficult, why not use it?
2) One of our customers was told by Vodafone support staff that the reason our networked Java app did not connect on his Motorola V525 was because we did not know what we were doing. After talking to a number of Vodafone support staff on the phone and in a shop, and trying to explain that he just needed Internet APN settings suitable for Java sent to his phone, he came away feeling personally insulted and as if he was in some way stupid. Just what you want when he’s just paid for a networked app… The staff don’t understand the problem and their easiest way out is to blame everyone else. Luckily we manually fixed the settings and it all worked, proving rather neatly who was at fault.
3) I’ve tried to provision Orange settings using their web page (run by WDS Global I think) to any number of phones with my contract SIM and most of the time they just never arrive.
4) O2 haven’t updated their settings provisioning page in ages, I think because in theory they automatically send you settings when you sign on to the network. Except they don’t, always.
Usability of wap push is also generally appalling. The mobile content experience is still just too much pain for all but the very committed…
lol - Vodafone doesn’t even list my handset on their site, even though it was bought directly from them. It’s a Nokia 6170.
My settings were screwed up by an instant messaging client such that i can’t access Vodafone l!ve at all.
lol - Vodafone doesn’t even list my handset on their site, even though it was bought directly from them. It’s a Nokia 6170.
My settings were screwed up by an instant messaging client such that i can’t access Vodafone l!ve at all.
Sounds like it’s all in all better to use SMS than WAP Push for provisioning the URL.
The days of sending the actual content via SMS is of course over.
Of course, if data is not set up then it will fail anyway.
… or let users pay and download directly via WAP (as one contiguous Wizard-like series of steps).
It’s a real shame - I think a while back you had to actually ask your operator to set up SMS, luckily that seems to have changed.
There are too many things that could go wrong, first the handset may not support wap at all. Then it may support wap but not yet be set up. Then it may support wap and be set up but it doesn’t support wap push SMS. Then all previous plus no GPRS/3G signal, then all previous plus no airtime, etc.
Because of all the above there’s a good chance something will go wrong so users lose confidence and don’t try it again, that’s the worst part.
I started a wikipedia page a few weeks ago on how to get your GPRS/3G settings so users of my wap service would have a resource they could try if their wap was not yet set up. Maybe you could all contribute, should be a wikibook really…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setting_up_GPRS_or_3G
Was interested (and shocked) to read this, as our experience with WAP push for client campaigns has been the other way around; we’ve had up to 80% access the WAP page.
For those that don’t we send an SMS ‘mop up’ after 8 hours along the lines of ’sorry you seem to be having trouble using the mobile internet, why not send us your email address instead’. This seems to be successful in grabbing a few more % of the initial respondees.
I think that what happens to remaining recalcitrant few has been well covered here.
Interesting discussion. I have been invloved with building and provisioning connected JME apps for 5 years and here are some other problems I have encountered in the UK.
(1) i-Mode phones don’t support WAP Push.
(2) 3 is a closed network and the phones don’t support WAP Push
(3) Most mobile JVMs require “internet” as opposed to “wap” APN settings for connectivity. These usually don’t come by default and most network operator support teams are clueless about this. The “self service” settings web sites are more helpful but not by much.
(4) O2 doesn’t even have an “internet” APN for their PAYG users there these users can’t use connected Java applications.
The list goes on and on. I wonder if anyone at the big companies is even aware of these problems. I certainly don’t see much coverage of it.
2 years ago we tried to monetize MobiLuck by adding a “download ringtones” feature with Premium SMS payment. We launched in the UK and stopped after only a few days because 70% of users who had paid for a ringtone never downloaded it. And all our users where advanced mobile users owning a Symbian S60 smartphone!
So I’m not surprised by this 75% failure rate.
1. There are many technical issues (phone setup…)
2. A lot of people still don’t have a data subscription
A survey of 1,000 adults carried out during the final weekend of the 2006 Football World Cup by NOP found that 44% of UK mobile phone users who used a mobile data service for the first time during the will not use it again.
Pricing, ease of set up and use were identified as the key barriers to mobile data uptake.
19% believe that if mobile data services were easier to set up and use they would have been encouraged to use the services on offer during 2006 football world cup.
I ask the question as to whether mobile operators really are serious about mobile content. An industry that is so focussed on the technology needs a wake up call to become a customer focussed industry.
rest of the article here:
http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view&nid=2070
I think WAP push is a real problematic delivery mechanism. URL in SMS is more widely supported by handsets (but by no means standardised in it implementation!) and seems slightly more intuative for the user; most people know where their SMS inbox is and so don’t lose the service message. That’s the first hurdle…
User’s trepidation about going online is a big issue too as most of them have no idea how much it costs, and even if they know their £ per MB costs they have no idea how much data the application uses per minute thus making it nigh on impossible for them to have even a best guess at the cost. Consequently, any marketing needs to very clearly (not in tiny print at the bottom of the page so as to make punters think it being hidden) state what the likely costs of usage are. That in itself is of course very difficult.
Jamster has also done a very good job of scaring the hell out of anyone signing up to subs based services – the crazy frog and its ilk got enough publicity and news coverage to raise public awareness of the subscription trap and difficulty of getting out of it.
This is of course a single isolated survey and doesn’t mean that its the norm. Thought provoking nonetheless.
Some summarizing suggestions of mine:
Of course all delivered phones and accounts should be activated for mobile data, including pre-paid ones. This must be verified by the representative in the shop before handing out the phone, so that it doesn’t generate very expensive support calls later. It can only result in more revenue, not less.
The cost for making voice calls and sending SMS is decreasing rapidly, but not so for data. Operators are in control here and can set any price they want, including lower ones (hint, hint).
The same communication profile (and hence APN etc) should be used for all data services, period. Distinguishing between services (and costs) should be done centrally. 3 succeeds to distinguish between access to the portal (that is free) and access to other services, via the same APN, so it works.
Use SMS for content distribution. SMS can be forwarded, but with a temporary URL this is solved. Also contemplate WAP distribution, as it’s neat to be able to browse the content catalogue, pay and download from the same service. To at all get users to the site, send them an SMS with the base URL and advise them to store it as a bookmark.
One-off or subscription sales is a tricky one. Jamba has been very successful with the latter and for the (very) young demographics, but due to that it’s also ethically arguable. Adults know subscriptions are “red alert”. Children simply don’t.
Design phones so that the idle screen is used for service access. Just showing a background picture is redundant. Use in-the-face dynamic content to lure users into checking out new services.
Operators should experiment with advertizing of new services and content on the TV, and should update ads often (daily), based on what’s hot right now. E.g. music should be promoted by listing the top songs and how to buy them, not just say that “we have the best music service”.
Integrate content sales in games. E.g. a Pokemon game could have integrated ringtone and picture purchasing. Some content could be free, e.g. when you reach certain miletsones in the games. Due to this integration the game itself is used as the UI towards the content download, with no risk of failing (in theory). Again ethically arguable if it’s games for children, but there you go.
Products should be:
S Similar to other stuff you use every day
I Intuitive - c’mon (menu driven? - ugh)
M Manageable - not requiring a degree in geek
P Priced right - no heavy up front fees
L Light and durable
E works Everywhere or don’t even bother
Hi Everyone - just wanted to say thanks for all the great comments.
I’d also love to hear from the operators on this. Is the scale of the problem exaggerated and what are you doing to help overcome these issues. Until this is fixed, mobile data can’t really explode, as I written before. So what are we waiting for?
Russell
Where to start.
Mobile operators data charges about £8 per Mb on prepay. Its not all bad, that’s down from £22
Lack of clarity as to what data you are actually paying for: sent, received, retries?
Vodafone’s APN nightmare
Nokia S40 bug in handling OTA settings
Nokia S40 bug in needing username and password to authenticate to Orange APN
O2 WAP 1 pre-pay gateway that does not accept even HTTP POST commands
The dissapearing WAP push messages
The potential for long delay in message delivery
Authentication errors on Moto RAZR
Samsung really buggy APN stack
Nokia S40 Java bug that reboots the phone when you press the red button
Phones from CPW bought on the Orange tariff but configured with T-Mobile settings
A plea to mobile operators. There is a huge revenue opportunity for you in PSMS margin, data and value-added product sales, but you have got to make it easier than it is.
Good post, Russell. And nice to see so many old faces giving good feedback.
75% sounds way too high. Paul’s right (as usual), if the agency isn’t sweeping up the non-clickers they should have their contacts deleted from their SIM cards.
The consumer experience is going to have to improve significantly before they are adopted in the sorts of ways that we, readers of this blog, imagine. That’s happening slower than we would like, but the vital statistics for mobile marketing look very, very healthy.
Right now, we are only using SMS interaction in our Sainsbury’s pilot. Sales are up and our members chat us up (not complaining on either count) and we look forward to migrating to rich applications so that we can provide a better service, but it’s clear that mobile isn’t quite an internet-type experience yet. Yet.
There is momentum within the network operators. Besides, city-wide WiFi rollout will put presure on them to think smarter. Apple might not be ready to launch its iPhone any time soon, but the rumour mills are full of Microsoft’s iPod competitor with WiFi connectivity. Expect it to come VOIP ready. Pre-christmas launch predicted.
Hope to see you all at another conference soon.
Hi
Firstly - thanks to all for a very informative post.
I come from, interestingly enough the Southern African mobile market. We had played around there with a range of solutions, from WAP push to MMS delivery. What we found when we got here (UK) is this, shall I call it inability of phones to come with all systems working. Back in the developing world all phones would have internet, wap, mms, the works switched on. (Phones aren’t ever network blocked either.) This allows the uptake of new technology in a decidedly untechnical world to be very high. Our responses and uptake of campaign were way higher than you would expect from that side of the world compared to what is found in this market.
If you had a sei decent campaign you could expect a very decent return.
I agree with a range of the posting that the networks are restricting themselves to their own detriment.
Nice qualitative analysis here but unnecessary. It’s a pure numbers game:
Entire Market 207.9MM subscribers in US
Fact 1: Only GSM networks support WAP push in the US
subtract Verizon, Alltel, Sprint/Nextel
(which really leaves just Cingular and Tmobile)
WAP Push Market
Cingular Tmobile =
55.8 22.7 = 78.5MM (37.7% of the market)
Fact 2: “Twenty-two percent of all cell phone users paid for accessing the Web via their wireless device during the last quarter of 2005″–Telephia
78.5MM x .22 = 17.27MM (22% of the WAP push market)
Fact 3: Most WAP push capable phones will receive the WAP push. However, depending on the carrier, the WAP push requires a data plan. Those without plans are gated from the content until they agree to pay for the data charges or sign up for a data plan.
So 25% success rate is actually very high. Most of the 78.5MM Cingular and Tmobile users would get the WAP push but only 17.27MM could easily click on the link which is only 22% (technically over 100% penetration). The numbers are off probably because data users are self selecting–people who know they have data plans try mobile apps while those who don’t have data plans tend not to. I imagine there are other variables that weren’t taken into account.
So this was actually a very successful campaign. I would argue that the perceived low number is indicative of the business model of charging consumers for data plans rather than the user experience.
At Bango we have spent a lot of time and effort figuring out what attrition happens and why.
We look across many countries, and see text in, push pack type campaigns (PAGE3 to 83055 for example) or web pushes like those at http://www.wwe.com mobile section.
WAP pushes have problems: Some phones crash when they receive them (e.g. 3 handsets). Some phones hide them away (P800, early GX10, GX20 etc.). Some users don’t know what they are.
Thats why we almost always recommend the sending of a WAP push and a text message with the URL in it.
Even so, many users, especially corporate users, don’t have mobile internet access so teh WAp push does not work. We find it as high as 30% failure rate.
You can see why some (old style?) content providers love the idea of sending a premium text message containing a URL. The user is billed even if the site is never visited. The CP then makes more profit as there is no cost of goods….
Why don’t the CP’s do what we do and do samples of 100-200 users to find out what exactly happened. You have their phone numbers and you would be surprised how many appreciate a call to ask what when wrong.
There is an increasing trend now towards advertising teh URL - oasis.wap.com for example, because thay works more widely than TXT. The BBC in teh UK are pushing that model. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
I forgot to say.
Poor yield from txt based advertising is another reason to use services like ADMOB and paid for mobile search like Yahoo
[…] Mike Grenville of 160Characters pointed this out in a comment he made on Russell’s last post, but I thought it was worth a post. A new survey from the UK says that 44% of mobile users there who used a mobile data service for the first time during the World Cup won’t use it again. Why? “Pricing, ease of set up and use were identified as the key barriers to mobile data uptake.” […]
One factor not yet mentioned is user education.
From my experience in sending out wap push campaigns, many people simply do not understand that the URL is to be clicked from the phone.
They instead try to enter the URL into their PC web browser! This may seem amusing, but lets be realistic, our awareness of everything ‘wap’ is significantly more advanced than the average customer.
This factor, combined with the technical issues of different handsets, networks, and poor operator support, will mean varying results in wap push campaigns for the foreseeable future.
Tamzin
Are they sure those 75% actually received the push message? You can’t click onto something that was never sent to you?!
I already blogged about this at
http://mediablog.mail2web.com/vdimitroff
about some advertisers actually achieving a reward-winning 100% waste of their marketing budget. Expensive off-line ads guide to a shortcode that never responds?!
If it was some cowboy content provider they could be excused, but we’re talking Vodafone (anyone reading here?).
Not only is their shortcode responder disfunctional, but Customer Service staff are totally ignorant about the campaign going on, not to mention about the technical subject of shortcodes and autoresponders.
Not only is their staff uprepared to handle campaign response (well, it should be handled by that responder system…), but their feedback capture process is non-existent, and nobody hears about the problem.
Vodafone operates a service called Vodafone Target - porviding such shortcode response and push marketing to corporate clients. Because the shortcode of Target is only a digit different from the misfortunate one in the advert, I tried it - but, as expected it didn’t recognise the keyword.
Instead, it offered (good idea!) to call back within 24 hours if you text ‘CALL’. I did. Guess what? 48 hours later I’ve had more calls from the Government of Mars than from Vodafone…
Is this the leading operator? Is this the state of the industry?
Perhaps, at some industry conference, some Marketing Director of theirs is presenting stats and confidently asserting that ‘WAP push isn’t effective, we get little response..’
Short story: I was sitting with some friends in a bar. They’re the perfect target, if you look at the numbers: high-end mobiles, almost all of them, in their late 20’s/early 30’s, well-educated and well-informed people. That’s when someone asked me: tell me, I heard we can browse the web using a mobile phone, is this true? When I said yes, they seemed amazed and asked me how to do it - handing me some of their phones. Needless to say that, after a few clicks, some of them complained it was too complicated - therefore useless.
ACTUALLY IDENTICAL RESULT FROM UK
Hi Russell, all responding to this fascinating thread, and of course readers of MobHappy
First, excellent, timely, and VERY IMPORTANT posting, thank you Russell !!
Secondly, for those who doubt the numbers. I work regularly with workshops with leading players worldwide. I had JUST a few weeks ago a meeting with one of UK’s leading independent players in this space (cannot mention, obviously for confidentiality reasons). Their measurements were exactly the same - 3 out of 4 customers who tried to respond to Wap Push, and this on an advertised service where the price was clearly stated in the original ad - ended up not using the service. The Wap Push message was sent - and 75% DID NOT use it.
In the UK we’re all GSM. And at 115% penetration per capita, the UK is one of Europe’s more advanced mobile markets. This is totally unforgivable. And I can promise you, the independent company that was doing this service knows what they are doing, those guys have been in the mobile services area very very long and regularly innovate in this space.
Russell, what you blog about is honest reality today. The numbers are shockingly bad. Anyone who thinks that campaigns can get high conversion from Wap push today, are still in wishful thinking mode. We as an industry have to do MUCH better.
PS I love the very insightuful and thought-provoking postings here. I’d like to launch a similar discussion thread at Forum Oxford, where I’m sure we have many among our 850 members who’d like to join in..
Excellent posting Russell (as usual…)
Tomi T Ahonen
4-time bestselling author of mobile services and business
founding member Forum Oxford, Wireless Watch, Carnival of Mobilists, Engagement Alliance
Blogsite http://www.communities-dominate.blogs.com
website http://www.tomiahonen.com
We have tested many mobile portals that sell ringtones and games. What we have seen:
1. A major company, reported to have revenue of $100m/yr, whos portal failed to send the wap-push of a game title.
2. User generated ringtone sites (not ours!) that attempt to push 300KB or even 1MB files which are 30 second ringtones!
3. Double billing messages for a single purchase, sure to turn off a user to ever buying anything on their phone again.
and so on…
Does anyone have any stats on how many phones that accept WAP-Pushes that will also follow a link in a text message?
Maybe someone has a two campaigns to compare: one using WAP Pushes and another using a URL in a text message. How do these two campaigns compare? Does one yield better results? Does this hold true in all countries?
That is; if Russell had instead sent a URL in a text message, would his results have been better?
Alternatively, as someone proposed, one could send a WAP Push and a URL in text at the same time but that may increase the service provider’s costs and may end up confussing the user. Any stats on that?
[…] On a similar thread (and mentioned in the article) there’s a blog posting here that includes user comments. […]
We have recently used WAP push to successfully distribute a J2ME app here in China. Both China Unicom and China Mobile do a very good job of making sure that devices are ‘out of the box’ enabled for browsing. Our issue was with customers who were unsure about charges for responding to a WAP push and/or how to respond to the push message.
Our solution? Just like Ray Anderson we called the customers and talked them through their difficulties. Then we called all the customers who had successfully downloaded the app and made sure that they were happy too. A slight increase in our cost of acquistion but some very happy (and sticky) customers.
Now many of the customers use us as a helpdesk for general problems regarding mobile usage as we are their ‘trusted expert.’
[…] User error seems to be something of a theme here this week, with loads of comments on my What a Waste post about the ineffectiveness of Wap Push. The consensus seems to be that at least part of the problem is the user not knowing how to respond to a message or being unable to find it when it does arrive. […]
Has anyone done a similar study of content download via MMS?
Hi and thanx to everyone! That is a great blog!
I should mention we face the same problems in Turkiye! We are a partner of the two biggest GSM operators, Turkcell and Telsim(will be known as Vodafon soon). The ratio of the nondownloaders is about 65% for Turkcell and ˜ for Telsim.
Sending an SMS with URL in it and a following WapPush is an interesting idea; I will try it!
However, I think operators should never deliver a message from content providers to users if the user never ever touch the WAP Gateway before. This is the ethical way, but in this case the black profit will decrease dramatically! Governments should force the operators about this in order to prevent the pillage! By the government pushes, operators will take the necesarry actions!
Thanks.
@Haluk Y Tutuk
Question - how can you encourage non-wap users to use a wap service if you don’t send them a wap push and/or URL to make it easy for them to start using the mobile internet and/or to make it easy to download content?
Thanks for the question!
Actually my point was marketing via sending “Bulk Spam SMS”(BSS). If a customer see a ringtone/wallpaper etc. at TV or newspaper and than send the code to the content providers short number, then the process should begin, no problem. If buyer does not open(I am not talking about downloading, this is another issue) the wappush link in a matter of time(maybe 2-5 hours) then content provider should send an informative sms like “If you are having trouble with opening the wappush link send us your phone model and we will send you the WAP/GPRS settings”. If buyer does not open it again in a time(2 days) this Msisdn should be taken into the blacklist and should not be sent BSS. If the customer opens it, no problem, you can send BSS.
I don’t know the situation in other countries, but marketing via BSS is very populer here! And response rates are better than every other channel. However most of the customers don’t download the product they paid. Content providers sends BSS after a time even to the customers that did not even open any charged wappush link before. That is not fair! Some customers, try again to get a new melody/wallpaper after a time with a great hope! Failure again. Maybe they think that is about the melody/wallpaper, so try their chance again.
Althought sending a wappush link is a must to serve the content to the buyer, it is not the only way to increase the population of cellphone users with correct WAP/GPRS settings. I think, operators must be proactive to encourage wap usage and care about the customers that haven’t been set the WAP/GPRS up.
Very interesting thread… Here is my contribution from France:
We have been managing a Web-to-mobile game for a famous mass-market brand in France. The game heavily relies on Wap push usage.
The concept is fairly simple: Enter your mobile phone number on a website and get a Wap push to connect to the WAP game site. Users get automatically identified when they connect to the WAP site, which allows replayability.
Daily prizes are attractive and given away through a basic instant-win scheme.
The game is 100% free, to the exception of Wap traffic costs. And of course, we made sure that proper and detailed information was mentioned on the website, especially the need for a WAP-enabled handset and how to handle a WAP push message.
We have already registered thousands of players through the website.
Guess what ? The success rate averages about 30%, which means that 70% of users that registered on-line AND were sent a Wap push did NOT connect to the WAP site.
Mobile Internet usage seems as advanced in France as in the UK…
[…] Back in July, I wrote a post that was widely commented on and struck an industry nerve about the high wastage that WAP Push was generating for some companies. Tom Hume, has an excellent follow up on this and shares some great advice. […]
Hello there !
Interesting post!!!
So here I have a very concrete contribution : we did an email push to 18-25 ys old who opted in an Azzaro website (product launch).
This email was only about offering a free personnalised animated logo. They could leave their mobile number on the site, get an instant wap push and connect to the mobile site. There they would type in their name, and it automatically & dynamically created their logo.
We sent the email to 9k punters. That was Friday 8/09. Today Sunday 10/09, we have 2 789 distinct people who typed in their mobile number. Which generated 928 distinct visits.
That’s a 33.27% transformation rate.
Given that some numbers are mistyped (aint got the ack report yet), that we cannot (here in france) deliver ported numbers with a direct connection, I’d say that we have a good 10% drop off rate. Meanning that transformation rate is actually even higher!
Typical transformation rate is 28% to 40% (on very qualified targets).
We noticed that transformation from wap push to actual wap browsing was a lot higher when sending an SMS prior to the wap push. This message explains what’s going to happen, what they should do, how much it costs.
NB: we just sent a single wap push in the above mentionned campaign.
[…] Maybe this might confuse you From the “Not Surprising At All, Really” file comes a new survey out of the UK that’s found nearly two-thirds of the new mobile phones returned to a major retailer there as broken aren’t broken at all, it’s just that apparently they’re so difficult to use people think they’re broken. The poor usability of increasingly complex devices is symptomatic of the mobile industry’s usability problems as a whole — particularly with the mobile content and data services that are supposed to be driving its latest renaissance. A survey of people who used data services for the first time during the World Cup found that half of them won’t use it again, citing poor ease of set up and use as significant reasons, while other content providers report embarrassingly low response rates to content-delivery messages, something largely blamed on, again, setup and usability problems. The sad thing is that these exact same types of stories and surveys have been published for many years, but very little meaningful action is taking place, particularly from mobile operators, who must bear a lot of the responsibility for ensuring users devices are set up properly when they get them, but also from handset vendors, most of whom don’t devote enough resources to software and user-interface design. Need help finding more information? gOP’s ‘08 hopes rest with John Conyers Detroit News - Also in line to lead committees are Charlie Rangel at Ways and Means, who’d extend welfare eligibility to all Americans except maybe Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. New Ager Dennis Kucinich, who wants a Department of Peace and would head the national …Did you know that Rest means that or those remaining: The beginning was boring, but the rest was interesting. The rest are arriving later.. This is pretty cool nintendo: 16 software titles ready for Wii launch (Reuters) Reuters - Nintendo Co. Ltd. (7974.OS) said on Thursday there will be 16 software titles available when it launches its new game console, the Wii, on December 2 in Japan.Did you know that Launch means a large, open motorboat. this is worth your time « New chips give Intel upper hand (Reuters) […]
[…] 2. Getting them to download the product once they’ve expressed that interest. I’ve written about this before on a widely commented post about how difficult this is. Maybe 50% - 75% of requested WAP Push messages are never responded to. Don’t forget, at that point, the user has requested details of how to download and then, for whatever reason, simply does click on the link to complete the install process. […]