Panelists at the “Mcommerce and the Next Great Mobile Marketing Wave” session said that when a consumer’s mobile device becomes a buy button, everything about marketing will change. Additionally, once the handset finds itself in the midst of the digital commerce stream, new direct marketing, promotions, search and retail advertising budgets will follow – especially as mobile ad spend gets tied directly to the sale.

“Last week we put a stick in the ground and announced Google Wallet,” said Erin O’Neill Schultz, team manager of mobile ads, technology and retail at Google, Orange County. “It’s an exciting time.

“For me as a user and consumer, if you can save me five minutes during my busy day, I will be brand loyal for life,” she said.

“Users can really manage their entire wallet on their mobile device.”

The session was moderated by Jack Philbin, cofounder and president of Vibes Media, Chicago.

Mobile wallet
Ms. Schultz said that mobile commerce helps a lot of brands reach consumers and has helped retailers such as adidas as well.

Adidas ran a campaign on Google’s AdMob where it offered consumers a 10 percent discount.

“They were able to track that in-store activity,” Ms. Schultz said. “They saw that the weekly redemption numbers were up 50 percent.

“You still have users who are willing to engage with commerce now,” she said. “As consumers we don’t operate in silos and as marketers we should either.

“When we work with retailers, we try to figure out their strategies and how we can enable that – we look at consumer behavior.”

Contextually relevant
According to Matt Roth, senior business development manager at Ubermind, Seattle, consumers making a purchase on mobile might want to pick it up in-store.

“A lot of times someone wants to buy on mobile, but they don’t want to wait for it to be shipped to them,” Mr. Roth said.

Mr. Roth also said that the mobile Web provides an opportunity to get consumers to make a purchase.

“Companies have to invest in mobile,” Mr. Roth said.

Relevancy is also a key ingredient in a company’s mobile marketing mix.

“Contextual relevancy is so huge,” said Brett Leary, vice president of mobile marketing at Digitas, Boston. “The more relevant that we can make that ad, that’s what we’re gunning for.

“We’re starting to look at ways that we can get more mileage from our mobile display ads,” he said.”

It is important for companies to learn as much as they can about their customers and how they behave with their mobile devices.

“We need to figure out how to make a transaction an interaction,” said Ben Gaddis, vice president of innovation and growth at T-3, Austin, TX. “If you look at Starbucks and what they’re doing in the mobile payments space – it’s incredible.

“It’s about that loyalty,” he said.

When it comes to mobile, companies need to build that loyal relationship between themselves and the customers.

“If retailers don’t want to engage, it’s not going to happen,” said Jim Walz, director of mobile strategy and services at Alliance Data, Columbus, OH.

“You have to give your customers a better experience and engage them on mobile,” he said.

Final Take
The panelists discuss what is next for mobile commerce