Remember Creative

Why we challenged the mobile-first mindset

In this mobile-first age it might sound odd that we recently advised one of our best clients not to invest in a mobile-friendly website upgrade. We want to share the reasoning behind this advice – it could be valuable to your company as well.

Client first, not mobile first

I must admit that our advice to this particular client initially seemed counter-intuitive, even to me. After all, Google now all but requires mobile optimisation to ensure high quality search rankings, not to mention the fact that over 30% of all online traffic now comes from a mobile device.

But our decision had to be data driven. To find the best solution for this particular client, the answer had to reflect what their customers were doing – not the behaviour of everyone else’s customers. So we worked closely with them to understand the precise usage profile of their website and customer base, looking at the volume of traffic coming from Google and, more importantly, the volume of traffic coming from mobile devices.

The results for this client revealed distinct patterns. Right now, this company isn’t gathering traffic from organic search – its users are much more likely to go direct to the site itself. And less than 3% of these users are heading to the site on a mobile or tablet.

We worked closely with them to understand the precise usage profile of their website and customer base

The future is tailored

All this isn’t to suggest that mobile should be forgotten for this client, or any other client – far from it. But our focus at this stage has to be on current customer behavior, and these customers simply don’t use mobile devices. This will change, of course, but leaving mobile-optimisation on the “incomplete” list for now meant this client could free up funds for important product planning and refinement work.

How we build client-centric strategies

We analyse each client’s website data to create a strategic blueprint to guide them in their decisions. In every case, we work as closely as possible with clients to find ways to target their most valuable leads – and avoid unnecessary spending. This includes:

• Using metrics to constantly track changes in user behavior.
• Measuring product performance over time.
• Fine-tuning mar-comms initiatives in line with our findings.
• Conducting regular digital fitness checks.

These steps continue to help us and our clients understand how each piece of the puzzle is performing, guiding our ongoing digital response. This is how we make sure we’re providing the right support and working towards outcomes that are much more than the standard digital solutions – in line with clients’ resources and real needs.