• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 28, 2018

Marketers are prioritizing mobile experiences in 2018, with many focusing on privacy and data security, personalization, progressive mobile web site experiences, and design and layout. The survey results, released Wednesday, suggest that data and analytics will drive the changes -- but marketers still remain behind the curve in use.

Adobe surveyed nearly 500 marketers and IT professionals between September and October 2017, to explore mobile trends and priorities and to get a glimpse of where they’re going with their mobile efforts and learn what the most advanced organizations are doing to create the next wave of transformative mobile experiences.

The survey asked marketers to name the paid media that works best for acquisition. Social and search rose to the top for mobile apps, with 35% and 34%, respectively, saying they are extremely effective. Display followed with 21% and video followed with 17%.

The travel and hospitality industry ranked search significantly higher than other industries for acquiring mobile app users. Video was the top paid-media pick for B2B tech companies.

The same question was asked of mobile web site visitors. In this case, search and social came in at 29%, while display followed with 22% and video came in at 14%.

The survey asked respondents whether they use analytics technology. Not surprisingly, 58% of marketers said yes, compared with 71% of IT professionals. About 58% of marketers said they calculate lifetime values for customers based on in-app behaviors vs. 68% of IT professionals.

Overall IT professional excelled with the numbers. Some 68% of marketers said they measure customer levels of engagement and use over time, versus 81% of IT professionals. And when it came down to optimizing conversion funnels in mobile apps via A/B testing, the numbers were 62% and 73%, respectively.

Some 69% of marketers and 84% of IT professionals said mobile apps are important to the marketing strategy. About 81% and 88%, respectively, said mobile web sites are extremely or very important.

This year Adobe saw a year-over-year (YOY) decline in the importance of mobile apps and mobile websites for marketers, with more ranking them as “very” important versus “extremely.” This might suggest that marketers are beginning to see mobile as a central component of an integrated strategy and no longer the hot new thing.

Some 75% of marketers and 85% of IT report that mobile is finding its role in a fully integrated customer experience. About 20% of both groups say mobile drives strategy and programs -- but the number of marketers who expressed this view was significantly lower than in 2017.

Interestingly, most respondents say at least some of their teams have mobile-specific objectives or key performance indicators, but far fewer believe those KPIs directly support the company's overall business objectives. For marketers, 28% said all teams do have mobile-specific objectives or KPIS to measure effectiveness, 61% think some teams have this, and 11% think that no teams do. When it comes to IT professionals, those numbers are 39%, 56% and 3%, respectively.

About 23% of marketers say KPIs support their organization's overall objectives, 64% said they somewhat support them, and 11% say they have limited ad-hoc contributions. For the IT professionals those numbers come in at 43%, 49%, and 7%, respectively. About 1% say no.