Mobile specialist agency Mnet has conducted a survey of the top 1000 websites in Australia across both enterprise and government sectors, and found more than 70% of them are not be optimised for mobile.
The survey also found that of those same companies some are seeing upwards of 35% of their traffic coming in from mobile devices, or even higher depending on the demographic.
Travis Johnson CEO of Mnet told AdNews the sad truth is most brands are lagging.
“Retail in particular trails the rest of the world in sophistication, innovation and addressing consumer needs,” Johnson said.
A lack of mobile optimisation is detrimental for brands, not only for a customer experience point-of-view but now with the news that sites that are not mobile-optimised will now be penalised by a tweak to Google's algorithm that rates sites based on “mobile-friendliness”.
This means that if a site is not mobile-optimised, it is unlikely to appear in the top search result listings on smartphones.
Mobile as a medium now attracts a larger piece of the advertising pie than outdoor, magazines and metro radio, according to a recent survey from the the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
However despite the rise in spend Johnson told AdNews that most media and creative agencies also still don’t know where to start when it comes to mobile.
“A few have added mobile specialists however most are simply ticking the box and running a token amount of static mobile banners as part of their overall media schedule,” he said.
“Mobile is the last media they choose, the first to be chopped and the one where creative arrives days late. Too often it’s an afterthought but should be front-and-centre.”
For more on mobile, look out for the Mobile Special Report in the next print issue of AdNews, out 1 May. Subscribe to AdNews in Print, or get it on iPad.
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