How can marketers reach consumers via mobile? And by which channel? And when? And how often? The list goes on, but to put it simply, mobile marketing is about identifying the right context and messaging to engage with customers—wherever they are.
There are seemingly infinite ways to interact with consumers via mobile, but it’s often hard to pinpoint what works best for your business—the only use case that really matters.
To help you out, we’ve curated this list of stats. Hopefully, these data points can help you:
- Win some arguments as to why mobile marketing is worth your time and effort
- Spark ideas about new ways you can reach your customers
- Contextualize the breadth of mobile usage today
Let’s jump in!
Mobile Marketing Stats
Mobile in General
- There are over 2.2 million apps in the Apple App Store and 2.8 million in the Google Play Store. (Source: BuildFire)
- Mobile app downloads in 2019 passed 110 billion. (Source: Statista)
- U.S. adults spend over three hours per day on their mobile devices (Source: 99 Firms)
- Consumers view 4x the number of products when browsing in app vs. in mobile browsers. (Source: CitrusBits)
- Revenue from mobile apps is expected to reach $189 billion in 2020 (Source: Statista)
Push Notifications
- 70% of consumer brands Iterable studied in 2020 send push notifications (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- 19% of these brands use images in push notifications (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- 57% of these brands include emojis in their push messages (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- Push notifications have a click-through rate 7x that of email (Source: e-goi)
SMS
- Only 20% of consumer brands Iterable studied in 2020 send SMS messages (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- Texts account for roughly 8% of brands’ mobile marketing messages (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- 59% of adults say they have used their phone to text or call someone to discuss a purchase (Source: Pew Research)
- SMS engagement rates are anywhere from 6 to 8 times higher than email (Source: SimpleTexting)
- 50% of consumers would prefer to receive updates via SMS from a brand (Source: FinancesOnline)
In-App and Mobile Inbox
- 33% of consumer brands Iterable studied in 2020 use in-app messaging (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- 80% of dating services use in-app messaging (Source: Inside Look at Mobile Marketing)
- Almost 90% of time spent on mobile is from app interactions (Source: MakeAWebsiteHub)
- 60% of emails are opened on mobile (Source: EmailMonday)
- Mobile inbox messages have an open rate of 22% (Source: Mobile Marketer)
Mobile Marketing Stats in Action
We hope these insights provide the right fuel to kickstart—or improve upon—your mobile marketing efforts. But what does this look like in action?
It can be tough to get a sense of how consumer-facing industries are using these mobile channels to engage with their customers or even what this could look like for your own business.
Bad news: We can’t write out a detailed plan for every use case. Good news: We already analyzed how a handful of industries are using these channels.
If the stats above aren’t quite enough and you want to tackle real-life examples of mobile marketing—the good, the bad, and the ugly—take a peek at our latest report: The Inside Look at Mobile Marketing.
