Tablet adoption by consumers has been on the rise since Apple launched the original iPad in 2010 and although they currently represent a small percentage of online browsing this study shows that, compared to smartphones and traditional computers/laptops, tablet users were the most valuable online customers in 2011.

During 2011 tablet visitors delivered an average conversion rate of 2.3%, which is considerably higher than the conversion rate from Smartphone visitors (0.6%). Traditional computer and laptop visitors still delivered the best conversion rating of the three, but at 2.5% the difference is minimal.

What makes tablets the most valuable of the three devices is the Average Order Value (AOV). Tablet visitors, on average, spent £79 ($123) per transaction, which is 54% higher than Smartphone visitors, who on average spent £51 (£80). The AOV from tablets was also 21% higher than that of traditional computers/laptops visitors, who spent an average £65 per transaction.

What tablets mean for online retailers

Despite representing the smallest percentage of total visitors to a website the study showed that the number of tablet visitors is rapidly increasing. The percentage of tablet visitor went from 1% to 4% during 2011 and the report A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User predicts that the number of users will increase a further 23% in 2012. The report also put the average tablet owner in the 18-34 age range and came from a household with above average incomes. So all together this means that some of your most affluent customers are accessing your website on their tablets and this trend is growing. It is also worth noting that mobile traffic to retail sites double in the same period.

So the retail sector must now consider the fact that a one-size fits all strategy to mobile optimisation might no longer be the best method.

“Mobile” must now be split into “Smartphone” and “Tablet” when it comes to a retail website and e-commerce website, due to tablet and smartphone visitors not having the same objectives when visiting the website. Tablet users are 4 times more likely to purchase than smartphone users and when they do they spend over 50% more, so their value is also not equal.

As tablet adoption increases retailers should look into how best to provide an engaging customer experience for tablet users. With an effective strategy a tablet optimised experience should generate a higher ROI, whether it’s a tablet optimised website or a native/hybrid app.

If you would like to discuss anything mentioned then please feel free to get in touch. You can also read the full Adobe Digital Marketing Insights report here.

If you’re a Foursquare user you probably already know that the mobile application has regular updates to help the service evolve from simply checking into a location to help people share their experiences, create recommendations and earn rewards. With this latest update to their website Foursquare are hoping to improve the way you discover new and interesting things in your area.

Foursquare updates

Live Map

The most notable change is the addition of a map that shows locations and your friends near to where you last checked in that automatically updates. The locations displayed on the map are also colour coded to show which places are trending (yellow), popular places (blue), places with offers (orange) and if you’ve created any lists then places in them will be shown as green. Users can then drag the map around and zoom in and out in order to see other locations.

Time related suggestions

The new map also features a “Suggestions” box which provides the user with suggestions depending one what their friends have done in the area. This isn’t anything new but now the suggestions box also takes into account the time of day, for example if a location is popular for breakfasts it will be promoted during the early hours compare to restaurants in the evening.

List searching

With the previous website you were able to search for people and places, now though users are able to search for lists, such as “Best restaurants” in order to discover what other people recommend.

Other small changes:

• You can comment and see comments on the homepage.
• Brand pages now have a section on the homepage.
• Improved usability on tablets.

The new website also lays the ground work for Foursquare to launch further updates and features more easily in the future, so we can expect more to come.

Potential further update

The updates Foursquare have made are great at helping users discover more in the local area but I would love to see a feature that would allow you to search for a city then look at what is hot before arriving at that city, say for a holiday. Although this is possible by zooming out of the map and then zooming back in I believe that a search feature would hugely improve this process. It can only be a matter of time before Foursquare develops from discovering cool things around you to discovering cool things to where you’re going.

We look forward to future Foursquare updates.

If you’re a Foursquare fan and are interesting in where we go then you can follow KMP Digitata on Foursquare.

KMP Digitata was awarded the business following a selection process that initially included agencies from all over the country.

Martyn Ladds, Head of Marketing at Sue Ryder, praised KMP Digitata for their understanding of the Sue Ryder brand, for providing creative solutions that exceeded the Charity’s brief and for their passion throughout the entire pitch process.

Put simply “KMP got it spot on” said Martyn Ladds. He continued, “We were very excited by KMP’s strategic thinking and creativity and we are now keen to continue the process of change we have already begun within Sue Ryder.”

KMP Digitata’s work with Sue Ryder will incorporate the definition and implementation of an entire new digital strategy. Web and mobile channel offerings will be designed, delivered and integrated into a new CRM system. Business critical areas such as volunteering, fundraising, event management and donating will benefit from KMP Digitata’s 20 years of online expertise where delivering “Return on Investment” is always paramount. Functionality including personalisation and ecommerce, together with creative and technical support for new systems serving the Sue Ryder estate of over 350 shops and 14 hospices and care centres nationwide will be introduced and facility managed 24/7/365 by KMP Digitata.

Jon Keefe KMP Digitata’s co-founder and CEO commented “To be appointed digital partners and entrusted by a national charity as prestigious as Sue Ryder with steering, delivering and supporting their digital strategy is a huge vote of confidence in our people, their expertise and skills and our philosophy of delivering real return on investment for our clients.”

It is an exciting time for both KMP Digitata and Sue Ryder. We will keep you posted on all future developments and news.

Facebook’s “Like” button came out a year ago and spread across the web like wildfire, so it is no surprise that Google have developed their own tool to act in a similar fashion as they have seen social recommendations becoming more and more important to how people search for what they are looking for.

Just like Facebook’s “Like” button, all the sites you “+1” will feature on the user’s personal Google profile forming a public list of recommended links, similar to that of Delicious, whose future looks uncertain and I’m sure won’t welcome this latest Google development.

The video below explains +1 in more detail

The basic idea is a good one. While searching you’re able to see what other people and friends recommend right in the search results page, and although Google have said that +1 doesn’t affect the algorithm for creating a page’s rank (for the time being anyway) it will surely affect individual users when they use Google. Sites that might sit 3rd on Google’s 1st page of results might start to see an increase in traffic because there are recommended by more people than the 1st and 2nd results. The feature also applies to Adwords, meaning that sponsored results/adverts can also be recommended.

This latest development by Google is a good step forwards but I feel it doesn’t fulfil the requirements of people using Google. Facebook’s “Like” button was designed to share information that someone finds interesting with their friends, while the +1 button acts as a recommendation for the website and this begs me to ask, “What are they recommended for?”. I might come across a website through certain keywords or a phrase and see a website that has been recommended, which is all fine as long as that recommendation came from someone who was searching for the same thing as I was. Are people recommending that site for the same search term I found it with or the product page I was deep linked into or that site in general?

Please let me know your thoughts?

Adrian Graham, a project manager for Questions said;

There are a lot of places you can go on the internet to ask questions of people who you don’t know, but there are very few places you can go to get responses from your friends.We thought that this is where we should focus.

The new Questions feature allows users to create questions with either multiple answers or the ability for receivers to add their own answers, which when publish, gets pushed out to their friends. From a friend to friends point of view this can be used for social recommendations, an example of this could be asking friends what film at the cinema they recommend seeing. Once a friend answers a question their result is shown on their own profile and pushed out to their friends, potentially spreading the questions to millions of people.

Nice feature that Facebook have added is the ability to chose a Facebook page when answering a question. An example of this is when someone creates a open question “Who is the best digital agency in the North West?”, their friends are able to add their own answer and if their choice has a Facebook page they can include that as an answer.

The improved Questions feature is more importantly available to Brand and Businesses who have a Facebook page allowing them to perform market research in an effective manor. A business can publish a question which will be pushed out to all those who are fans on Facebook, allowing them to answer and pass it onto their friends. Facebook questions could be used by a restaurant to find what people’s favourite dish is, a sports team to find the favourite player or a tourist information board to discover what people think is their best location.

It will be interesting to see how companies will use this feature and see whether it will truly develop into a strong market research tool or just a fun gimmick used every now and again to increase customer engagement.

If you want to add Facebook questions to your Facebook profile or page then follow this link.

Milligan believed that it’s old website lacked certain features, such as a “What’s New” area, a “Firsts” section that focused on innovative elements created by Milligan and an “About Us” page that contains a video which showcases Milligan’s unique approach and vision to create places where people are inspired to shop.

Milligan challenged KMP to produce an innovative design that would create an immediate positive impact on the user while still catering for a wide range of audiences. The site was to be exciting and bold with clear signposting and branding to allow users to quickly and easily navigate through their journey.

KMP Digitata has created a visually striking website that is easy for all users to navigate and fully editable thanks to its underlying CMS platform – Ackura SiteManager; a system developed by KMP Digitata as part of their Ackura product range.

The new website uses a strong visual element that focuses on using striking full screen images to convey information about Milligan and its style. The images and photos used have been specifically chosen to complement the content on the pages they are used on.

The decision was made to split the navigation into two sections, one in the in the top left containing Milligan’s services and company information, and one across the bottom containing secondary navigation information, such as T&Cs and approach. This was used in order to provide the more important information in a clear and concise manor and avoid having large navigation menus.

Milligan Retail now has an outstanding new website that embodies the company’s drive to create inspiring retail venues.

Whenever something new like a phone is made people ask “Is it an iPhone killer” or the latest social media development being “The next twitter killer”. Facebook unveiled its latest developments with the message service it provides, which people suddenly jumped up and declared that it was “a Gmail killer” despite Facebook claiming the improved service is not email. The Facebook “non-email” is only available via invite but will be released to the public soon.

Facebook to provide @facebook.com email

Google will tell you that their phone, the Nexus One, despite poor sales was a great success in showing phone developers and users what the Android Mobile OS is capable of. The phone was launched in January but discontinued 5 months later and you wouldn’t think badly of Google to not try again and remain being an operating system provider. It was quite a shock when leaked photo revealed images of the Nexus S.

Nexus S revealed

Google seems to love nothing more than keeping SEO experts and executives on their toes. Google launched its Instant Preview feature where the user is able to view a preview of the website found while they are still in the search engine results page. This feature provides a snapshot of the page the result navigates to and although it might not affect SEO to much it will make websites visuals even more important.

Google Preview is launched

Apple has a special effect over many people around the world. They have managed to position themselves where they need to do very little PR to create a buzz because the word of mouth between their fans is so strong. By simply putting up a message on iTunes saying “Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget” discussions all over the internet developed on what it could be, including iPad cameras, OS4.2 update but the most popular was the iTunes Cloud. When it was announced that it was the Beatles back catalogue was available of iTune the digital exhaled in disappointment. No doubt people will get excited when Apple are about to announce something else, lets hope it lives up to the hype that’s created.

Apple release the Beatles back catalogue on iTunes

DKNY are the latest company to feel the negative effect that social media can create. It’s no surprise that large numbers of the public started protesting when DKNY announced a Rabbit Fur coat in its new winter collection. A protest started by PETA developed and in addition to various fashion shows the DKNY Facebook page was also subject to the protest where 13 creative individuals changed their profile pictures to single bold letters and posted on the wall in order to spell out DK BUNNY BUTCHER.

Certain functionality within Foursquare make it possible create special offers for the major of the location or rewards for checking into a chosen location a certain number of times. An example of this is Starbucks, who created a special Foursquare badge (The Baristas Badge) which is unlocked when the user checks in at 5 different Starbucks locations. Although this technique has been popular it is limited to organisations that have many locations that are generally on the high street and main purpose has been to increase foot traffic more and more companies in recent month people have been finding new ways to use Geo-location services.

Foursquare now has a “Partner” program which allows a company to create a profile, which foursquare users can follow, and suggest locations to their followers where they can award special badges and prizes. Badges can be awarded to people who check-in at the required number of locations and contain a message with them informing the receiver of the campaign objective.

Conan O’Brian Foursquare Campaign

One successful campaign has been the Conan O’Brian Big Orange Blimp, where an advertising blimp was given a social media edge by assigning it a Foursquare location and an exclusive badge, called the Conan BlimpSpotter, that is awarded when you follow the Conan O’Brian team on Foursquare and check-in at the blimp.

The Blimp visited a number of areas during its tour up the east coast of America to New York, including many sporting events where people could see the blimp in the sky. If the blimp was in a user’s area then they could check-in and receive the badge and a notification about the launch of the new season of The Conan O’Brian Show on NBC.

In the month that the Blimp travelled around the east coast it had 14,569 check-ins from 9,967 unique people.

Mazda 2 – Win a car with Foursquare

Mazda have launched a campaign to win the biggest prize ever featured on foursquare, a Mazda 2 worth $15,000. A car manufacturer using Foursquare to promote its latest car seemed to be an odd collaboration with the only locations related to cars being showrooms and maybe race tracks. Mazda have taken a different approach and teamed up with the Soul singer Mayer Hawthorn to create a Foursquare campaign that encouraged people to go to Hawthorn’s performances and informed people about the new Mazda 2.

For a chance to win a Mazda 2 Foursquare users need to follow the MazdaUSA profile to find out where they can collect the badges required to be entered into the competition. For this campaign Mazda have design 4 special badges for people to collect, 3 of which they get when they check into different locations where Mayer is performing. The user needs to obtain 2 badges to receive the 4th badge which contains information on how to enter into the final part of the competition. Throughout the process of going to new locations and receiving the badges the user is supplied with information on the Mazda 2 helping to spread the campaign message.

Geolocation provides marketers with an interesting tool where instead of creating a message and positioning it at places where you hope it will be exposed to the target audience, we are able to get the audience to actively seek out our messages because they are attached to something that they consider to be of worth. It will be interesting to see what other companies do with these services in the near future.

In what could the final collective digital knees u of 2010 the SomeComms awards are to celebrate the best in UK social media communications and recognise the individuals, companies and organisations who are revolutionising the use of online to communicate in cool and innovative ways.

KMP Digitata have been shortlisted in 3 categories. The work we did with Manchester Airport’s hugely successful Twitter account has seen it put forward for both “Best use of Twitter” and the “Innovation” award. Our second shortlist nomination in the Innovation category is for the Social Media portal we created for TrekAmerica, called TrekAmerica Live where past present and future Trekkers can communicate with on another and share photos, videos and stories.

The main award is “Best Digital Agency” where we are up against some similar faces and some new. The award ceremony will take place at the Hilton and I’m sure that there will be plenty of drinks drank, like there always is at these events, and great food eaten.

If the past is anything to go buy, when lots of digital creatives get under one roof, the SomeComm awards will be a night of banter, good spirited trash talking and laughter.

KMP Digitata Twitterfall

The KMP Twitterfall is making a welcome return at the award ceremony. The Twitterfall was a great success at this year’s How-Do Awards and the Marketing Society Awards, and we hope that people will once again embrace it and have fun with it. At previous awards the Sin Bin has been a means to shame people but also a bragging right to who was able to be top of the Sin Binned list (we’re looking at you @GordoManchester and @jameskay83).

Now we play the waiting game and keep our fingers crossed. See you on the 9th of December

VIE at home specialise in selling beauty products through consultants in a Party environment and online. At Parties customers can try their products first hand, whilst enjoying a fun night with their friends. With this social interaction between the consultant and their clients, KMP Digitata saw the perfect opportunity for VIE at home to utilise Facebook’s API and create an application that could help Consultants organise parties and sell products.

The objective

The objective of the application was not necessarily to increase the number of VIE at home consultants. Instead it was to provide their existing Consultants with a tool that would expand their customer reach by allowing them to easily share VIE at home products with all of their Facebook friends. The application had to announce that the user was a VIE at home Consultant to other Facebook users and also provide a means of navigating to the consultant’s VIE at home profile where they could then purchase products or sign up to host a Party.

The Application

Firstly, the application was decided that it would not be customer facing meaning only VIE at home Consultants can take advantage of the applications capability.

The application has two features. The first is that a Twibbon is added to the bottom of the user’s profile picture saying “I’m a VIE at home Consultant” and publishes the picture on their News Feed.

The second function is that the application creates a profile tab for the Consultant that sits alongside the “Wall” and “Info” tabs so that Facebook friends of the user can easily access their VIE at home profile.

Louise James – E-Commerce Marketing Manager for Vie at Home said;

Over the past 12 months the VIE at home Facebook community has grown dramatically. In particular we noticed a number of our Consultants using it as a place to talk about their VIE at home Party Plan businesses and successfully grow them. We therefore approached KMP to help us develop a Facebook app that would be exclusive to our Consultants, would help them interact with their Customers and identify themselves within their community as a VIE at home Consultant.

Although the application was designed for Facebook the VIE at home consultants are already using their profile picture created by the application as their Twitter Avatar and on the internal messageboard system on the VIE at home website.