Criteo S.A. (NASDAQ: CRTO), the commerce marketing technology company, today shared the findings of its Global Commerce Review for Q3 of 2017. The analysis explores shoppers’ winding path to purchase across numerous devices, browsers and apps. A primary finding of the research reveals retailers have a greater impact on mobile devices when an engaging app and a strong mobile web presence are available.

“Today’s shoppers expect that brands and retailers will deliver a personalized shopping experience at the precise moment an interaction is relevant,” said Jonathan Opdyke, Chief Strategy Officer, Criteo. “The findings of our Global Commerce Review reaffirm the need for retailers to adopt omnichannel strategies. The research also strengthens our commitment to growing Criteo’s Commerce Marketing Ecosystem so brands and retailers can apply the massive amounts of data collected at each phase of the shopper journey—on all screens and in stores—to engage shoppers wherever and whenever it’s most impactful.”

Research Highlights:

Mobile Growth

Shoppers are constantly on-the-move, both physically and mentally—with short attention spans when online. The mobile-first shopper is dictating the digital marketing strategies brands and retailers are executing across all channels.

·         Smartphone usage grew by 12% in Q3 of 2017.

·         Shoppers in the Middle East & Africa are browsing and buying across all environments and more active on mobile than ever. 

·         Smartphone users in MEA generate 36% share of all online transactions in the region, the largest of all the markets.

App Opportunity

Retailers looking to compete with industry giants can design a seamless in-app experience to remove barriers to purchase.

·         Most mobile sales happen in apps – 69% share of mobile ecommerce transactions in MEA.

·         In MEA, retailers with a shopping app now generate 64% of their sales on mobile devices

Shopping Moments

Daily and hourly sales trends underscore the importance of retailers’ ability to execute campaigns on all screens, around the clock, based on their core shoppers’ behavioral patterns.

·         While desktop browsing still reigns supreme during weekday working hours, smartphone and tablet browsing dominates from 6pm to midnight and weekends.

·         Similarly, in the early evening, smartphone and tablet browsing generates 35 percent and 47 percent more sales, respectively.  

Combining Data

Understanding a shopper across all of their devices can unlock where they might be going based on where their journey began.

·         32% of desktop sales are preceded by a click on a mobile device while only 15% begin on another desktop.

·         The share of transactions completed on Tablet decreased by 42% year over year.

·         47% of post-click desktop transactions come from another device.

Combining cross-device data to better understand and target shopper intent allows marketer to capture higher-value shoppers. This is most apparent in the high tech/computing and health/beauty verticals.

Study Methodology

The Global Commerce Review analyzed more than 5,200 retail businesses globally and billions of annual transactions.