Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Live Más, Spend Más With Taco Bell's Mobile App

Taco Bell tells it customers to live más. It turns out that its mobile app users are spending más, too. Mobile app orders are 20% higher on average compared to in-store, according to BI Intelligence. These mobile shoppers in large numbers are adding more toppings and making group orders.

As expected, Mary Meeker’s annual look at the web and mobile brought significant learnings.

Among the best:

- In America, mobile has eclipsed the desktop in time spent in digital media - now 51%.

- Spending on mobile advertising in the U.S. is up 34% year over year.

- Only $13 billion of $50 billion total U.S. Internet ad spend is on wireless.

- User-shared and curated video is rising rapidly. There are 4 billion video views per day, up 4x in six months on Facebook.

- The next new Internet users are likely already non-smartphone ‪mobile users and most likely to onboarded via messaging platforms.

If your app fails, 47% of your customers will switch to the competition, according to IBM.

74% of people 55+ used the mobile Internet in 2014, per comScore.

On a related note, my wife and I were sent a selfie from my soon-to-be 86-year-old mother-in-law.

General Motors’ Chevrolet brand will offer Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility in 14 vehicles for the 2016 model year.

Over eight in 10 interested in wearables want such devices to enhance in-store experience: PowerReviews. For these, such devices are more than health and fitness tools.

Through a partnership with Shazam, Target is giving app users the ability to scan any of its print or television ads to access “shoppable” content.

75% of Google mobile search revenues come from Apple devices.

Friday was National Biscuit Day? My appreciative dogs have a ruff life.

Google and Apple have adjusted their strategies on mobile payments. We’ll see more tie-ins with loyalty plans, but still need consumer education. Much more, in fact.

Native Apple Watch apps are coming this fall. Not a minute too soon. The current experience is exasperating.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Are Wearables For Pets Barking Up The Wrong Tree?

You can now put a wearable on your pets and track activity or perceived laziness. If I tell my wife that our dogs are chubby, she will say, “Takes one to know one”.  I’m staying mum.

That reminds me of my favorite tweet of the week. From @BillMurray: “The problem with diets is nachos”.

Speaking of eating, Taco Bell's order-ahead app has seen purchases 20% higher on average compared to in-store, per Business Insider.

24% of teens go online “almost constantly”, facilitated by widespread availability of smartphones – Pew.

Also, 71% of teens are Facebook users. Boys and girls are equally likely to partake.

My kind better half brought me home a visor and killer shirt from The Masters. Pictures? None. No smartphones are allowed on course, much less selfie sticks.

64% of mobile game revenue is from 0.23% of players, Swrve says.

Leading to pre-order day, Apple spent $38 million advertising the Apple Watch. Was it money well spent? Many of us bought one without touching it or even eyeballing one.

Later on pre-order day, I did a hands-on with the model of Apple Watch that I purchased that comes with a sport band. I had thoughts of my Fitbit often slipping off, but in the case of Apple’s version, there is a tuck-in feature. We’ll see.

Ready for a concert of simultaneous notification sounds via iPhone, MacBook Air, and Apple Watch? How long before we say, "Yeah, I got it".

The other day, I was 35 folks in before recognizing anyone on People You May Know feature in the Facebook app. It seemed as random as pointing in phone book.

Major League Baseball says that it delivered 60 million live and on-demand video streams across digital platforms on Opening Day, up 60% from last year.

It was a great week. I was just added to a list of fun people. Unfortunately, it’s not my wife's list.