Mobile Research – Advanced Analytics Possibilities?

There is seemingly no end to descriptive data and reports illustrating our new mobile world both here in the US and abroad.  Mary Meeker’s annual bible of online forecasting serves as the basis for many a new start-up, each hoping to capitalize on the explosion.   New and often brilliant infographics detail the complexion of the new mobile user and project the billions that are and will be spent in mobile-specific advertising.

To our collective credit, the marketing research industry has donned our best running shoes as we continue to sprint mightily to address the need and opportunity to ask people questions on their mobile devices.  Projections vary – this week new data reported at Research magazine indicates anywhere from 10% to 40% of online survey takers complete surveys on their mobile device.  Certainly most major entities in the research vendor-space offer mobile capability, and there are a healthy variety of mobile-specific research start-ups focusing exclusively on smart-phone and tablet –driven insights.

As we sort out the key challenges of mobile research, detailed in this summary by Bala Rajan, the range of possibilities is staggering.  Geo-location, in-context behavioral information and in-store are just a few of the elements that will make insights more powerful when gathered on mobile devices.

At MACRO we specialize in advanced analytics.  Often, surveys that incorporate, for example, a series of choice-tasks for respondents, are long and “large” enough to make them tricky if not impossible to complete on a smart-phone screen.  Usability constraints define the design of mobile research and drop out rates on mobile surveys are as high as 95% when the survey experience is bad.  However, what seems like a limitation is actually a wonderful opportunity.  MACRO is working on a variety of ways to adapt advanced analytics to mobile devices, including Single Task Choice.  Later this week we’ll be posting again on the topic of Single Task Choice – a still-developing technique that would not only make conjoint mobile-friendly, but make the results more powerful as well.