Do You REALLY Need To Go Mobile In 2014?

Mobile is one of those hot topics that everyone seems to be latching on to.

But do you really need to go mobile if your audience isn’t mobile? What if 99.99% of your users are accessing your site through their desktop? Does mobile still need to be at the tippy top of your marketing “TO DO” list in 2014?

Maybe not …

Mobile Trends

Some serious 2013 stats from Super Monitoring:

• [Tweet “91% of all people on earth have a mobile phone.”]   
  
• [Tweet “56% of people own a smartphone.”]
  
• [Tweet “50% of mobile users use their mobile device as their primary internet source.”]
• [Tweet “80% of time spent on mobile is spent inside of apps.”] 
• [Tweet “72% of tablet owners purchase online from their tablets each week.”]

View the infographic on mobile stats by Super Monitoring here. 

Our friend and fellow SteamFeed’er Sarah Arrow also has a must-read post on mobile stats: Mobile Stats Every Marketer Should Know.

How To Find Out If You Need To Incorporate Mobile

Disclaimer: I think it will be important to incorporate mobile into your marketing strategy at some point. As mobile usage grows, the number of people accessing the internet (and hopefully your sites!) will make responsive design extremely important.

To find out how important mobile is to your strategy RIGHT NOW, we’re going to take a look at Google Analytics.

1. Sign in to your Google Analytics account (if you don’t have one, it’s free — and easy — to set up)
2. On the lefthand menu, click on ‘Audience’
3. Under Audience, click on ‘Mobile’
4. Under Mobile, click on ‘Overview’
5. From here, you will see your mobile stats (see our example in the picture below)
6. Figure out your mobile percentage use by adding together your mobile and tablet views and dividing them into your total views (341+102 = 443 / 1576 = .28109137, or 28%)

From the report you can see that of the last 30 days in 2013, we had 1576 visitors to the B Squared Media website. Of those visitors, 1133 were desktop visitors, 341 came from mobile and 102 came from tablets.

This means that 22% of our visitors accessed our site from mobile devices and 6% accessed through tablets, with a grand total of 28% of our traffic being “mobile.”

For us this is enough evidence to push responsive design to the top of our list in 2014. With smaller percentages — say 1% to 5%, you may not need to be in a rush to spend time or dollars making your site mobile friendly.

There’s one more thing you can look at to help you make your decision …

Bounce Rate

Your Bounce Rate shows you the percentage of peeps who visit only one page on your website before “bouncing” (aka: leaving). This is bad because you want potential buyers and customers to visit as many pages as possible when they land on your site.

One reason to consider making mobile-friendly changes to your website may also include your Mobile Bounce Rate.

Let’s take a look at the same report from above, but focus on the Mobile Bounce Rate:

You can see that my overall Bounce Rate is 26.27 – which isn’t bad. However, if you look at my Mobile Bounce Rate, it’s at 80%! Yikes!

This tells me that users may be having a hard time navigating the B Squared website with their mobile device, and is a HUGE factor for us when it comes to allocating funds towards a responsive design.

This is my “ammo” when I have to convince my Chief Numbers Guy, Alex, that we need to spend some of our marketing dollars on responsive design this year.

Are You Going Mobile?

So? What are your plans? Will you be using Google Analytics to help you make your decision (if you’re not already mobile responsive)?

If you want help with performing these mobile audits with Google Analytics, take advantage of our FREE 30-MINUTE CONSULTATION.

Let me know in the comments section below!

See you in the social sphere!

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Brooke B. Sellas

Brooke B. Sellas is an award-winning Customer Marketing Strategist and the CEO & Founder of B Squared Media. Her book, Conversations That Connect has been recognized nationally and is required reading for a Customer Experience class at NSU. Brooke's influence in digital marketing is not just about her accomplishments but also about her unwavering commitment to elevating the industry standard of digital customer experience and customer marketing.

Latest posts by Brooke B. Sellas (See All)

• Ready To Find Your Marketing Magic? Take Our Quiz! - November 19, 2025
• Social Media Customer Psychology: Understanding Expectations Elevates Social Care - November 12, 2025
• Seeking A Social Media Mentor? How To Find The Right One To Help You Boost Results That Matter - November 5, 2025