Leading mobile-local ad network xAd has just compiled a report showing that the most popular secondary action taken after searching for a business online is making a phone call in the first quarter of this year. A search of maps came in second:
Fifty-eight percent of all users surveyed said that the first thing they do after search for a business is to call them up. Thirty-six percent looked up pertinent maps, 5% looked up descriptions of the business, and 1% looked up more detail.
Data from the study has also found that:
-Mobile application search access in Q1 grew at a higher rate (4% points) than access via a mobile browser (3% points), continuing a trend apparent since xAd began tracking this in Q3 2011.
-Among both iOS and Android users, mobile search access was preferred in-app rather than in-browser.
-For mobile users accessing travel content, though, search access via browser was preferred. When breaking the data down by smartphone user, iOS users slightly preferred access through an app, while Android users preferred access via browser.
-Looking at US regions, the South (35%) was again the originator of the most search activity, followed by the West (26%), the Northeast (21%), and the Midwest (18%). This pattern held true for travel activity, too: the South led with 31%, followed by the West (26%), Northeast (25%), and Midwest (18%).
-Examining the profiles of travel-interested mobile users, the report finds them to be in line with overall local-mobile user profiles, skewing male, and from higher income households.
Interestingly, the study shows that business search via mobile was more popular in-app than in-browser. Geolocation platform Foursquare recently announced that it is offering merchants the ability to instantly verify themselves for a flat $10 fee, which would work in tandem with the platform’s recent partnering with restaurant reservation app OpenTable. The apps tend to streamline activity that can be achieved on a browser by a longshot.