72% of businesses recognize the benefits of using data to offer customers a joint, cohesive multi-channel experience, but 84% aren’t able to use the data effectively.

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Less than 10 years ago, consumers were shocked and awed by the prospect of visiting their favorite websites on their mobile phones. Now, with smartphone users totaling more than 1 billion and 1 in 3 US consumers owning a tablet, your customers aren’t just “browsing” on mobile – they’re buying.

Not only does mobile usage account for 21% of all Internet usage (Google), but 32% of all online purchases are made over mobile devices (BusinessInsider). And according to international investment bank The Goldman Sachs Group Inc, worldwide mobile commerce sales will account for almost half of total web sales by 2018.

Businesses must start viewing sales from a mobile perspective and adopting strategies that put mobile at the center of the user experience. Let’s take a look at how your business can better convert consumers via mobile and prepare for the future of mcommerce.

Many Devices, One Identity

According to a recent study by Experian, 72% of businesses recognize the benefits of using data to offer customers a joint, cohesive multi-channel experience, but 84% aren’t able to use the data effectively.

One of the biggest challenges for marketers when it comes to offering meaningful and effective mobile commerce experiences is that they lack a single view of their customers, and are dealing with a mountain of disorganized data created across devices. Much of this stems from marketers’ continued reliance on third-party tracking cookies to learn about their customers; these methods of consumer tracking are prehistoric compared to today’s mobile landscape, and simply do not function across devices.

Marketers are turning to first-party identity data to create individual, complete profiles of users across devices. Letting site visitors self-identify via registration and login is key in gaining the single, permission-based customer view necessary to provide shoppers with a personal, consistent cross-channel user-experience.

Consider the following experiences both with and without identity:

This post was originally published on the Gigya blog