A new report from Allot Communications looks at mobile user behavior and transforming “touch triggers” into opportunities to engage with customers, ranging from alerting them about visits to risky websites to being aware that they are visiting travel sites or competitors’ websites.
“We really see that network operators are struggling on the ARPU side, and with how to monetize services,” said Yaniv Sulkes, AVP of marketing at Allot. “It’s clear that the first step is to get more engagement.
“For operators, it’s challenging to engage, and that’s why we wanted to look at this,” he added.
Allot analyzed millions of mobile transactions from four Tier 1 operators around the world on a given day in July 2015. Sulkes said that Allot profiled subscribers not simply by age, gender and other characteristics, but by behavior — so that if a 40-year-old man’s interests best reflected those of a Millenial, he would be categorized by his behavior rather than by chronological age.
“In our view, that is good, because if you act like a Millenial online, that’s how we should approach you and segment you and engage you,” Sulkes said.
- Video continues to a large part of mobile usage. Allot found that 45% of female customers and 38% of male customers watch video. Most viewers, around 70%, were light users who watched between one to six clips a day — which, Sulkes noted, might happen just in pulling up one’s Facebook feed. Eight percent of users were heavy viewers who watched 21 clips per day or more, and 54% of those heavy users were males.
- Mobile subscribers have an average of 72 daily online transactions.
- About 6% of mobile users visit risky websites which are likely to be a source of malware, on a daily basis. Men visit risky sites 7.5 times more than women, and Millenials visit them 21 times more than baby boomers. Sulkes said that security offerings from mobile operators are one way to turn awareness of those visits into new service uptake, by educating users about mobile malware risks and offering services that protect users.
Allot said that awareness of a user’s behavior can be used for monetizing customer engagement by making relevant offers — such as a roaming package to a user who visits a travel site — or as an early sign of propensity to churn for a user who is shopping on a competitor’s website. File storage services are another possibility for monetization, Sulkes pointed out, particularly if operators offer better security than OTT players who currently dominate the space.
Allot’s findings also reflected the importance of understanding customer behavior in the context of their value to the operator. For instance, T-Mobile US recently affirmed its commitment to crack down on users who abuse tethering policies. Allot found that business users rely on tethering 69% more than typical users, and Millenials use mobile hot spots 45% more than boomers.
Allot summarized its report (available here) in an infographic, and the company added more perspective in a blog post on the mobile trends report here.
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