There can be only one world champion chess player, and there can be only one champion source for web traffic.
In this episode of the popular Here’s Why digital marketing video series, Perficient Digital’s Eric Enge reveals findings from the latest edition of his annual examination of desktop vs mobile traffic.
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Resources
- Mobile vs Desktop Usage in 2018
- SimilarWeb
- See all of our Here’s Why Videos | Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Transcript
Mark: Eric, earlier this year you released your second study of web traffic originating from both mobile and desktop. Now, before we get to some of the results of that study, tell us what you studied.
Eric: Well, sure Mark. I used U.S. traffic stats from SimilarWeb to dig deep to find out how much traffic was coming from mobile versus desktop. But I also looked to see if there are any differences in how that traffic behaved and performed.
Mark: And what was your overall conclusion for this year?
Eric: Well, we see a continuing shift towards mobile, which is not surprising, but what was surprising is how swiftly mobile is actually accelerating.
Mark: Interesting. So where does it stand as of your study published in May of 2018?
Eric: Mobile share of U.S. Web traffic rose from 57% to 63% over the prior year. I expect based on that trend that it’s likely to reach two thirds of all traffic by the end of this year.
[Tweet “Mobile’s share of web traffic continues to rise year over year. Learn more at”]
Mark: Whoa, but what I think sets your study apart from other examinations of the growth of mobile are the insights you share based on how the traffic from the two different sources compares in terms of behavior on site. So share what you learned about time on site, for example.
Eric: Sure. Mobile has finally pulled up almost even with desktop in terms of total time people spend on a desktop versus a mobile site. But when it comes to average time per each visit over the past year, mobile went up while desktop remained virtually static, but the average mobile time on site actually grew pretty noticeably.
However, as you can see, desktop still has the advantage in terms of total time per visit, and that means desktop traffic is still providing a lot of value that mobile can’t do quite as well. But the gap between the two will continue to go down over time, albeit slowly.
Mark: Okay, but what about bounce rate?
Eric: Well, mobile still has a higher bounce rate than desktop, but mobile improved in this category year over year by a significant amount as well.
Mark: What do you think that means?
Eric: I’d guess that either the mobile experience is improving overall, which may be the case since many more sites are investing in improving their mobile friendliness, or users are just getting more comfortable with browsing sites on mobile. Or it could be a combination of both of those factors.
Mark: Thanks Eric. And there are a lot more insights from Eric about how mobile performs versus desktop and you’ll find them in his complete study write-up on our site.
Don’t miss a single episode of Here’s Why. Click the subscribe button below to be notified via email each time a new video is published.
See all of our Here’s Why Videos | Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Some really interesting stat. guys thanks.
Is there any recent research on AMP CTR. and Bounce Rate. I wonder has the public taken the speed factor on board when selecting a search result and when they do are they more satisfied than they would be a standard mobile friendly page.
Thanks guys, Adam.