Insight about your mobile audience from your web site

March 9th, 2010 | Eric Rickson

Finding the right entry point for your brand in the mobile app marketplace can be a daunting effort. If you have already decided to launch your own app, it is probably a foregone conclusion that you’ll build an iPhone app because Apple is currently the market leader in mobile web consumption.

By the same account, Android has captured market share against Apple with steady growth in the last quarter of 2009. According to mocoNews, Google CEO Eric Schmidt claimed in his keynote address at the Mobile World Congress that over 60,000 phones that run Android ship every day.

So, do you cross your fingers and start with just an iPhone app, and see where that takes you? Or, do you roll out mobile apps across all of the major platforms, maybe starting with iPhone and Android, and go from there?

Chances are your web site can provide some useful insight on where to start, and could fill in some necessary numbers for your business case. Web site data is very complementary and unique to other sources of market data that you are likely pulling together since it comes directly from your own customer base.

Here are two Webtrends reports to watch that are pretty simple, directly relevant to your business, and will help you get a pulse for the types of SmartPhones your existing mobile audience is accessing your site with.

Mobile Browsers – Provides insight into which platforms provide an immediate audience to capture. Notice that Google saw an increase of 224% in the previous 28 days.

Mobile Devices – Drilling down to the device model can help your product team and developers prioritize which devices to support coming out of the gate.

Keep an eye on this data over time. Who knows, a Windows Phone absent one month may suddenly come screaming up the charts and demand your attention.