A big part of the total mobile traffic in the US comes from tablets, which is something that many people tend to pay less attention to. Smartphones get most of the attention, which is reasonable, but tablets cannot be forgotten, especially considering the number of people who use them is still on the up. People who use tablets each have their own specific reasons for owning them, because they clearly are not a necessity such as the smartphone has become. So, how are people really using their tablets these days, and what are their opinions on the mobile marketing campaigns that they see every time they do use them? These questions were answered today in an eMarketer research article based on the opinions of tablet users regarding the news and the ads they see during their mobile experiences.

Let me first clear up what the article focuses on in particular, which is the tablet owners who use their devices to read the news. According to eMarketer, who reports information from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism;

Pew found that getting the news was the No. 2 activity conducted on tablets both on a daily and weekly basis, not far behind email. That put it ahead of popular entertainment activities like playing games or even using social networking sites. News-reading was also more popular on tablets than on smartphones, where 36% of users told Pew they got the news daily and 62% got the news weekly.

So, I suppose that clears up what people are actually using their tablets for, with 44% of people checking their email daily, and 65% of the respondents checking their email weekly. Though eMarketer has put some strong emphasis on the news, email is still in the number one spot for tablet owners. Mobile email is becoming more popular still, and marketers should recognize that fact.

EMarketer continues to report their findings regarding where the entire news reading population of the US preferred to see ads presented to them. A total of 46% of respondents said they would prefer no ads at all. After that, the majority say they would prefer ads on desktop news platforms. As for tablets, only 5% of news readers would prefer ads on their devices.

So, to take this news reader study as an example, it does not seem that tablets are the biggest concern for mobile marketers these days. However, it still shows that people are continuing to use email on their mobile devices, which means that marketing to those mobile email users is still a smart choice. Optimizing emails for mobile is becoming more and more prudent in email marketing, since the number of people who prefer to check their email on mobile devices is constantly growing. Many marketers think that the practice of email marketing has diminished in importance long ago, but it continues to show that it is necessary. People are still opening email advertisements, and they are still successful; apparently more successful than ads on the news.

Written by Michael Levanduski

Michael Levanduski is a news reporter at Performance Marketing Insider. He’s been a writer at one level or another for the past 15+ years. He has three kids and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

There are one comments. Join the discussion.