Here is how to be confident in your strategy with industry 160% increase on mobile spendings.

CMOs are planning to push more of their marketing budget towards mobile in the coming years. In fact, Forbes’ recent CMO Survey revealed that marketing heads will increase the percentage of their budget dedicated to mobile from 6% to 15.6% over the next three years.

The Massive Mobile Movement

If you take a moment to look at consumer trends, this should hardly come as a surprise. In the United States alone:

• People now spend more time with apps than they do accessing the web from a traditional desktop
• Smartphone apps have driven most of the growth in digital media usage in the past two years
• App audiences are increasing rapidly, so the number of apps that are reaching five, ten, and even twenty million people has jumped
• And mobile now represents almost two out of three digital media minutes

Bigger mobile budgets are a natural result of this monumental shift.

Combating Doubt with Solid Data to Drive Results

Although most marketing leaders are doing the right thing by putting more resources into their mobile strategy, they interestingly self report a lack of confidence in their efforts here. Yes, apps are evolving and mobile is a new frontier so naturally, CMOs, VPs, and other executives will feel a bit queasy in uncharted waters.

So, how can we fix this? How can CMOs ensure their increased investment in mobile leads to real, tangible results and revenue?

The key is to use data to inform and optimize their marketing activities.

The Secret to Building a Fail-Proof Mobile Strategy

Apps are a goldmine of rich data.

Because they deliver engaging experiences, mobile apps are the ideal channel for better understanding your users.

Christine Moorman, the author of the Forbes article referenced earlier, lays out the critical message at the heart of creating strong mobile initiatives:

“It is clear that allocating a large portion of [your budget] toward understanding and managing the impact of mobile is essential [for success].”

Marketers must indeed build their marketing programs on the backs of deep analytics that shed light on how different user segments interact with their mobile apps. Otherwise, this rapid expansion of mobile efforts will cause two groups of leaders to emerge: the successful trailblazers (who have clear insight into their app performance) and the frustrated executives (who can’t understand why their best efforts are falling short).

In the future, effective marketers will all have one thing in common; they will be able to harness indisputable, enlightening data to drive their mobile strategy.

Why an Integrated Approach to App Marketing is Your Best Bet for Sustained Success

The most powerful thing about app analytics is what you can do with them.

Mobile channels are maturing at a fast rate and marketers can use a combination of push, in-app, email, and remarketing to reach the right person at the right time — as dictated by data. The best way to manage and balance all of these options is to have them all delivered through one tool, one intelligent brain that can match the right combination of users with the right message based on granular data from the same source.

To succeed in this brave new mobile world, you need more than just campaign analytics that reveal results in a vacuum; you need to update your cross-channel marketing efforts as your users evolve.

An integrated approach to app analytics and marketing is the only way to ensure you are driving real value for, and from, your users.

Embrace this approach and you’ll join the ranks of the top CMOs who answer in the affirmative when asked this important question, “Are you confident in your mobile strategy?”

Originally published at rainmaker-labs.com on October 15, 2015.