The State of Search Across Devices
That prize consumer you’re after could Google reviews of your restaurant on his laptop, make reservations from a tablet and then get directions from his smartphone, all within an hour. The trend of searching across multiple devices, by people transitioning from one to the other, is on the rise as users query search providers from nearly any location. Recent Microsoft research found that 16 percent of queries on one search engine were from multidevice users, despite the fact that the percentage of actual users was lower. In other words, those doing the searches are especially engaged, making them more accessible to digital marketers – but also harder to pin down.
It’s not just that we’re seeing people use more devices, but that the types of usage are also evolving. Marketers will have their work cut out as they anticipate changes in how consumers conduct different types of searches. The report points to the example of gaming console users, who can now conduct Web searches directly from consoles and use applications previously found only on other devices.