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A Cars.com executive speaking during a Mobile Marketer webinar yesterday said that the success of mobile needs to be measured using different criteria than desktop.

During the webinar, What Apple?s offense means to brands, retailers and rivals , the Cars.com executive pointed to the company's researching showing that significantly more mobile shoppers are accessing driving directions and maps to local dealerships using Cars.com's mobile site compared with desktop users. As a result, the company is rethinking the how the value contribution for each of its channels is measured.

?We all tend to judge the success of mobile by the same criteria as desktop sites,? said Sharon Knitter, director of mobile at Cars.com. ?They shouldn?t be the same ? they are very different experiences.

?Someone who is looking at a map is a much more engaged shopper and lower in the funnel,? she said.

?We are having to change our thinking about what is the value contribution of each of these platforms. In three years, it will come out in a very different place.?

Unique experiences
In the Cars.com's research, with the desktop site having an index of 100 for various dealer contact methods, the mobile site indexed at 200 for driving directions and 220 for maps to a dealership. The Cars.com iPhone app indexed at 282 for driving direction and 272 for emailing a page.

Ms. Knitter also reported that the Cars.com sees different engagement levels with iPhone users, who are more likely to engage with more pages. However, the retailer is not sure if this due to the device itself or something else.

The results point to the need to offer experiences that are very native to each device.

?An Apple customer does not want their app to look like an Android app and Android customers don?t want an app to look like an Apple app,? Ms. Knitter said.

?Whether the customer is different is less of an issue than we just need to make sure they are getting a great experience,? she said.

It is also important for marketers to keep in mind that while consumers are increasingly accessing a brand across a variety of channels, they are expecting the same quality and brand standards throughout.

When Cars.com is determining its mobile strategy, it tries to determine what are the most popular form factors and platforms so it can design for these first.

The company is paying close attention to the 7-inch tablet space right now.

?As a publisher that gives us a lot more pause than full size apps because our site will render on large size tablets ok but the 7-inch tablet will change everything,? Ms. Knitter said.

Cars.com also knows that about half of the people who access its digital content are on a dealer lot, which means that any mobile tools need to be intuitive to use and easy to find. It also finds that users who are accessing the mobile site are more casual users who are just getting started in the market.

The mobile Web site is the first focused, then apps for Apple and Android, with attention paid to using the native functions for each.

The iPad is very different because users are doing different things with it.

Cars.com has different product teams and development teams for its mobile site and mobile apps, although they do work together a lot.

Going forward, the company is focused on researching how mobile users are engaging with its mobile options to better understand their motivation.

Picking the right platform
In terms of where brands should focus their energy and dollars with so many different platforms available right now, Ms. Knitter says there is not one right answer.

?I think we all have to be very clear about who we are and what we are to our customers? lives,? Ms. Knitter said.

?It might be that for some brands, a great mobile Web experience is all you need because the consumer is not going to be downloading an app,? she said.

?For Cars.com, we see a lot of customers downloading apps and are putting our focus there. I always say mobile Web first and then move from there to see what usage is.?

Is the iPad mobile?
The webinar participants differed on whether or not the iPad is a mobile device.

Some feel that the iPad is portable but because it is not always on and always connected like other mobile devices are, it is not mobile. Also, fewer than half of tablets rely on a cellular connection.

?It is more about a PC replacement unless you are a media company, then there are a lot opportunities open to you,? said Julie Ask, vice president at Forrester Research.

The iPhone started the redefinition of what mobile is when it first came out in 2007 and now the iPad is continuing the process, especially as more and more retailers install WiFi access.

As a result, some feel tablets will be used out of the home more and more.

?A lot of tablets are not on a carrier network but they can be mobile because of a WiFi connection,? said Michael Becker, North America managing director of Mobile Marketing Association.
?We are seeing more and more retailers installing WiFi access points in their stores and as that occurs, shoppers will want to pick the right device for the type of experience,? he said.

There are some evolutions in the Apple ecosystem that marketers are eyeing.

The recent misstep with the recently released Apples Maps for iOS 6, which has been receiving terrible reviews, is likely to be a temporary setback for the company.

However, the decision to offer older devices at a lower price could have a significant impact going forward.

?We do see that the Apple customer is different ? a little bit more affluent, tends to spend to more and has higher expectations for a user experience,? Ms. Ask said.

?That could change over time,? she said. ?As we see older generations of iPhones being offered for free, we could see the Apple owner morph into someone that looks more like the general public.?

Given all the choices marketers have in mobile, the focus should be on how to use mobile to build relationships.

Right now there is a lot of experimentation going, with smart marketers not putting all their eggs in one basket. For example, the new Apple Passbook app presents some interesting new opportunities for brands and retailers that they should be exploring.

?The brands and retailers that are wining are thinking about how to connect with people throughout the entire purchase path,? said Jack Philbin, CEO of Vibes.

Think mobile first
The upshot is that marketers should be thinking mobile first.

However, this does not mean that marketers should be spending more on mobile than other channels, but that they should not be retrofitting their existing digital content to try to squeeze it onto a mobile screen.

?How consumers use mobile devices is going to be fundamentally different, so content needs to be designed differently,? Ms. Ask said.

?You have to consider on-the-go use cases and consider adding a service layer via mobile on top of physical world touch points and how you can enhance them through mobile,? she said.

Please click here to access the archived webinar

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York