Firstly, it is never a good thing to encourage consumers to shop via mobile and then take them to an unoptimized page. Retailers should know by now that consumers do not like to pinch-and-zoom.

“When a brand is determining strategy for their mobile push/pull campaigns there should always be a thoughtful process to story board out each element in order to produce the proper results to gauge future mobile strategies,” said Marci Troutman, CEO of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

Ms. Troutman is not affiliated Zales. She commented based on her expertise on the subject.

Zales did not respond to press inquiries.

Falling short
Zales is running the mobile ad campaign within People’s mobile site.

The banner ad reads “Shop Now. The Celebration Diamond Collection. Zales.”

When consumers tap on the mobile ad they are redirected to the company’s Web site where they have to pinch-and-zoom to browse the content on their screen.

This not only helps diminish the user experience, but does not leave consumers wanting to buy anything.

Zales has a mobile site that consumers can visit by entering m.zales.com on their mobile browser.

The company would have been better off sending consumers to its mobile site where they can have an optimized experience, and thus, helping Zales drive sales for its Celebration collection.

It is important that marketers optimize their content on mobile.

The space is no longer an add-on, but a necessity for customers.

Furthermore, consumers are constantly on-the-go and are beginning to turn to their mobile devices to make purchases.

Therefore, making sure all aspects of a campaign are optimized is critical for marketers, such as Zales.

Going forward, marketers need to test out their campaigns to make sure that the intiative provides a seamless experience for consumers.

Customers are becoming more tech-savvy by the minute and demand a lot more of their favorite brands.

Mobile evolution
Over the past few years, Zales has been dipping its toes in the mobile space.

Last year, the jewelry retailer rolled out a mobile commerce-enabled site that lets consumers browse and buy products from the company’s entire inventory (see story).

This year, Zales enlisted mobile to link an ad in an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine to its Pinterest page as a way to drive engagement for its products and, ultimately, sales (see story).

“A critical factor to take into account is where your consumers will be when they are receiving a message – if the ad is created for mobile the consumer will, indeed be on their mobile when they click through, if the click through outcome takes the consumer to a non mobile friendly site, the consumer will 99 percent of the time, simply ‘move on’ and the entire campaign will have been a waste of effort,” Ms. Troutman said.

Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York