Brands still haven't cracked mobile - so how can they crack wearables? asks Google’s performance chief Ian Carrington

He called the results “disappointing” and yet added that this shortfall was not isolated to the FMCG sector alone, but is an issue in all sectors including retail, and automotive.

The audit also revealed that, on average, 60 per cent of the brands in those verticals have a mobile site, however, of those that do “only a handful” deliver a decent experience, according to Carrington.

“Many brands are either just laying out exactly the same features on their mobile site as on desktop – it may be the same user but it should be localised or optimised for that particular experience on that particular device. So even though a high percentage of them have sites they are not necessarily any good.

“Very few people put the same thought into their mobile sites as they do their stores. If you’re a retailer you spend a fortune optimising your stores layout. They run extensive research into what are the best performing stores and which layouts work best, and they just don’t put the same amount of effort into their mobile which is a real shame,” he said.

It’s possible some may not even be aware that they are getting a vast amount of traffic through mobile devices, as they may not even be tracking it, or know how to, according to Carrington.

“You will see more disintermediation in the market place from those that do have a mobile site – those that have a good one - they are going to be the winners. People who haven’t will start losing market share, sales and customers,” he added.

Earlier at the conference Carrington referred to mobile phones as "wealth generators", adding that once the next five billion people are on the internet, we will see another wave of devices.

"Shortly we will start see more connected cars, fridges, wearable tech – we believe the devices you buy in five years time – if they are not connected they won’t be bought.

"This all opens up lot of info for advertisers. If you can’t crack big data now will have no chance in 10 years. But the same goes for mobile – if you haven’t cracked it today how will you crack wearables – you must future proof. If you don’t have a mobile strategy you don’t have a future strategy."

Carrington was until last year the head of mobile at Google, a role which saw him launch and grow the internet giant’s mobile sales team. Since then it has dispersed its mobile-specific team, with the pervasiveness of mobile rendering it unnecessary, according to Carrington.

He compared the speed of mobile adoption to that of radio, which took 72 years to generate 1bn listeners. In contrast smartphones took five years to hit the 1 billion mark.