Everyday consumers use their mobile phones to find local business information, to get directions, contact information or reviews. Research shows that 95% of smartphone consumers have looked for local information on their phones and 61% call or visit a business afterwards. Mobile advertising can provide a huge competitive advantage to local businesses to be discovered and preferred. 

Ask Dr. Rania Saleh, who founded Smile Designer in Arlington, Virginia, in 2010. The success of her dentist practice in metropolitan DC, shows how running Google Mobile Ads can help a small business grow by driving more calls and attracting new customers.

Dr. Saleh is a general and cosmetic dentist. She was joined in the dental practice by an orthodontist and a periodontist. These three specialists take pride in creating a first-class experience for patients. The trio aims to attract patients who value good dentistry and want the best treatment they can get.

Once the fledgling practice had created an attractive website, which included links to starred reviews on Google and elsewhere, Smile Designer immediately launched an AdWords campaign. Although largely inexperienced in digital advertising, Dr. Saleh and her husband found AdWords easy to use. They added keywords and tested ad copy they wrote themselves. Google AdWords today constitutes about 95 percent of the practice’s advertising.

Following up its initial success with Google AdWords desktop campaigns, Dr. Saleh created a mobile-specific AdWords campaign. The ads were specific to the various practice areas and included keywords chosen especially for mobile users, mobile-specific calls to action, and text that included phone numbers.

“Mobile lets us reach people whenever and wherever they are,” Dr. Saleh says. “Patients with emergencies see our ad and use the click-to-call feature to call us right away. Others might discover our mobile ad when looking for a local dentist, then call us later from home after reading about our services and seeing the positive reviews on Google Places. Mobile helps us create a seamless experience.”

The AdWords campaigns raised Smile Designer’s competitive profile. The practice can now determine the number of people coming in through AdWords and other sources, and track clicks for keywords such as “orthodontist,” “dental implants,” “teeth whitening,” etc. The number of hits on the website jumped, as did the number of phone calls. In addition, the click-through rate (CTR) on mobile devices increased 74 percent, while the cost-per-click (CPC) dropped 34 percent. 

All of this gave the dental professionals at Smile Designer something more to smile about.

To download the full Smile Designer case study, click here.

Posted by: Nabil Haschemie, Product Marketing Manager

To ensure that we deliver the most effective mobile ads marketplace to our customers we are changing the AdMob auction for all cost-per-click (CPC) ads.

Effective February 15, 2012, AdMob will move to an AdWords-style auction, where the winning price is determined by the quality of the ad and the other bids on that impression; the price we charge will never exceed the advertiser’s bid. In addition, we’re removing minimum bids and targeting fees to allow AdMob CPC advertisers to compete for inventory under the natural forces of supply and demand.

Advertisers will benefit from more efficient pricing and could receive cheaper clicks depending on the inventory on which they bid.  High quality ads will be rewarded with an improved chance at winning the auction.

This change will occur for all CPC auctions globally on Feb 15th. There are no changes to non-CPC campaigns at this time. Advertisers should monitor their bids to see the effect on their particular campaigns, and be prepared to adjust bids & budgets to ensure they are meeting their volume & ROI goals.  

We look forward to bringing AdWords auction components that have been refined over the years to the AdMob platform to benefit advertisers, users, and publishers.

Please visit the Help Center for more details.

Posted by: Chrix Finne, Product Manager

What were you doing on Super Bowl Sunday?  Like many of the 111 million people around the world who tuned into the game, you were probably lounging comfortably on your friend’s couch or sitting in a neighborhood bar with some buddies, holding a deliciously unhealthy snack in one hand... and your smartphone or tablet in the other.  

Multi-tasking while watching TV isn’t new, but nowadays smartphones and tablets are also becoming popular couch companions. Mobile devices have driven increases in total searches because of their always on, always-with-you nature. During the Super Bowl, 41% of Google searches in the US related to Super Bowl TV ads came from mobile devices. By looking at a selection of specific Super Bowl related queries both during the game and one week before, we found that the number of searches on these terms increased at a significant rate across all devices and was particularly high for mobile. Super Bowl ad related searches in the US rose 200% on desktop, 970% on tablets and a whopping 2700% on smartphones.

For example, when Clint Eastwood talked about “Halftime in America” in the moving Chrysler spot, viewers were increasingly reaching for their mobile devices to learn more.  Smartphone searches on his name jumped nearly 5500% during the game. Here is a look at what happened with some other popular terms on mobile devices:

Smartphone and Tablet Search Volume Increase During Super Bowl

It’s clear that multi-tasking on small screens while watching the big screen is quickly becoming the new norm.  Nielsen reported in a recent study that about 40% of tablet and smartphone users in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV.  They pick up their smartphones and tablets because they’re often the closest and most convenient internet-enabled devices.  

For advertisers, these big spikes in mobile search volume in response to TV ads point to the increasing importance of having an integrated mobile strategy.  Advertisers are beginning to see that mobile can deepen engagement with their brands and extend the value of their ad buy  beyond the 30 seconds on air. For example, Toyota’s ads encourage users to ‘Shazam’ the TV ad for a chance to win a new Camry. And by integrating a mobile search ad campaign with their Super Bowl TV ad, Volkswagen ensured mobile users could find and continue watching their ad during and after the game.

So what can we expect for Super Bowl XLVII?  Perhaps some party invites that specify BYOC* (*Bring your own charger).

Posted by: Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Comcast is one of the nation’s largest Internet, phone, and cable television service providers for residential and business customers.  High-quality customer service and products are central to Comcast’s business. To this end, Comcast closely evaluates how users engage their online site and find ways to improve upon their experience. With the surging rise of mobile Internet users, Comcast wanted to take better advantage of the growing mobile platform for advertising. Partnering with Google, Comcast developed a mobile campaign strategy that utilized mobile AdWords and mobile search ad extensions driven by top keywords and created mobile-optimized sites for all of its products.

The search campaign engaged users searching for Comcast keywords and directed them to mobile-optimized sites with mobile-specific functions including streamlined ordering, checking service availability nearest their location, and clicking-to-call for assistance. Comcast also implemented a mobile ad extension that allowed users to call Comcast directly from the search results page on their phone.


By advertising on the right channel with an approach optimized for mobile, Comcast capitalized on the many consumers already searching for Comcast services on mobile but who previously could not access needed information as easily.  Making completing a Comcast order with a mobile device simple and convenient, the campaign led  to a surge in mobile sales with mobile now driving over 10% of all online sales.

• Average of more than 1 million impressions on mobile per month
• More than 270% greater CTR than desktop for mobile search
• More than 100% greater CTR than desktop for mobile click-to-call
• Over 10% of all online sales driven from mobile

To learn more about how Comcast maximized mobile, see here for  the full case study.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Hair Club, with the help of agency partner Integrated Media Solutions, uses Google mobile ads as a key way to reach new customers. With 35 years of experience, Hair Club is the world’s leading provider of proven hair loss solutions. In their marketing activities, their primary goal is lead generation from their target demographic of men aged over 25 and women aged over 35.

Hair Club launched their mobile strategy by optimizing their website for mobile and leveraging Google AdWords to target specific key terms on mobile devices. Separate AdWords campaigns were created specifically for mobile devices and Hair Club took advantage of mobile specific formats including location extensions.  On the mobile Google Display Network Hair Club began using contextually targeted call-only ads on relevant websites to generate additional qualified phone leads.

For their mobile site, Hair Club took steps such as prominently displaying a click to call phone number at the top of the page to drive new customers to their call center.  

“From our own research we know that 30% of the people visiting the Hair Club website do so because they’ve seen our TV ad, and often they are on the sofa with their mobile device or tablet. What better way to be able to have someone convert than calling on their mobile device?” says Lee Zoppa, Vice President of Marketing and Advertising for Hair Club.

The results show the campaigns are proving an efficient way to generate more leads and interest in Hair Club. “While desktop searchers constitute 94% of sales, mobile is rapidly gaining ground, capturing 6% of sales over the last three months,” says Lalita Warren, Hair Club’s Media Director.  The campaign exceeded Hair Club expectations with exceptional results:

• 30:1 return on investment on Google mobile ads
• 100% increase in mobile search ad clicks over the past year
• 11% higher conversion rate from mobile ads than desktop ads as tracked via online form

“Google mobile ads provide a successful, incremental platform for us. Mobile and tablet usage is increasing exponentially. Given our target demographic, we get more qualified traffic through mobile,” says Zoppa.

Get the full case study here.

Posted by Michael Schipper, Product Marketing Manager

Sweetwater Sound Inc., one of the largest dealers of musical equipment in the United States, launched the first version of its mobile site in 2008.   Sweetwater, partnering with top interactive agency RKG , became an early adopter of Google AdWords, and most recently incorporated mobile search into its marketing strategies. Since representing 2.6% of total sweetwater.com traffic in 2008, mobile traffic has now more than tripled to 8% of total traffic.

By tweaking bids for device-specific ads, mobile ads targeted at iPads are demonstrating a better return on investment than any other tactic. “Because iPad leads are targeted to that device and iPads are popular among musicians and sound engineers, order values generated from iPads run a full 10% higher in value than orders generated from any other source,” says Matthew Mierzejewski, Vice President of PPC with RKG. “We were able to leverage iPad user data to increase our bids on that segment of the mobile audience. By leveraging this segmentation, we’ve been able to increase iPad CPCs by close to 90% compared to bundling smartphone and iPad devices together, efficiently driving more revenue for Sweetwater.”  

Pleased with click-through-rates as well as the results from using tried and true keywords on smartphones like iPhones, Sweetwater is now making the most out of tablet-targeted mobile ads. With the help of Google mobile ads, Sweetwater:

• Increased conversions: iPad conversion rate was 30% higher than desktops and laptops rate, and orders originating from iPads had 10% higher value
• Improved ROI: Continuously tweaked ad copy, keywords, and bids based on performance by device
• Maximized successful sales model: Implemented the click-to-call feature to drive more leads into telephone service center, where hundreds of expert sales engineers nurture customer loyalty

To learn more, see the full case study here.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

One of the biggest headaches in promoting your app is being able to work out how many downloads a specific ad campaign generated. AdMob is committed to providing app developers tools to optimize advertising spend and maximize ROI. App Conversion Tracking helps you do just that by measuring your app download campaign performance.

We’re rolling out a new feature that makes this even easier--automatic app conversion tracking for Android campaigns. All AdMob Android app download campaigns will now automatically report conversion data from the Android Market. This means that you’ll be able to see conversions from your app download campaign without configuring any special code.



To see conversion data for your Android download campaigns, simply go to the App Conversion Tracking section of your account.  You’ll be able to see the number of downloads driven by your AdMob advertising campaign. In addition, you’ll be able to keep tabs on the cost per download and conversion rate so you can better optimize your campaign.

Posted by: Morgan Hallmon, Product Manager, Mobile Ads