Mobile advertising is seeing rapid growth and today’s campaigns are richer and more advanced than ever.  However, a lack of industry standards has made it difficult to build and run rich media campaigns across different ad networks and mobile platforms at scale.

To address this challenge, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) brought together a broad group of industry participants and created the MRAID (Mobile Rich-Media Ads Interface Definitions) project. Google fully supports IAB’s effort to create mobile advertising standards and is actively engaged as a member of the MRAID working group.

Last week, IAB released the first public draft of MRAID v1.0  for comments and feedback. The document provides definitions to help standardize the interaction between mobile ads and mobile platform SDKs.  We invite the industry to review this draft and look forward to finalizing this important mobile standard.

The effort to develop standards on mobile is reminiscent of a similar process on desktop years ago.  On desktop, Flash emerged as a standard which enabled advertisers to create ads that would seamlessly run across different ad networks and websites.

Today, the mobile industry has rallied around HTML5 as the preferred language to create mobile ads, yet several challenges remain before this can be instituted.  A wide variety of mobile SDKs have forced advertisers to develop platform or network-specific ads as opposed to a single ad that works across multiple networks and devices.  Having to customize campaigns for each ad network increases cost and pain of ad creation and hinders the growth of the ecosystem.  Imagine if a marketer’s TV ads worked on one channel and one type of television, but not others - that’s where we stand with some mobile ads today.

The first public draft of MRAID v1.0  is a significant step in the rapid evolution of mobile and mobile advertising.  We thank the IAB for organizing the initiative and other working group members for passionately participating in this important project.

Wook Chung
Product Management, Mobile Ads

One of the easiest ways to receive a quick answer on the go is by clicking on a number from your phone and calling a business directly.  In fact, we’re seeing users make millions of calls a month through AdWords Call Extensions; advertisers display their national or local number in an ad and receive detailed reporting on these calls to help inform marketing decisions.  

But what happens for phone numbers that are entered in an ad, but not via a clickable Call Extension? Previously our system wasn’t able to provide separate reporting for clicks to phone numbers from a URL click so these numbers were not clickable. Now advertisers can view detailed reporting on click-to-call activity by segmenting traffic by click type. As a result, we will be making an upcoming change to ads where any phone number in an ad will be clickable on a mobile device.  

(Left): Previously, numbers in ad were non-clickable and customers users couldn’t directly call a business from the ad.

(Right): Now, phone numbers in ad text will become clickable. Users can call a business directly from an ad, and full AdWords reporting is available for all calls placed.

Calls stemming from clicks to these numbers will now be the same cost as a click to your website. Moreover,  potential customers are now able to click on your number while on their mobile devices, and you’ll be able to leverage the power of Adwords reporting by segmenting your campaign reports by click type. 

However, to get the most value from click-to-call, we recommend that you remove your phone number from your ad creative and manually create a Call Extension.  There are two primary benefits to this. First, your number will appear as an additional line of ad text which frees up space in your ad creative for other messages. In addition, you’re able to take advantage of other powerful enhancements such as Vanity Numbers, call-only creatives, and Call Metrics reporting. To get started with these call based features, visit the ‘Ad Extensions’ tab in your account to create your first Call Extension . 

We are committed to providing our users with the best mobile web experience and encourage you to learn more about the different ways you can connect with customers via the phone by visiting our Help Center.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Updated links added 7/29/11

We’re excited about the growth we’ve seen in tablet usage over the past year, and we’re continuing to improve the user and advertiser experience on tablets with full internet browsers. Today we announced the launch of a refreshed Google Search for tablet users. Now tablet users can experience an optimized version of Google Search designed to maximize the screen real estate of a tablet and be easy to navigate via touch.  
 
In turn, we’ve updated the look and feel of search ads on tablets to customize the experience for tablet users. Aside from the visual changes, the number of ads which show on Google Search will now be dependent on the orientation of a tablet:

• If you enter in a search query when the tablet is in landscape mode, there will be a maximum of two top ads above the search results.
• If your search query occurs when the tablet is held in portrait mode, there will be a maximum of three ads above the search results.
• Similarly to high end mobile devices, there will also be a maximum of three ads at the bottom of search results regardless of tablet orientation. 

All campaigns targeting tablet devices will show on this new tablet-optimized search experience. However, here are some ways in which you can make use of AdWords account features to review and manage tablet ad performance:  

• Earlier this month we introduced the ability to target tablet devices in Campaign Settings, offering greater control over specific tablet device types and the ability to target specific types of tablet users.
• Just as you can segment by Search or Display network traffic, you can now segment by the type of device in your Campaign reports to view traffic and conversions from ‘Tablets with full browsers’.

We hope that this updated tablet search experience will help users continue to find the most relevant information, and advertisers to see improved performance on tablet campaigns. We’re excited for the ways in which tablet devices will help businesses and consumers connect with each other. Learn more about targeting tablet devices here.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads 

Do you or your business promote a mobile app on Google Search? You can already drive customers to your app and drive downloads in the iTunes App Store or Android Marketplace via Click-to-download ads, but today we’re making these ads more visually appealing by adding a new feature: application icons. 

   Previous Click to Download format, no icon         New Click to Download format, with app icon.

We’ve improved the existing Click-to-download format by automatically finding and displaying the icon that is registered in the iTunes App Store or the Android Marketplace. The icon gives richer visual information to users, and more clearly indicates the purpose of a Click-to-download ad. This improves the ease by which people can discover and download new mobile apps. A click on the app icon or ad text link will bring users to the download page in the iTunes App Store or the Android Market.

If you are already running Click-to-download ads, you’ll automatically begin to see app icons appear next to your ads on Search. If you’re interested in getting started with Click-to-download ads, learn more here.

Posted by Takashi Sakamoto, Software Engineer, Mobile Ads

(6/17/2011) The image for this post has been updated.

Back in November 2010, we announced a Google Goggles Marketing Experiment in which brands “Goggles-enabled” some of their print ads, movie posters and other media.  When users scanned the elements of these campaigns, they would be able to click-through directly to a brand’s mobile destination.  

Today, we’re announcing another chapter of this experiment - an exciting new Goggles-enabled campaign from HTC. Google and HTC collaborated to create a campaign featuring Google Goggles in the US to raise awareness of their new HTC Sensation smartphone and further explore the concept of media bridging. HTC has partnered with prominent artists to make exclusive content available to users who scan their print, outdoor, and TV ads with Google Goggles.  You can experience the campaign for yourself scanning the ad below with Goggles:
 

HTC print ad

 

A Goggles-enabled advertising campaign was a good fit for HTC because they wanted to reach a young, tech savvy audience with this effort. Like the previous campaigns in the Goggles Marketing experiment, this campaign uses Google Goggles to connect offline media to the mobile web.  Users can experience and download exclusive music, videos and creative content via HTC’s campaign.
 

To check out this new Goggles-enabled campaign, download the Google Mobile App from Apple App Store or the Goggles app from Android Market and scan ads from HTC’s campaign that are marked with the Goggles logo.

Posted by Dalia Mitra, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

In late May, AdMob commemorated its one-year anniversary at Google by launching new rich media ad templates for tablets. These templates take advantage of tablets’ larger screen sizes, high-res graphics, touch screens and multimedia capabilities to drive deep engagement with mobile audiences.

• Branded Video:  Branded Video allows advertisers to showcase both video and full-screen creatives simultaneously to users. The unit features inline video and audio, meaning that the video plays within the ad unit, instead of being displaced to the tablet’s native video player (e.g., QuickTime for iPad).

• Image Gallery: The Image Gallery allows advertisers to showcase multiple products to users in an interactive manner. Users can swipe across different product images and can zoom in to any product image full-screen by a simple tap or pinch-out gesture.

• 360-Degree Image: The 360-Degree Image format engages users by allowing them to rotate and visualize a product as if it were held in their hands.

Currently, these templates can be shown within AdMob’s Interstitial ad units, which are displayed within the network’s top iPad apps. Check out the video below which illustrates the Interstitial ad in action along with the rich media templates used by our launch advertisers -- Sephora, Reebok, Gilt Groupe and Coldwell Banker.

Our launch partners have been excited with the initial results from the beta, reporting impressive interaction rates, which indicate when a user has taken further action within the ad whether it be visiting the advertiser’s website for more info or downloading the advertiser’s app. Coldwell Banker and Reebok reported interaction rates of 7% and 6% respectively. Gilt which is still running its campaign is seeing 15% interaction rates.

While AdMob advertisers continue to produce successful rich media campaigns with custom creatives, these templates provide a compelling alternative for brands looking to get their rich media campaigns up and running quickly.

Posted by Ben Chung, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Over the last year, smartphones have become an indispensable shopping companion for mobile users on the go. Our recent Smartphone User Study found that 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping activities, such as finding more product info, comparing prices or locating a retailer.  So today we are excited to announce that we’re bringing two desktop ad formats to the mobile platform that help advertisers meet these key mobile shopper needs: Product Extension Ads and Product Local Ads.

Product Extension Ads
Product Extension Ads enable you to easily display relevant product images and details directly in your mobile search ads. Since many mobile users are searching for product information while they are in a store or on the go, including this type of information in your ads can help you stand out by highlighting the products you carry and help drive mobile conversions for specific products on your site.  Product Extension Ads are enabled by linking your Google Merchant Center account to your AdWords campaign. When your mobile search ad appears, and your Google Merchant Center account contains products that are relevant to the searcher’s query, Product Extensions show the product images, titles, and prices of your products in a plusbox under your ad.

Product Local Ads
An enhancement to Product Extension Ads, Product Local Ads show the actual availability of products in local stores along with the product image and price all within the mobile ad.
This ad format takes advantage of one of the things that makes mobile uniquely powerful, the phone's greater location aware capabilities. That's why we're especially excited to bring Product Local Ads to mobile where location is even more relevant to user's searches. Now advertisers can better show what they have in-stock to users who are nearby and ready to buy their products. With the same Smartphone User Study showing that 54% of smartphone shoppers use their phones to locate a retailer and 34% search for a store’s product inventory, Product Local Ads help mobile shoppers complete their goals and can drive more in-store purchases.

Product Local Ads are eligible to show based on location signals such as as local search queries and device location which users opt-in to share. Currently available as a limited beta, Product Local Ads require you to submit your local product inventory data to Google through a Google Merchant Center account and submit your business information to Google through a Google Places account. Learn more.

Together both of these new mobile ad formats can help you build a strong cross-channel strategy as Product Extension Ads help drive online sales and Product Local Ads can help drive offline sales with increased foot traffic to local stores.

At this time Product Extensions Ads are available in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Australia on mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Product Local Ads are available in the United States. For instructions on how to link your Google Merchant Center account with your AdWords campaigns to take advantage of these ad formats, please review this Help Center article.

We’re constantly working to bring new and better ways for our advertisers to connect with customers. We hope you’ll find Product Extension Ads and Product Local Ads for mobile useful in your campaigns and in growing your business.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

In late May, to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of joining Google, AdMob launched an update to its free House Ad tool for developers.  With so many apps available to users, developers are realizing that marketing the app can be more challenging than building it.   Now developers can access more ad formats, including full page graphical interstitial ads, to cross-promote their apps while gaining more control over their campaigns by setting impression goals, targeting by device or geography and creating ad groups.

For developers using the latest AdMob SDK, the enhanced AdMob House Ad tool gives you access to a range of new high-end ad formats to promote your apps including:

• Crossfade Banner: A banner ad that fades between as many as 10 different images and directs user to the app download page
• Click to Full Screen Expandable: A banner opens to a full screen experience.  Simply upload screen shots of your app and define the transitions between them
• Graphical Interstitial: This full screen takeover experience can be placed at transition points within the app and does not require a user to click on a banner

Developers set an impression goal to control how often House Ads are shown in comparison to ads served by the Google AdMob ad network.  By setting an impression goal, your House Ads are now weaved into your ad inventory so that they show over the course of the campaign start and end dates that you assign.  The new AdMob House Ads tool also allows you to roadblock all of your inventory if you only want to show House Ads during a certain time frame.

With device targeting, you can ensure that only devices that support your app will see the ad and geographic targeting enables you to target specific countries and even cities for U.S. and UK markets.  In the next few weeks, we will also be adding conversion tracking so that you can more easily track performance of your House Ad campaigns.  To get started today, log into your AdMob account, click on the “Sites & Apps” tab and select “House Ads”.  Click on the “Learn More” link to get to the upgrade page.

For more instructions on how to set up your first campaign and to learn more about the new ad formats click here.   


Posted by Jason Morse, Product Manager, Mobile Display Ads

Here’s the second post in our Mobile Insights series, featuring expert views from members of our mobile ads business. Welcome this week’s guest contributor, Anjali Vaidya, an Account Manager on the mobile ads team who shares her experiences on our Click-to-call (CTC) offering in mobile ads.

We’re continually making enhancements to the Click-to-call ad format. Launched in early 2010, CTC allows mobile consumers searching Google or visiting sites in the Google Display Network, to click on the phone number and speak to someone who can explain more about the product or service. 

One enhancement was our Call-only format to allow advertisers to receive only calls, instead of clicks, to their website. Starting this week, we’re making the Call-only format even better by including a phone icon and moving the phone number above the ad.

The convenience and immediacy of CTC for users has made it one of Google’s fastest-growing advertising solutions. Click-to-call is a great addition to the advertising mix. You can still drive searchers to your website, but it gives you other advantages:

• it’s a great option if you don’t yet have a mobile-optimized website; 
• it captures consumers who are ready to act; 
• it allows you to drive traffic to a strong call center, giving you a competitive edge over other online advertisers.

We’re generating millions of calls every month on mobile devices and the number of advertisers using phone extensions is growing quickly. The uptake for CTC is fast because advertisers are realizing great returns.

• Home security provider Defender Direct gets 75-80% of online advertising clicks using Click-to-call. Four out of their top 10 campaigns in terms of clicks are now mobile. And the calling customers  are ready to consult with an expert about the ins and outs of alarm systems. Once the company started targeting high-end smartphones, their returns from mobile ads and CTC skyrocketed. Results were soon double what they got from desktop search. Today, Google mobile ads constitute 24% of the company’s overall online budget.

• When auto insurance company Esurance started using mobile ads and CTC they found that they could acquire customers at 20-30% less cost compared with other channels. Esurance wanted to put interested people in touch with agents or claims representative in a few simple steps. Reaching the company is faster and easier for customers, and a less expensive way to acquire leads for Esurance. Calls coming from CTC mobile ads are more likely to result in sales.

• The Carphone Warehouse has had great success with mobile ads CTC too. The UK mobile phone retailer created a mobile website where visitors can search for headset details and price plans. They used Mobile Ad Sitelinks to provide deep links into the site and incorporated CTC in ads to allow users to reach a call center agent to get advice or buy.

Our advice? Test Click-to-call, whether you’re a national or local business, to see how it can generate sales. Our customers have shown us that mobile searchers will research your products on their phones, and they appreciate the convenience of calling from that same device. Once they call, they are even closer to purchase. Your best leads are only a phone call away, try Click-to-call today!

Posted by Anjali Vaidya, Google Account Manager for Mobile Ads

AdMob is excited to announce that rich media ads can now be served from DoubleClick into the AdMob network. This feature is currently in beta and will also enable advertisers to create and measure rich media ads from DoubleClick Rich Media. 

To date, AdMob advertisers have relied on AdMob systems to serve their mobile rich media ads. Today, the beta will pave the way for advertisers in mobile to build, serve, manage and report on rich media ad units using the DoubleClick tools that they, and their agencies, are already familiar with. Creative agencies will be able to use DoubleClick Studio, a creative platform for producing rich media ads, to output rich, HTML5 mobile creatives for placement on AdMob apps. Media agencies will be able to use DoubleClick’s ad server, DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA), to serve and report on rich media ads in mobile.  

To date, advertisers on DoubleClick have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it anywhere with online display and rich media ads. AdMob’s beta with DoubleClick gets us one step closer to making this possible for mobile display advertising too. 

Posted by Ben Chung, Product Marketing Manager

Today, we’re pleased to launch the first in our new Mobile Insights series, featuring expert views from members of our mobile ads business. Welcome this week’s guest author Erin Schultz, Senior Specialist, Mobile Ads, with contributions from Melissa Moody, Sales Development Manager for Travel. They share their thoughts during Travel & Tourism Week.

Let’s imagine you’re stranded on a trip and need to book a last minute flight or hotel. At a time like this you fully appreciate the power of the mobile web and mobile search. As consumers embrace their phones for all types of activities, we’re seeing mobile devices play a increasingly important role in the travel sector.

We like to think about travel in five stages from: dreaming of that perfect vacation; researching it; booking the trip; experiencing the place; then, sharing the experience with family and friends. Mobile now plays an essential role in this process. In fact, industry analysts at eMarketer predict the number of US consumers using mobile devices to research travel will climb from 19.7 million in 2010 to 29.7 million in 2012.

Mobile devices make all five stages of the travel process more accessible and more robust for consumers. It also opens opportunities for marketers.

• Dreaming: Westin Hotels & Resorts created a display campaign on The Weather Channel’s app. It invited users to "Tap here to warm up," planting the seed for the dreaming user to begin planning their travel with Westin to warmer climes.
• Research: At Google we’re seeing 19% of all hotel queries conducted on mobile devices.
• Booking: Giving users an easy way to book on the spot is crucial. Scott Durchslag, President of Expedia.com revealed "70% of people searching on a phone are looking for a single room, for a single person for a single night that same day." (2)
• Experiencing: Features such as reviews, translation, “scan and go” check-ins for flights, and  location maps make the travel experience easier.
• Sharing: A study we conducted with Ipsos/OTX indicates that 49% of travelers report making travel plans based on the experiences and reviews of others. (3)

Many travel marketers are scaling up their mobile advertising investments, but for some, this remains uncertain territory. Here are four tips you can use to get started.

1. Use location extensions to provide travelers with the opportunity to view ads that are more relevant to their locations. According to Priceline, 82% book within a day of arrival, and 58% are within 20 miles of their hotel. (4)
2. Secure bookings with Click-to-Call. In a Google case study, IHG in Europe noted that by adding mobile creative and Click-to-Call with their mobile revenue increased over 91% YOY. They also found that 40% of their mobile revenue was driven by Click-to-Call.
3. Drive app downloads through click-to-download ads. This functionality allows users to install apps in two easy clicks.
4. Anticipate growing use of tablet devices and make sure you’ve developed a strategy to reach potential customers on tablets. View our recent blog post to learn how.

The mobile marketing industry is young and the window of opportunity is wide open, especially for travel brands. Now is the time to travel to an increasingly popular destination for consumers: the mobile platform. Has your brand taken travel mobile? We’d love to hear about your success in the comments below!

Posted by Erin Schultz, Senior Specialist, Mobile Ads.

Sources:

1. ‘Mobile Travel Takes Off’, eMarketer, March 2011.

2. Scott Durschlag, President, Expedia.com, March 2011.

3. ‘The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users’, Google, Ipsos/OTX, May 2011.

4. Priceline Press Release, September 2010.

The Carphone Warehouse launched in 1989 as a UK mobile phone retailer and now has a portfolio of thousands of stores across nine European countries, as well as an e-commerce site.

Given the different channels their customers can use to access products, it was a logical choice to connect these channels with a mobile marketing strategy. “Clearly The Carphone Warehouse has a natural position in this new emerging mobile space, and we view it as a key way of driving efficient sales but also fulfilling what we refer to as multi-channel assistance,” says Gareth Jones, their head of online marketing.

Take a look at this short interview with Gareth to find out what The Carphone Warehouse did.

The first step was to build a mobile-optimised website. “Previously if you searched for ‘carphone’ on your mobile, you’d have gone through to the dot-com site. We were selling through that, but that was more to do with the tenacity of the user to pinch, scroll and end up at the checkout.” The mobile site leverages the capabilities of a phone with click-to-call functionality to enable a user to contact the call centre and make a purchase.

Next, they worked closely with their agency Efficient Frontier to build a campaign specifically for mobile, analysing results on a frequent basis to refine their keyword lists. In addition, they included a click-to-call number in their text ads. “Click-to-call is an important element of our paid marketing activity because it’s clearly driving calls that are converting very efficiently for us,” Gareth observes.

They began to explore new AdWords ad formats designed for mobile. Taking advantage of Mobile Ad Sitelinks, which allow an AdWords text ad appearing on a high end mobile device to include two links to a site’s deeper content, The Carphone Warehouse included a link to their store finder page. “That’s a clear multi-channel dynamic. You’re walking down the street, you fancy buying a phone, you need to know where The Carphone Warehouse is and you use your mobile search functionality to do that,” says Gareth. The click-through rate for Mobile Ad Sitelinks was 312% greater than mobile search activity where Sitelinks did not appear.

You can download a PDF version of The Carphone Warehouse case study here.

Posted by Michael Schipper, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Back in October we announced Google Boost, a new advertising solution to help local businesses connect with potential customers in their area.  Today we are excited to announce that Boost ads can appear on Google Search results pages on Android and iPhone devices.

Consumers increasingly use mobile devices to search for products and services, and Boost will give advertisers the opportunity to reach these customers exactly when they are looking for local businesses on their phones.  This feature will automatically take effect for current and future Boost advertisers.

click to enlarge image

In case you aren’t familiar with Boost, it’s Google's new advertising product that helps business owners quickly create an online advertising campaign that targets local customers.  Using information from the business’s free Google Places listing, Boost automatically suggests and creates text ads that appear on Google Search and Google Maps results pages.

Google Boost is now available in all U.S. cities to select business types.  To find out if your business is eligible, sign in to your Places account (or create a free one if you haven’t yet) and visit the Dashboard.  If Boost is not currently available to your business, fill out this short form and we’ll notify you when it is.

Posted by Kiley McEvoy, Product Manager

Defender Direct sells affordable security systems to individuals who want to keep their homes and loved ones safe. To stay ahead of their competition and to ensure client satisfaction, Defender Direct staffed their call centers with consultants educated on the intricacies of their security systems. To drive more calls to their call centers, Defender Direct decided to implement Click-to-call mobile ad campaigns.

Driving calls to the call center is critical to Defender Direct’s business model and a primary goal of their marketing efforts. With this in mind, Defender Direct turned to mobile advertising to generate new, better qualified leads. Google suggested their Click-to-call mobile search ad unit, which prominently highlights the business phone number in the ad result (see example below).

click to enlarge image

First, Defender Direct ran a Click-to-call campaign targeted to WAP mobile phones, giving users the option to place a call directly to their call center or visit their mobile site. After this campaign performed exceedingly well, Defender Direct’s next move was to target high-end devices with full Internet browsers including the iPhone and Android platforms. The results were impressive.  ROI for Defender Direct mobile campaigns exceeded the ROI for their desktop campaigns by a factor of two. By running Click-to-call campaigns on both WAP and high end devices, Defender Direct succeeded in driving more qualified leads to their call centers.

With an overwhelming 75-80% of Defender Direct’s online advertising clicks coming from mobile devices, they have now allocated a quarter of their total online advertising budget to this platform. This campaign is an excellent example of how advertisers can take advantage of new opportunities in mobile to successfully reach their business goals in different and unique ways. To learn more about this ad format, please read our Click-to-call Best Practices post.

Posted by Dalia Mitra, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

This January, we launched a Click-to-call functionality for mobile ads that enables advertisers to directly connect with potential customers over the phone. In less than a year, Click-to-call (CTC) ads have come a long way and hundreds of thousands of advertisers are using the ad format today. In fact, over the past three months we've seen the number of Google advertisers using phone extensions on mobile grow 28% month-over-month, globally. What’s more, Click-to-call ads on both Google Search and Display Networks are generating millions of calls every month on mobile.

We’re excited to see this response to Click-to-call ads and we’re only just getting started! Since the initial launch, we’ve continued to innovate on the CTC platform by developing a variety of new ad formats to help advertisers reach their marketing objectives. In recent studies we found that when compared to ads without phone numbers, Click-to-call ads drive a 6-8% average increase in click-through rates. To help you maximize the power of Click-to-call, we’ve put together the following best practices for our recent CTC enhancements so that you can easily choose the ad format that best fits your campaign goal. Please note that while these ad formats are eligible to show on the Google Display Network, these tips are specific to campaigns that are targeting Google.com and are opted-in to show on high-end devices with full Internet browsers.


Drive calls to a centralized number with Phone Extensions

Whether you are national advertiser with a call center or just want to drive calls to a specific phone number, the Phone Extensions ad format can be a useful tool. Phone Extensions enable you to include a phone number in your mobile ad that will remain the same, regardless of where the ad is showing.  For example, if you have a national 1-800 number, adding it to your Phone Extension will result in the ad displaying that exact number to users located in California and to users located in New York.  Giving customers the option to instantly make contact with you is a great way to drive qualified leads as well as scale your business. To learn more about this ad format, please read the Phone Extensions announcement.


Focus on phone calls with Call-only Creative

Many businesses value phone calls and website visits differently. If you specifically want to connect with your customers over the phone, you can now use the Call-only Creative to create campaigns solely focused on driving calls to your business. An enhancement that works with Phone Extensions, the Call-only Creative ensures that your phone number is the only clickable part of your mobile ad. Since a call costs the same as a click to your ad, you can completely focus on fostering phone interactions with your desired audience via your mobile campaigns. To learn more about this ad format, please read the Call-only Creative announcement.

Measure performance with Call Metrics for Phone Extensions and Call-only Creative

For more insight into the performance of your Phone Extensions and Call-only Creative ads, enable the AdWords Call Metrics feature.  Using a dynamically assigned Google Voice number, Call Metrics provide campaign-level statistics on the number of phone leads generated by your AdWords ads including call duration and caller area code. Currently, Call Metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers, but we plan to bring this feature to more advertisers in the coming months. To learn more about Call Metrics, please visit please visit Google Ad Innovations.


Help customers remember your phone number with Vanity Phone Numbers

Do most of your business transactions take place over the phone? If so, including a vanity phone number in your ads can help customers remember how to contact you when they need your products or services. An enhancement to Phone Extensions, Vanity Phone Numbers allow you to display an alphanumeric phone number in your mobile ad. As seen in the image above, instead of using 1-800-836-3464 in their mobile ad, 1-800-VENDING can use their actual business name. To learn more about this ad format, please read the Vanity Phone Numbers announcement.


Reach local customers with Location Extensions

Trying to connect with the on-the-go and ready-to-buy local consumer? Adding a location specific business phone number to your ads can help you effectively engage with this audience. Let’s say you own a chain of pizza restaurants and you want to ensure that customers can instantly reach the pizza place nearest to them. Since Location Extensions ads are served based on a users’ location, hungry patrons will click and call the closest restaurant instead of the one across town. As an additional benefit, this ad format displays your address and business location on an expandable map and can help navigate customers to your store.  For more information about this ad format, please read the Location Extensions announcement.

We hope you’ll find these tips useful and we look forward to developing more Click-to-call features for you in the future.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager