Bridgevine is a company that is focused on driving customer acquisition for its clients via its Acquisition and Merchandising Platform, AMP. The platform is a complex network that combines several different channels of promotion to support clients in marketing. To ensure that they are in front of all prospective clients, Bridgevine has been using online and mobile campaigns to promote their business with display and search advertising across both platforms.
As Bridgevine expanded their business onto mobile, they saw some unexpected but very interesting behavior from clients. 20% of clients that did research on the desktop would then finalize their purchase on their mobile devices. Seeing this incredible crossover data, Bridgevine invested in mobile search advertising by leveraging Google’s click to call to drive traffic to their call centers and also send mobile users to an easy to use two-step ordering process on mobile and tablet sites. This investment led to a large increase of new prospects and also lowered the cost of a sale by 25% when occurring on mobile versus the call center.
With visible success with Google Mobile Ads, Bridgevine targeted their mobile audience by generating mobile-only deals accessible via their mobile optimized site. To ensure they were targeting customers accurately on specific mobile devices, Bridgevine put resources toward campaigns that focused on device keywords, and then tweaked the campaigns to suit the interactions they saw by device. The campaigns using Google mobile ads drove up mobile sales by 10% for Bridgevine; something they believe wouldn’t have happened without Google mobile.
With this type of success in mobile, and also seeing a crossover from desktop to mobile, Bridgevine will continue to invest in mobile advertising as an asset to the growth of their company’s revenue.
To learn more about this crossover campaign, download the entire case study here.
Posted by Dalia Mitra, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads
Last week we shared research on mobile usage trends and business’ readiness for mobile marketing and commerce. We are excited about the rapid growth of the mobile ecosystem and so are our advertising partners, who continue to see more and more of their website traffic coming from mobile devices.
Kiddicare.com offers a great case in point. The UK online nursery and baby supply retailer noticed a rising number of visitors to their website via mobile. They knew consumers were getting a poor purchasing experience on mobile, and with approximately 7% of their traffic coming from mobile devices, they decided to build a website optimised for mobile.
The company has a strong commitment to customer service so prioritized improving their mobile shopping experience. “Our mobile site from concept to launch took seven weeks,” explains Simon Harrow, Kiddicare.com’s Technology Officer. The site was built entirely in-house and used existing IBM WebSPhere infrastructure.What was their process? “We went through the desktop website user journey and took out the elements that were important to our customers such as price, stock numbers, reviews and video. We tried to move as much of the functionality as possible to mobile. We removed anything that would weigh the pages down unnecessarily.”
Kiddicare.com has seen a 36% increase in traffic on mobile since March 2011, but the benefits don’t end there. They’ve discovered the handy mobile site also serves to address two of the most common questions they receive from customers: When will the company release a catalogue? And when will the company open more stores? “The mobile site gives people a catalogue in their pocket, particularly as our stock shifts so fast,” say Mr. Harrow. “And between barcode scanning apps and our website search feature, the site turns all of our competitor’s stores into a showroom for us. Because baby goods are a considered purchase and people still like to see, feel and touch brands, this gives us a chance to acquire sales from people checking things in other people’s stores and finding that we are 70% cheaper, have a price-match guarantee, next day delivery and a 365-day return policy.”
Optimising for mobile has already paid off for Kiddicare.com. Mobile conversion performance is consistent with desktop: same categories of purchases, same conversion rate, same average order value (AOV). Traffic from mobile has already increased 36% since March 2011 and they expect mobile to be 20% of business by the end of 2012 (up from 6% currently). Learn more about Kiddicare.com’s mobile strategy by reading the full case study here.
Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
When Unilever launched it’s new Lynx Excite product, they commissioned simple but powerful advertising creative. The video ads promoted a fragrance so irresistible it causes angels to fall from the sky. Unilever knew from the start that they wanted the film to work across a variety of formats, reaching not just TV viewers but also cinema visitors and mobile users.
For the mobile component of the Lynx Excite campaign, they were immediately drawn to the AdMob platform. AdMob enables advertisers to engage with mobile users across mobile platforms to maximize reach with their target audience.
In order to provide the most engaging experience possible for mobile users, Unilever built a robust HTML5 mobile landing page for the campaign. Mobile banner ads led users to an extended advertising experience, where a rotating halo enabled navigation through the microsite. A visitor could view the television ad, see exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and enjoy interactive features including tips, tricks and tools.
Through AdMob, the ads achieved results that far surpassed expectations. In all, 149 million impressions were served and 690,000 unique visitors accessed the content. On all devices, users spent approximately two minutes actively engaging with the Lynx brand storytelling. In terms of this phenomenal reach and high levels of engagement, the mobile advertising achieved unprecedented results for Unilever.
Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
(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 youstand 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
It’s time for our third post in our Mobile Insights series featuring expert views from our mobile ads team. This week’s guest contributor is Adam Compain, a Mobile Specialist at Google. Adam explains why it’s vital to create a mobile website now versus later.
In the early days of the Web, businesses didn’t believe their customers were online, nor did they think the Internet would become a viable medium for customer interaction. Companies were hesitant to build websites, let alone advertise online.
Of course, the Internet ramped up faster than anyone imagined. Companies that hesitated were left behind and those that took action became industry leaders, reinventing their business models to become more efficient and profitable marketers. In this new age of mobile computing, how can you ensure your business remains present? Build a mobile site. Research has shown that web retailers can increase consumer engagement 85% with a mobile-specific website (1).
At Google, we’ve worked with many advertisers who’ve already built excellent mobile experiences for their users. Each one of the examples showcased below focuses on the needs of a mobile user and is designed for ease of navigation on a mobile device. These sites, all stemming from different industries, prioritize content, use a simple layout and are designed specifically for touch interaction with large buttons.
Blue Nile esurance CreditCards.com
Meanwhile, 79% of large online advertisers do not have a mobile site (2). Those who have not taken action may be harming their relationship with potential customers: 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% said they’d visit a competitor’s mobile site instead (3). Throw in the astonishing rate of mobile web adoption - which is ramping 8x faster than the desktop web did in the mid 90's - and the importance of having a mobile site is clear. (4).
Think about the 4-inch mobile screen as your new storefront. It may be the most important one you ever have: it’s always open; it’s in the hands of nearly everyone, and it’s increasingly how people are finding your business. As important as it is to have a mobile advertising strategy, it’s even more vital to build a mobile website that delivers a seamless and satisfying experience to your users.
Avoid falling into the trap of marketers in the mid 90’s who didn’t think the Internet would evolve into a viable medium for customer interaction.
Cross-posted on the Inside AdWords blog Many advertisers use location extensions to automatically show the most relevant addresses and business information in the ads they run on Google both on desktops and mobile devices. Along with address and phone numbers, these ads also show directions to the business location. A click to access directions enables customers to map the quickest route from where they are located to a business that they want to visit.
We’ve also observed that location extensions with “directions” are beneficial to users and lead to more interactions with the ad. And, in January, we launched a report in AdWords to help you measure these useful interactions.
And, over the next few weeks, you’ll see performance metrics for “directions” alongside those for clicks and phone calls. We’ll also begin to charge for “directions” clicks in the same manner as a click on your ad’s headline and/or phone number. If your campaign has a high number of “directions” clicks, this indicates that your customers are interacting with your ads to get directions to your business.
Below are some answers to a few questions that you may have as a result of this change: Where will I see the performance metrics for “directions” clicks?
You can see the number of directions clicks in the same place as your other click metrics (select Segment, thenClick type from your summary tables). You can review the performance of “direction” clicks to determine if they are helping you meet your marketing goals.
How will “directions” appear in ads on desktop and mobile devices?
For AdWords campaigns with location extensions enabled, a “directions” link will be eligible to appear in the ad and on sponsored map bubbles in Google Map on desktops.
On mobile search ads, a “Get directions in Google Maps?” pop-up will appear when the user clicks on the expandable map. Clicking on “OK” in the pop-up allows users to access directions and will be charged.
Where can I see past performance of “directions” clicks?
For a report, select the Free clicks view within the Dimensions tab of your AdWords account. If you don't see theDimensions tab in your account, click the arrow button next to the existing tabs above your performance table, and select Free clicks in the dropdown menu.
I do not want to pay for “directions” clicks. How can I opt out?
You can do this by removing location extensions associated with your campaign. However, location extensions provide valuable information to your customers about your local business, so we encourage you to carefully analyze your campaign performance before doing so.
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 Directgets 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.
That creating a mobile-specific site would result in a better customer experience seems intuitive, but that’s only half the battle. How do you decide what your site should look like? Which calls-to-action are most compelling to mobile customers? How do layout and language affect engagement? To find out, we worked closely with Amit Shah who leads the mobile and social media efforts at 1-800-Flowers to test a series of landing pages with different layouts and call-to-action elements.
First 1-800-FLOWERS created pages to compare performance of click-to-call and click-to-store buttons. They also tested how the position of call-to-action buttons and their text (“Shop now” versus “Mobile deals”) can affect engagement. Pages with a product image and a single call-to-action were tested to understand how imagery and simplicity perform against multiple call-to-action options.
Adjusting the length of descriptive text allowed a comparison between calls-to-action above and below the “fold” to discover the impact of scrolling. Finally they contrasted offer types to find how percentage discounts perform against dollar discounts.
This experiment unearthed a number of key findings about landing page features and how they influence click-through behavior to help with your own design decisions:
Keep calls-to-action above the fold. Offer language should be brief to maximize screen real estate. The landing page with long descriptive text requiring scrolling received a 57% lower click-through rate than all other test pages.
All landing page elements should be clickable to make it easy for smartphone users to engage through touch. In the test, 45% of clicks came from the flower image or 1-800-FLOWERS logo.
Include a product image to grab user attention and make it clickable to your mobile store. Pages with a product image received 26% higher click-throughs.
Offer language can have an impact on performance. The “10% off“ click-through rate was 19% higher than the “$5 off” alternative. Testing different offer language will help you identify what appeals most to your mobile customers.
Have you improved user engagement on mobile by optimizing your website? We want to hear from you! Email mobile-optimized@google.com to share your story.
Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are becoming a popular device with engaged, tech-savvy consumers. So we’re pleased to announce that we’re developing new targeting options to help you better connect with this audience. To give you greater control over your AdWords ads, we’re changing the way you can target tablet devices.
In the next couple of weeks, the “Networks and Devices” section of your Settings tab within your AdWords account will include a new targeting option titled “Tablets with full browsers.” While you’ve been able to specifically target Apple iPad devices in the past, the new capability will enable you to easily target your ads to the entire tablet device category. In addition, you'll be able to select more precisely the types of devices and operating systems on which your AdWords ads will show. For example, to display your ads on the Apple iPad, you’ll be able to choose “Tablets with full browsers” as your device targeting setting and “iOS” as your operating system setting. Tablet targeting will be available initially for Apple devices only, but we'll expand ad serving to other specific devices in the near future.
Once this capability is available in your account, your ads will automatically start running on tablet devices and no further action will be necessary on your part. If your campaigns were specifically targeting Apple iPad devices, you may notice an increase in impressions and costs as we include more tablets in our ad serving options. If you don't want your ads to appear on tablet devices, you’ll be able to specify this preference in your device targeting settings by following these step-by-step instructions.
For now, only standard text and image ads can be shown on tablet devices. So please make sure your landing page renders properly on tablet devices, as our system will automatically limit your ads from running on tablet devices if we detect that users will be led to a landing page containing a significant amount of Flash or other content that will not render properly. To learn more, please visit this Help Center article.
We’re constantly working to provide our advertisers with new targeting capabilities for their AdWords campaigns. We hope that these targeting options will enable you to successfully connect with your customers across a variety of devices and platforms.
Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager
Last Tuesday we presented a webinar on Mobile Site Optimization and shared some best practices and next steps to help you get started on the path to a fully optimized mobile presence.
Google Senior Mobile Account Executive, Elliott Nix, and Mobile Specialist, Shiv Kumar presented key statistics surrounding the current state of mobile readiness and made a strong case for the importance of mobile site optimization.
With half of all Americans predicted to have a smartphone by the end of year* and rates of mobile web usage continuing to grow rapidly, it should come as a real surprise that so many marketers, including 79% of Google’s largest customers, do not have a mobile optimized website.
As the number of mobile visitors to your site grows, it’s increasingly important to make sure you’re providing your users with the best experience you can. In one study, 11% of users expressed being so frustrated with a mobile transaction that they’ve screamed at their device and 23% have reported cursing at their phones.** Don’t let that be your site!
“What gluten-free cake mixes taste the best?”
“Where can I buy allergy medicine at 11:00PM?”
“Which diaper brand is on sale this week?”
What do these questions have in common?
1. They all imply a purchase will be made in the near future.
2. They can all be answered using your mobile device.
Recently, Google’s Jim Lecinski and Brian McDevitt spoke at the In-Store Marketing Institutes's annual Shopper Marketing Summit. The duo discussed the impact of mobile on the path-to-purchase process and what this shift means for marketers.
Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director, U.S. Sales and Service, kicked off the session by stating that mobile’s role in the path-to-purchase is actually very simple. Shoppers rely on the mobile web to research products and services both pre-store and in-store. And when shoppers read reviews or find weekly deals online, this information can change what they buy and where they buy it. In fact, 79% of smartphone users use smartphones to help them shop and 74% have purchased due to using their smartphone while shopping (Google’s “Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” study 2011).
Because the mobile Internet has a direct impact on consumer purchase decisions, it is critically important for marketers to have a mobile presence when their target shoppers are in mobile errand planning and buying mode.
Continuing the presentation, Brian McDevitt, Google's Mobile Display Ads Lead, shared a scenario of the mobile-mom-of-the-not-too-distant future using her mobile device to plan for her son’s birthday party. Through the course of her day, she experiences:
A Mobile Website that helps her find the right product, quickly and easily.
Mobile Brand Applications that assist her in tracking down the right recipe to serve her guests.
Mobile Retailer Applications that show her weekly deals at local stores
Third Party Applications & Sites that enable her to build shopping lists across retailers, provide coupons and give suggestions for relevant products
Google Maps or Ads with Location Extensions that help with navigation to local stores
Google Mobile Search & Display Ads that connect the entire experience so it’s easy to find relevant information on a mobile site or application.
And the great part is that this fictional mom could exist today. All of these mobile capabilities and more are available now to create a seamless mobile shopping experience for your customers.
Wrapping up the session, Jim laid it on the line when he said, “Mobile is the key to shopper marketing.” I happen to agree.
Posted by Katrina Shonbeck, Mobile Display Account Planner
Earlier this week we shared a video and a summary from “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” independent research study. As a follow-up to yesterday’s webinar presentation, you can download a complimentary copy of the research report. This study is also featured on our new Think Insights with Google site, a website where Google will be publishing on-going learnings and insights about digital marketing trends.
There were many insightful findings on mobile consumer behavior. One we found particularly interesting is how smartphones are driving mobile purchase behavior across all channels, with 35% of smartphone shoppers purchasing on their smartphones. Check out the slide below and discover more interesting results from the full report.
And in case you wanted a nice visual summary of smartphone user behavior we’ve created this handy infographic which you can download!
We hope that you learned more about the growing mobile movement of smartphone users and find these resources useful.
Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
“The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” is a study commissioned by Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010. The goal of the research was to understand how smartphones are used in consumers’ daily lives and specifically how it has influenced how consumers search, shop and respond to mobile advertising.
As smart phone usage grows, mobile users have come to expect quick and consistent interactions, anytime and anywhere. But businesses have been slow to adapt their mobile sites and overall strategies to meet the needs of their users on the go. In fact, our research has shown that 79% of Google’s largest advertisers do not have mobile optimized sites.
Is your website mobile ready?
We invite you to spend a few minutes next week learning how mobile site optimization can drive results for your business. On Tuesday, May 3 at 11:00 am PT/2:00 pm ET, Google Senior Mobile Account Executive, Elliott Nix, and Mobile Specialist, Shiv Kumar, will be presenting on the state of mobile readiness, why mobile optimization matters to your business, mobile site development best practices and tips, and next steps you can take to optimize your mobile site.
71% of smartphone users search because of an ad they’ve seen either online or offline; 82% of smartphone users notice mobile ads, 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase as a result of using their smartphones to help with shopping, and 88% of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day.
These are some of the key findings from “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010. Join us in tomorrow’s webinar where we’ll present the full research findings. In the meantime, enjoy this research highlights video and read on for a summary of our main section findings:
General Smartphone Usage: Smartphones have become an integral part of users’ daily lives. Consumers use smartphones as an extension of their desktop computers and use it as they multi-task and consume other media.
81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone
72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV
93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home
Action-Oriented Searchers: Mobile search is heavily used to find a wide variety of information and to navigate the mobile Internet.
Search engine websites are the most visited websites with 77% of smartphone users citing this, followed by social networking, retail and video sharing websites
Nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.)
24% recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search
Local Information Seekers: Looking for local information is done by virtually all smartphone users and consumers are ready to act on the information they find.
95% of smartphone users have looked for local information
88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs
77% have contacted a business, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business
Purchase-driven Shoppers: Smartphones have become an indispensable shopping tool and are used across channels and throughout the research and decision-making process.
79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer
74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones
70% use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store
Reaching Mobile Consumers: Cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behavior and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.
71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%)
82% notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads
Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35% visiting a website and 49% making a purchase
Implications
The findings of the study have strong implications for businesses and mobile advertisers. Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information. Incorporate location based products and services and make it easy for mobile customers to reach you because local information seeking is common among smartphone users. Develop a comprehensive cross-channel strategy as mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions. Last, implement an integrated marketing strategy with mobile advertising that takes advantage of the knowledge that people are using their smartphones while consuming other media and are influenced by it.
Learn More
To learn more about the study, please join us in a webinar tomorrow where we will present and discuss the research findings in-depth. Register for “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” webinar on Wednesday, April 27th at 11am PST/ 2pm EST. To receive the research report, please visit the Google Mobile Ads blog after April 27th to download a complimentary copy of the study.
Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
