The smash hit from Rovio, Angry Birds, added Android to their cross-platform strategy on Friday.  Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle of Rovio, confirmed today that the full version of the game has surpassed 3 million downloads on Android in less than a week.  The casual game, now available on Android, iOS, Nokia and Palm phones, challenges users to slingshot birds across the screen to attack the hungry pigs that stole their eggs.  Angry Birds has maintained a top position across all app marketplaces reaching 7 million paid downloads and 11 million downloads of the “Lite” free version in 60 countries. 

“Rovio is excited about the partnership with Google's AdMob as we explore new business models that will allow us to maximize reach across mobile platforms,” said Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle of Rovio. “The launch of a free, ad-supported version of Angry Birds was a great success with over 2 million downloads on Android in its first weekend.” 

In addition to monetization through the AdMob network, Rovio is also planning to leverage AdMob’s House Ad functionality that allows developers to serve ads within their app for free.  This feature will help Rovio promote new game features and even advertise their new plush toys for the holiday season.

click to enlarge image

We are excited to work with Rovio and help them reach their 100 million download target with this free ad-supported version. AdMob continues to be committed to working with mobile developers and publishers to help them build sustainable businesses on mobile.

Posted by Charles Yim, Google Mobile Partnerships

This year’s DiscoveryBeat 2010 will explore the secret recipe for getting noticed in the ever-changing and ever-crowded app market.  Aunkur Arya, a veteran of AdMob and now Manager of Google’s Mobile Partnerships, will join experts from Flurry, Mobclix and Tapjoy on the “Show Me The Money” panel at 10am.  The event will take place on October 18th at The Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.   

The conference will address the following questions:

• How do you build a company that can consistently get its apps noticed?
• What are the opportunities for startups in discovery?
• Will the platform makers dominate discovery and how do you avoid being
  at their mercy?
• What tactics will get you noticed?

DiscoveryBeat will break through the typical conference speak by bringing together the best thinkers and the freshest case studies to tackle the app discovery dilemma.

To register for the event and get 30% off the regular ticket price, click here.

Posted by Keri Buchanan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Last month saw AdMob named winner of the ‘Best Mobile Ad Network’ at the prestigious MOBI Awards held in New York.

The global awards recognize outstanding efforts being made in mobile media and marketing so it is with real excitement that we received this award.  

As of June this year, our network served near to 250 billion global ad impressions and has fuelled the explosive growth of mobile media in more than 250 countries and territories worldwide.  We pride ourselves on being one of the world’s largest and most innovative mobile advertising networks, and it's always great when awards such as the MOBI’s agree.

AdMob have also just been nominated for the ME Award for Best Mobile Marketing Advertising Company by Mobile Entertainment.  The event is next month in London, fingers crossed!

Posted by Matt Brocklehurst, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

On Monday night, October 4th, nearly 500 people came out to the Mobile Monday event for a panel discussion on the future of mobile applications.  The Silicon Valley chapter of the Mobile Monday Meetup group hosts free thought leadership gatherings to help tech professionals learn more about the mobile industry. This month Google sponsored the event, which brought together a panel of experts to discuss whether web applications will eventually replace native applications on mobile devices as browser technology continues to improve.

The panel debated the pros and cons of both types of apps and most felt there will always be a place for both; it will just be the market shares of each that will change.

In an early poll of the audience, it was clear that the room was largely developers interested in mobile, and nearly all of them were developing native apps.  The panelists pointed out that native apps currently provide the best options for distribution and monetization through app marketplaces.  Interestingly, despite the current focus on native apps, another poll showed that the majority of the audience felt web apps would be the standard development environment in 5-10 years.  Matt Womer from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) stated pointed out that in order for the shift from native to web apps to take place, the web app ecosystem will need to evolve and become more attractive to developers by improving distribution, monetization and standards. 

Snacks for Mobile Monday provided by the Mobile Ads Team

We are happy we had the opportunity to sponsor such a great event.

Posted by Keri Buchanan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Today we are excited to announce the launch of Mobile Ad Sitelinks, a search ad format that displays additional links to content located deep within your site. Available globally on high-end mobile devices, Ad Sitelinks are an easy way to introduce customers to multiple landing page options for your website.

Ad Sitelinks on mobile function similarly to Ad Sitelinks on desktop. Currently, only two-line sitelinks will appear on mobile devices, with each line displaying one sitelink.  As shown in the example below, a mobile ad from Oakley, Inc displays two links, driving users to the “Custom Products” and “Sunglasses” sections of the company’s site.

click to enlarge image

Desktop Ad Sitelinks have been a useful tool for advertisers, leading to an average increase of more than 30% in click-through rates.  Because websites may not yet be optimized for viewing on mobile devices, navigating them to find information can be more difficult.   As a result, we anticipate that mobile Ad Sitelinks will be similarly, if not more, effective on mobile as the benefit of deep linking and driving users further down the conversion funnel is even more valuable. Mobile Ad Sitelinks help by taking users directly to the specific content they’re looking for, enabling them to find information and complete transactions more quickly. 

Since we’re constantly working to bring our experience with desktop advertising to the mobile web, starting with Ad Sitelinks is simple. If you’ve enabled Ad Sitelinks on desktop, your ads will automatically show on mobile phones -- provided your campaigns are opted-in to run on iPhone and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

To learn more about Mobile Ad Sitelinks, please visit the AdWords Help Center. 

Posted by Chrix Finne, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager

This week we had the opportunity to host a panel discussion with John Seebeck, VP of eBusiness at Crate and Barrel and John Lazarchic, VP, e-Commerce at PETCO at the Shop.org Summit in Dallas, Texas.  Brendon Kraham, Team Manager of Mobile Display Ads for the Retail & Tech verticals, moderated the panel.  Both Crate and Barrel and PETCO recently ran their first mobile advertising campaign on the AdMob network. 

The session topic was “Retail Case Studies in Mobile Advertising” and focused on the process of getting started with mobile advertising and results of the Crate and Barrel and PETCO campaigns. The panel drove a great conversation around things to consider when developing a mobile advertising strategy. We’ve included insights from the session below as well as creative examples from both campaigns.
 

Campaign Highlights
Crate and Barrel ran a CPM campaign to drive mobile visitors to their mobile website from smartphone, iPod touch and iPad devices.

• iPad CPM ads drove a 15% CTR for Crate and Barrel. 
• Overall CTR for Crate and Barrel CPM campaign was 3.48%, substantially higher than their average for online display.
  

Crate and Barrel CPM Canvas Ad (banner ad expands to canvas)

PETCO utilized both CPC and CPM ads to drive mobile traffic to a coupon offer on a newly created mobile landing page built for the offer.

• PETCO’s hybrid CPC/CPM campaign drove coupon redemption rate of 4.6%. 
• In-store coupon redemptions outnumbered online by 5 to 1 for PETCO’s $10 off $50 purchase coupon offer, showing the power of driving in-store traffic via mobile advertising.

PETCO banner ad leads to landing page for coupon opt-in

Getting Started on Mobile: Mobile Web v. Applications

• Both Crate and Barrel and PETCO are focusing on the mobile web first, with the possibility of developing applications for specific operating systems in the future. 
• PETCO expects the cost of developing a mobile website will be more than made up by increases in mobile conversion rates. 
• Crate and Barrel already has a mobile optimized site and is considering enhancing this experience through applications, particularly for iPad.

Setting Mobile Goals

• PETCO is very ROI focused and excited about the opportunity around both driving traffic to physical store locations and online purchases. 
• Crate and Barrel had both purchase and branding goals around this initial mobile advertising campaign. The strong CTR they saw on mobile makes them feel enthusiastic about measuring additional activities in the future.

Lessons Learned

• Implement and test measurement tools in order to track against mobile goals. 
• Important to consider ease of conversion on mobile and limit barriers to conversion by providing best possible experience to mobile users.

Big thanks to John Seebeck and John Lazarchic for sharing their experiences. We are excited to continue helping our retail customers connect with their desired audience on mobile.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team  

Last Friday Aunkur Arya, a veteran of AdMob and now Manager of Google’s Mobile Partnerships, participated in a panel about mobile game monetization with experts from Boku, Greystripe, Tapjoy and Zong at the Smartphone Games Summit.

Game developers were anxious to better understand their mobile monetization opportunities, learn about industry best practices and listen to the experts discuss the future of mobile game monetization. Here are a few insights from the panel discussion if you missed it:

• When asked whether developers should use in-app purchases or advertising, the panel agreed that each game is different and the user experience should be considered alongside with the monetization strategy.  Considering a hybrid approach with advertising, freemium upgrades and in-app purchases, will allow more engaging games to maximize revenue potential, but the hybrid approach is difficult to do well.
  
• For advertising, Michael Chang from Greystripe explained that brand advertisers have a lot of options for ad spend and want reach if they are going to invest in mobile. According to Chang, a growing game developer with 100,000 downloads will not grab the attention of brands.
  
• As a follow-up, Aunkur Arya explained that, “The macro trend is good. There are more and more brand advertisers realizing they can’t ignore the mobile game space.”
  
• With the mobile games market becoming increasingly crowded, Aunkur Arya pointed out that marketing is critical in order to break through the clutter and achieve strong ranking in app marketplaces.  He further noted that many developers find success by promoting new games throughout their existing portfolio of games with House Ads. These ads are easy to create in the developer's AdMob account and display in lieu of a portion of regular banner ads.
  
• The panel advised game developers to build in or use third party tools to analyze user behavior to drive improvements to games. Take advantage of the unique opportunity on mobile to constantly test, iterate and improve games.

Overall, it was a thoughtful discussion on mobile games and the key takeaway was that quality, engaging games built with a monetization strategy in mind will win.

Posted by Keri Buchanan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team