This post has been cross posted from the Official Google Blog:

With hundreds of thousands of apps available for mobile devices, developers are all looking for advice on app design, business models, app discovery and user retention. The AdMob strategic partnership team has learned a great deal from our mobile publishers about what works on mobile.  We’ve watched as many of them have climbed the app charts and built sustainable businesses on mobile. However, these developers spent a lot of time testing ideas, gaining insights from user feedback and iterating to build better apps, learning invaluable lessons along the way.  For example, Arash Keshmirian, co-founder and CEO of Limbic Software, told us that simply changing the icon of their popular iPhone game TowerMadness and moving to a freemium model led to a 10x increase in downloads!  

Today, we’re introducing a new Google Mobile Ads YouTube channel where developers can watch videos that will help them turn their great app ideas into thriving mobile businesses. We’ll also feature videos to help advertisers start taking advantage of opportunities on mobile. 

Our first video is from Rovio Mobile Inc, makers of Angry Birds, a gaming app that has been downloaded more than 30 million times across 60 countries, 12 million of which are paid downloads. This game is easy to pick up but difficult to put down, and Rovio reports an average of 65 million minutes of game-play per day.  We invited Peter Vesterbacka, “The Mighty Eagle of Rovio,” to share insights into the creation of this mobile game and advice for developers on how to think about building a mobile business.



We’re inspired by the developers and companies we work with that have already made investments in mobile and hope that sharing these stories will encourage further growth in the mobile industry. Our thanks go out to the great team at Rovio for helping us put this video together. And we’ll continue to update the Google Mobile Ads YouTube channel with mobile success stories from top developers as well as tips from industry experts. Don’t forget to subscribe to be the first to see cool new videos.

Posted by Jason Spero, Director, Mobile

Please join us next week December 7-9, 2010 at the Interactive Local Media Conference produced by BIA Kelsey. Google’s Surojit Chatterjee, Wesley Chan, Carter Maslan and Todd Rowe will be presenting at the sessions listed below.

Evolution of Mobile Local: The Leaders
December 7, 2010 3:30pm - 5:30pm 

Mobile local content and ads are developing into lots of shapes and sizes. We’re bringing online search habits to mobile but also checking in to location based social apps and scanning barcodes. How are we evolving the act of finding a flat screen, pair of jeans or pint of Guinness, and what does it mean for local advertising?

Panelists include:  Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, Google, Matt Galligan, Chief Strategy Office and Cofounder, SimpleGeo, Evan Tana, Director of Product Management, Shopkick Alistair Goodman, CEO, Placecast.

Google at ILM 2010: Refocus on Local/Location Services
December 8, 2010 10:30am - 11:15am 

Google has refocused on local and location services as a prime growth area, recently appointing search head Marissa Mayer to run the entire segment. During this can’t miss session, Google executives will review the local and location landscape, and share their perspectives on how Google works with the industry.

Presented by Wesley Chan, Partner, Google Ventures and Carter Maslan, Product Management Director, Local Search, Google. 

The Big Opportunity in Local Search, Local Sales
December 9, 2010 11:30am - 12:15pm 

The hard part about local is selling local, right? But that’s what makes the local opportunity so intriguing. It may be something of a winner take all. Find out what’s working in local online and mobile sales.

Panelists include: Court Cunningham, CEO, Yodle, Todd Rowe, Head of Global Channel Sales, Google, Gleb Shaviner, Director of Marketing and Strategy, Advertising and Media Business Unit, Amdocs, Geoff Stevens, Executive VP and GM, Global Business Development, WebVisible.

Be sure to catch the Evolution of Mobile Local session where Surojit Chattejee will be sharing some of our recent Mobile Ads developments in hyperlocal advertising. 

We hope to see you there.

Posted by Anna Khesed, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

This post has been cross posted from the Official Google Blog:

About a year ago, we launched Google Goggles, an app that enables people to search the web by taking pictures with their mobile devices. Since then, people have used Goggles to search for information about lots of different things: famous paintings, landmarks, products and much more.

Today, we’re announcing a Google Goggles marketing experiment. We’re working with five brands—Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines—to extend some of their offline marketing to the mobile web. They have “Goggles-enabled” some of their print ads, movie posters and other media. When users take pictures of these with Google Goggles, they will be recognized by the app, and users will have the option of clicking-through directly to a mobile destination from the brand.

For a closer look at these specific campaigns, take a look at our video:



We developed Google Goggles so that people could more easily explore the world around them with a mobile device. In this experiment, we’re applying the same principles, and the same technology, by “Goggles-enabling” advertisements and other media, and offering to link people to the mobile sites from these brands.

When you scan this "Goggles-enabled" Buick ad with Google Goggles, you can connect directly with Buick's mobile experience. Click the image to enlarge.

To interact with these experimental campaigns, download Google Goggles from the Android Market or get Google Mobile App for iPhone from the iTunes store, and look for advertising and products from companies in the video above and others that are coming soon.

Posted by Shailesh Nalawadi, Product Manager, Google Goggles

Usage of m.youtube.com is exploding and mobile consumers watch hundreds of millions of video views on YouTube Mobile each month. To better understand these users and their browsing and video consuming behavior we recently ran a survey of users on m.youtube.com and received >16,000 responses.  Some of the results may surprise you:

• 75% of respondents say that mobile is their primary way of accessing YouTube
• 70% visit YouTube Mobile at least once a day
• 58% spend more than 20 minutes per visit to YouTube Mobile
• 38% feel that YouTube Mobile is replacing their desktop YouTube usage

However, these results may not be as surprising when you learn that, according to Nielsen, YouTube Mobile is the #1 video viewing mobile website in the US, with more than 7.1MM monthly unique users.  Advertisers can now own 100% share-of-voice on YouTube Mobile (m.youtube.com) by purchasing a daily roadblock and owning all available ad impressions for 24 hours.  Ads run on the Search, Browse and Home pages of the mobile website. Here’s an example of a recent Diet Coke campaign:

The roadblock runs across the Search, Browse and Home pages of m.youtube.com

Advertisers from a range of verticals have successfully run roadblocks on YouTube Mobile including autos, CPG, entertainment, retail and others.   Many advertisers choose to time their YouTube Mobile Roadblocks to coincide with product launches, sales events, or other days they are making a big media push.  Purchasing a roadblock of YouTube Mobile is an excellent complement to campaigns you may be running on YouTube’s desktop as you can reach users as they interact with YouTube from their device of choice. 

We’ve launched this opportunity in the US and we’re excited to roll it out in multiple international markets soon.

Posted by Johanna Werther, Advertiser Lead PMM, Google Mobile Display Marketing

Join Charles Yim, a veteran of AdMob and now Manager of Google’s Mobile Partnerships on Monday, November 8th at the 360 iDev Conference in Austin, TX.

Charles will be sharing best practices the AdMob team has seen in building a sustainable business on mobile.  The presentation will cover app discovery, selecting an appropriate business model for your app and tracking key performance metrics. This conference aims to bring together the best and brightest developers on the iOS platform for 3 days of training, brainstorming, idea-sharing and networking.  The conference kicks off on Sunday!

Google is excited to sponsor this event and share insights from the AdMob team on building a successful mobile app business.

Keri Buchanan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Publishers

Since AdMob was acquired by Google in May, both teams have been collaborating on new products and features.  Today we are excited to announce a major new benefit to both AdMob publishers and Google advertisers that comes from the integration of these two teams.

In the coming weeks, eligible iPhone and Android application developers in the AdMob network will be able to show Google AdSense ads when an AdMob ad is not available. This will also enable Google advertisers to extend the reach of their mobile campaigns to the thousands mobile apps in AdMob's network, such as Rovio's 'Angry Birds'.

We’ve worked hard to make it as easy as possible for AdMob publishers to access this new inventory.  Publishers using a recent version of the SDK will not have to update their code.  

Reporting will integrate directly into your AdMob account, and you will continue to receive a single check from AdMob each month.  

Publishers should note that they will not be able to filter the types of AdSense ads (e.g. category, URL) that run in their app.  As a result, publishers who have ad filters selected for their AdMob inventory need to opt in to receive Google ads.  Publishers can check their “App Settings” tab in the Sites & Apps section of their publisher account to see if they are eligible for Google ads and opt in.  

Eligible iPhone and Android application publishers not utilizing ad filters will be opted into receiving Google ads as the feature is rolled out in phases over the next several weeks.  

Please visit the Help Center for more details.  All publishers who show AdSense ads must comply with the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions.

This is the first of many exciting things to come with the integration of AdMob and Google.  

Posted by Jason Morse, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager

Cross posted from the Inside AdWords Blog:

What if you found out that your AdWords campaigns were bringing you more customers than you realized?

Zac Stafford, Senior Search Strategist at Nina Hale Search Marketing in Minneapolis, MN, recently discovered that this was true for his client, modern furniture retailer Room & Board. Stafford saw some encouraging results as an early beta tester of AdWords call metrics, a new feature that automatically includes a unique phone number in your ads to measure the calls that you receive from AdWords.

“By cross-checking our call metrics reports with our sales records, we saw that half the people who called the toll free number in our ad purchased online but the other half purchased in a store. Before using call metrics, we determined our ROI just by looking at the online sales numbers. Now we have proof that online search ad campaigns drive in-store purchases.”

Today we're announcing that AdWords call metrics is available for more advertisers, making it easier than ever to measure the phone calls that AdWords generates for your business. Using the technology behind Google Voice, call metrics assigns your campaign a unique phone number which is automatically inserted into your ad on both desktop and high-end mobile devices, where the number is clickable.

click to enlarge image

click to enlarge image

click to enlarge image

When a user calls the number in your ad, the call is automatically routed to your business, and AdWords notes that this call took place. Then, when you look at your AdWords reports, you’ll see the number of calls generated by each campaign, call duration, and in the near future, caller area code. You'll still only pay for clicks on your ads, but we intend to charge for call metrics in the future. 

Once you know where your calls are coming from, you can refine your marketing strategy to make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads. For example, you could test different ad text variations to see which results in the most calls or reallocate budget to campaigns that truly bring you the highest ROI. 

Currently, call metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers. We plan to make the feature available to more advertisers in the coming months. To find out if call metrics is available in your account and to learn more about the feature, visit Google Ad Innovations.
 

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, AdWords