Many businesses value phone calls and website visits differently. For example, a pizza restaurant may prefer to connect with customers over the phone because calls are more likely to result in phone orders.  In fact, advertisers frequently ask us for an easy way to just focus on phone calls with their mobile campaigns. So today we are excited to announce the Call-only Creative, an enhancement to the Click-to-Call Phone Extensions, which gives advertisers the flexibility to create campaigns with the sole purpose of driving calls to their business.

As shown in this sample ad for Lou’s Italian Pizza, Call-only Creative prominently features a clickable phone number while suppressing the user’s ability to click anywhere else in the ad. As a result, Lou’s can completely focus on fostering phone interactions with its customers via its mobile ads.

click to enlarge image

Call-only Creative ads show on Google.com on high-end devices with full Internet browsers. To take advantage of this feature, advertisers must enable Phone Extensions and check the ‘Call-only format’ box on the Phone Extensions tab in their mobile campaign. Call-only Creative ads may get clicks from devices like iPads or iPod Touches, which cannot make phone calls. Clicks on ads from these devices will send users to the advertiser’s landing page. As with all Click-to-Call ad formats, advertisers are charged when a user clicks on the phone number in the ad.  For instructions on enabling Phone Extensions for your mobile campaign, please click here.

Posted by Anna Khesed, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Roy’s Restaurants has landed on a recipe for success with Google Mobile Ads. By using hyperlocal advertising and creating mobile-only AdWords campaigns, Roy’s was able to drive 40% more calls and ultimately more customers to their stores. Read more to learn how Roy’s and its agency, G&M Plumbing, have implemented mobile best practices to achieve an 800% ROI.
In 1988, James Beard Award-winner Roy Yamaguchi opened the first Roy's in Honolulu, Hawaii. Multi-ingredient fusion dishes, a spacious dining room, an expansive lounge, and a signature exhibition kitchen in full view defined the experience.  Today’s Roy’s 31 restaurants cater to diners celebrating a special occasion as well as business travelers looking to wind down.

Getting started with click-to-call mobile ads
Based on substantial success with Google AdWords, G&M and Roy’s began looking for new ways to increase marketing returns and create meaningful connections with customers. Together, they determined that customers who call the restaurant will frequently make multiple reservations and that a growing number of people prefer to use their phones to secure a dining spot. With a goal of increasing phone reservations, Roy’s extended their desktop click-to-call location extensions campaign to the mobile platform. As a result,  call volumes grew and the company became curious about what they could do to further maximize calls and returns.

Creating mobile-only campaigns and implementing mobile best practices
Roy’s and G&M subsequent steps are a great example of how to maximize returns by advertising on mobile devices with Google. First, the duo created a national, mobile-only campaign that enabled them to budget, bid, target, and track their mobile performance separately from their desktop AdWords campaigns. Next they employed aggressive bids to increase the chances of their ads appearing in the top positions – an important consideration for advertising on mobile because of the phone’s smaller screen size.
 

Harnessing the power of hyperlocal advertising
In addition to mobile-specific campaigns, Roy’s also took advantage of Google Mobile Ads’ new hyperlocal advertising feature which serves locally relevant ads and displays distance information to help users understand how close they are to a business. The hyperlocal functionality of the ad format immediately enabled the company to better target on-the-go customers searching for the closest Roy’s Restaurant location.

Reflecting on the experience with hyperlocal ads, Jason Maloney, Vice President of Marketing for Roy’s said, “With Google's hyperlocal mobile advertising, we were able to target our potential guests at their point of need. Mobile searchers looking for dining options could effortlessly see how close they were to a nearby Roy's Restaurant and the click to call function allowed for instant reservations. Our hyperlocal mobile-only campaign drove a 40% increase in calls with a CPC 67% less than desktop ads.  The numbers are impossible to ignore. We have to invest in hyperlocal mobile advertising as part of our long-term growth strategy.”

Reaping exponential returns
Roy's was able to achieve click-through rates 539% higher on mobile than on desktop by investing in mobile-specific campaigns and hyperlocal advertising. And Scott Dunagan, Director of Digital Marketing at G&M Plumbing believes this is only the beginning of the mobile advertising returns for Roy’s, “With Google Mobile Ads we saw an 800% return on investment on our mobile-only campaigns, roughly doubling our ROI from when we had blended mobile/desktop campaigns. Google Mobile Ads have allowed us to reach our target consumers and enable them to transact with us in much more effective ways than any other medium. It’s all about giving the end user all the information they need within the ad. With Google mobile-only campaigns we are seeing tremendous results.”

Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Product Marketing

Adidas, a major sports apparel manufacturer and retailer, was looking for new ways to drive customers to their stores.  So when Google Mobile Ads offered them the opportunity to be a part of a limited mobile Offer Ads beta, they jumped at the chance. Mobile Offer Ads enable advertisers to place coupon offers right into their sponsored search listings on Google.com. Adidas was already testing mobile search ads to drive traffic to their mobile site and the beta allowed them to experiment with using mobile to drive foot traffic to their stores.

In their ad, the company offered customers 15% off purchases made in an Adidas store of $75 or more. Interested users could store the offer either via email or SMS. In addition to the coupon, the ad also provided a phone number and map of a local Adidas store, giving consumers all they would need to go in-store, redeem the offer and make a purchase.  With a click-through rate 28% higher than their past mobile advertising, the mobile Offers Ads campaign doubled in-store coupon redemption and increased the average in-store order value.

Based on the success of Adidas and other advertisers with mobile Offer Ads, we are excited to continue our work with offers and have since extended the beta to desktop computers. While beta participation is currently limited, we hope to make it broadly available soon.

Posted by Dalia Mitra, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

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