“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:

1. A Mobile Website that helps her find the right product, quickly and easily.
   
2. Mobile Brand Applications that assist her in tracking down the right recipe to serve her guests.
   
3. Mobile Retailer Applications that show her weekly deals at local stores
   
4. Third Party Applications & Sites that enable her to build shopping lists across retailers, provide coupons and give suggestions for relevant products
   
5. Google Maps or Ads with Location Extensions that help with navigation to local stores
   
6. 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.

To register, please visit this link: http://goo.gl/L7dUC.

Posted by Marina Agapakis, AdWords Account Manager

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

We invite mobile developers in Asia to join us at Google offices for a (late!) evening of learning & excitement, with a live stream of the Day 1 opening keynote from Google I/O in California. Developers will also have a chance to meet with each other and learn how to build a business with AdMob.

Google I/O Extended is part of a special Mobile Developer Night that will be held in Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul and Singapore on the evening of May 10, 2011.  To apply to attend, find your city on the Google I/O Extended page. Please note that space is limited, and we will notify you if you have been invited to attend, after reviewing your application.

Since we will be live streaming the opening keynote of Google I/O in California, the events will start and end quite late, so be sure to take a nap or have extra caffeine before you come!

Posted by Ryan Hayward & Takamasa Minami, Product Marketing, Japan/Asia-Pacific

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

As many online content providers are moving their content to mobile apps and sites, monetizing this new platform provides a new set of challenges.  TV Guide Digital was getting their feet wet in mobile before the iPhone even existed.  Christy Tanner, GM of TV Guide Digital, shares her insights into building a successful business on mobile.

With nearly 4 million app downloads across Android, iPhone and iPad, Tanner sees mobile as becoming an increasingly important part of TV Guide Digital’s business.  Christy Tanner points out, “we took our time to get the app right - we have loyal customers with high expectations and made sure the app met those customer needs prior to launch.”  Additionally, she warns newcomers to mobile that the development cycle is almost as fast as their online business.

Interview with Christy Tanner, GM TV Guide Digital

To keep users engaged with the apps, TV Guide is constantly providing new content and features to keep users engaged. Therefore an ad-supported business model makes sense to support this ongoing process. Yet, while the company has grown its mobile footprint, training ad sales teams to sell mobile ad space takes time. Tanner notes, “it is great to have the AdMob network to rely on when we have unsold inventory. AdMob is currently giving us the highest eCPMs of any ad network we work with and the customer service has been great.”

As Christy Tanner looks ahead, she is bullish on mobile and excited to expand TV Guide’s mobile offering to continue to meet user needs. As she sees more users interacting with multiple screens simultaneously, she hopes to see more advertisers leverage this opportunity to reach users in new, creative and engaging ways.

A full case study PDF is available here.

Posted by Keri Kandel, Product Marketing Manager