(6/23/2011) The links in this post have been updated.


With an average of 1 million new smartphones entering the market each day, it is critically important for content publishers to ramp up their mobile efforts if they have not already. According to StatCounter, the share of U.S. web browser activity originating from mobile devices more than doubled since May last year to 8.24%.   The good news is that some online publishers, such as Dictionary.com, started exploring mobile years ago to understand its potential and find new ways to engage their “on-the-go” user base.  

 

In 2007, Dictionary.com launched a mobile optimized website to provide the increasing number of users accessing their online content from mobile devices with a better mobile user experience.  Now Dictionary.com sees 9 million unique users on their mobile website and has over 30 million app downloads across Android, iPhone, Blackberry and iPad.  According to Dictionary.com’s President, Shravan Goli, growth in mobile usage is outpacing online usage by 4x and mobile users spend 2-3x more time engaged with mobile content.  In the interview below, we sat down with Shravan Goli to get his insights into growing a successful mobile business.

 

 

One of the key takeaways from Dictionary.com is the importance of adapting to the mobile context. Goli urges publishers to avoid just porting their online content to mobile and follow a few simple guidelines:

• Create a great user experience: This sounds simple, but is a challenge for many mobile publishers. Optimize for both mobile web and leverage unique capabilities of smart phone platforms for apps. User feedback directly impacts your app ranking, so listen to your users and be flexible to adapt quickly.
• Diversify your business model for apps: Free ad-supported apps provide extensive reach, but consider adding a paid ad-free version to give users choice.  
• Ad networks complement direct sales: Similar to their online business, Dictionary.com finds that ad networks such as Google’s AdMob make it easy to start monetizing both the mobile website and cross-platform apps from day one.
• Plan for the iterative process: The development cycle on mobile is more complicated than online so build in feedback mechanisms, monitor them closely, and evolve your products rapidly to meet the changing needs of your users.

After seeing such strong results with the Dictionary.com property on mobile, the company is now expanding its mobile portfolio to include a Flashcards and Spanish app to accompany their online versions.  Shravan comments, “on mobile, people are looking for content to fill the pockets of time in between activities.  Dictionary.com is providing tools for people to educate themselves on the go, wherever they are.”

 

For more details on Dictionary.com’s success, download the 2-page case study with additional insights from Dictionary.com’s GM of Mobile, Lisa Sullivan-Cross.

 

Posted by Keri Kandel, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

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

This month, we are excited to share with you new country insights from our Global Perspectives series.  Frank Albert Coates, Product Marketing Manager in Europe, gives his thoughts on the latest mobile trends unique to France.
 
Last week we highlighted the growth of mobile in France through our event Think Mobile in Paris. At the event key advertisers such as Air France-KLM and La Redoute shared their success stories on mobile. Together with MMA France we also presented parts of the global mobile research showing that France is one of the most sophisticated European mobile markets with operators continually driving the market forwards with the distribution of new smartphones. The availability and popularity of best in class mobile devices has created a large French consumer base of educated and enthusiastic smartphone users.
 

French mobile users are more connected

Our research shows that today 27% of French adults use a smartphone and of those 59% connect to the Internet daily, which is highest among the major European countries. As a result of this active usage of Mobile Internet, French smartphone users also search more than their fellow Europeans  - a full 73 % of smartphone users state they have used a search engine. Numbers from our AdMob network in France also highlight that French smartphone users are among the most active: We have seen close to a 6x increase in monthly smartphone traffic growth from a year ago and an impressive 1.7 billion ad requests a month. As in other European countries, this growth is largely driven by smartphones.
 

Our research also revealed that France is one of the top European countries in terms of app downloads. Applications are fun and can be the best way to promote your service on a mobile phone. On average, French mobile users have 28 apps on their phone and 23 of these apps are free apps, a higher rate than in other countries. This popularity of free apps creates enormous opportunity for developers focused on monetization through advertising to generate revenue.

One French mobile application publisher that has been very successful internationally is Magma Mobile. They primarily develop free games for the Android platform and have 6 games in the top 100 list in Android Market. With more than 40 million downloads, their yearly growth has surpassed 900% and they are currently ranked 4th best rated Android developer worldwide according to Androlib.com. As one of the co-founders, Etienne Jambou, puts it: "It is an OS with great manufacturer support and above all a monetization ecosystem in which we can blossom."

What does this mean for the future of mobile in France? Our data shows that 43% of decision makers think that mobile is a key opportunity for their company. In addition, we know that more than 55% of French adults will use a smartphone by 2015. This means that now is the time to go mobile. To learn more about Google's mobile advertising and monetization solutions, visit google.com/mobileads.

Posted by Frank Albert Coates, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile ads

Kicking off on June 19th, some 8,000 advertising creatives, from over 90 countries, will be descending on Cannes for networking, awards and sharing the latest and greatest cool campaigns.  This year Google and the Mobile Ads team are making a big splash.  If you're hitting Cannes be sure to catch up with us at our sandbox and checkout our mobile website complete with heatmap.

Be seen in the right places
Let’s face it, as you take in all the Cannes happenings, you’ll want to see and be seen. Which places and parties are hot? Use the heat map at our mobile site  www.gheatmap.com/cannes (or use QR code below) to keep pulse on where people are hanging... and post photos to affect the vibe yourself.
 

Mobile magic in the Creative Sandbox
Google will be calling the Gray D'Albion Beach home, so look for the Google flag and scoot over to our beach hut in the sand. Cool off with a complimentary smoothie and make some mobile magic:

• Pose in a classic ad scene, then get ”Goggled” with Google Goggles
• Do the “chubby bunny” on Google Voice Search or create your own Androidified must-have 
• See the latest, coolest offerings from Google Mobile Ads

I’ve not even mentioned the yoga, pedalos and free wi-fi!   We look forward to an incredible week and hope to see you there.

Posted by Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

(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

(6/17/2011) This post has been updated with the link to the full presentation given at the MMA Forum on Thursday

Today, in collaboration with the Mobile Marketing Association, we shared the initial findings from an exciting global research initiative at the MMA Forum in New York City. The research, “Global Mobile Research: The Smartphone User & The Mobile Marketer”, was conducted by Ipsos GmbH and TNS Infratest and sought to better understand mobile usage trends and business’ readiness for mobile marketing strategies.  The study was comprised of two surveys: an online survey of thousands of mobile consumers in 30 countries, and the other, a telephone survey of 1,000 marketing decision makers, 200 in five key markets. Today we presented a subset of the data which focused on five countries: US, UK, France, Germany and Japan.  Here are just a few of the key findings.

We gained some new insights about global smartphone user behavior:

Smartphones are a frequently used gateway to the web:

• A significant number of smartphone users accessed the internet via their smartphone every day of the past seven days: US-58%, UK-55%, France-59%, Germany-45%, Japan-78%
• And many users go online via their smartphones multiple times a day: US-53%, UK-49%, France-47%, Germany-42%, Japan-68%

Smartphone users are engaging in a variety of activities on their phone:

• Smartphone users have looked for local information on their mobile devices: US-90%, UK-81%, France-83%, Germany-85%, Japan-90%
• And these local information seekers have taken action after looking up local content: US-87%, UK-80%, France-83%, Germany-79%, Japan-80%

The smartphone is playing a critical role in shopping:

• Across the board, consumers are using their smartphone while in a store: US-82%, UK-68%, France-82%, Germany-65%, Japan-75%
• Not only are smartphone users using their mobile phones while shopping, they are also making purchases on their mobile device: US-29%, UK-28%, France-17%, Germany-28%, Japan-45%

We also gained some directional visibility into the mobile activities of marketing decision makers:

• Only a fraction of businesses in the five countries report having mobile optimized sites: US-33%, UK-17%, France-12%, Germany-37%, Japan-43%

• Fewer than a third of businesses surveyed have an app: US-19%, UK-15%, France-18%, Germany-26%, Japan-10%
• Mobile commerce strategies of the businesses we spoke with primarily target upper funnel activities: 65% reported that their mobile strategy targets the research phase of the shopping process

While the mobile revolution is moving at different speeds across the globe, it is evident everywhere.  This research underscored how consumers are using their mobile devices to access the web, look for local information, and purchase products and services.  Businesses seem to be lagging behind the consumer in terms of use and support of mobile marketing which represents a significant opportunity.

The full presentation is available here. In the coming months we will be releasing additional data and insights from other countries surveyed as part of this project.

Posted by: Natalie Rojowsky, Google Mobile Ads Research

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