It’s time for our sixth post in our Mobile Insights series featuring viewpoints from our Google mobile ads team. This week, our guest contributor is Grace Dolan, Account Executive. Grace shares her insights on how mobile advertising can help boost brand awareness and sales during the Back to School season.

During the summer months, more users turn to mobile devices to shop. Summer is also when the Back to School shopping season begins. This is a perfect opportunity for marketers, especially in retail, consumer electronics, and cable/telecommunications, to get in front of their target customers who are hungry for information to make purchases. Last year we saw a lift of 500% in mobile searches for retail and consumer electronics categories over the summer months. (1)

I experienced the growth in mobile searching personally over this past 4th of July weekend. My brother is in college, he was researching options for a new laptop for school. During a family barbecue, he and my father were on his smartphone, comparing features, prices, and getting opinions from others (photo featured below). My brother was able to interact with everyone during the get together instead of being inside on his computer.

This isn’t just happening at my parents’ house. The Back to School demographic is on mobile devices, often several hours a day, for more than just a phone call or text message. According to Sergio Alvarez, Chief Operating Officer of the interactive marketing agency Ai Media Group, "The Back to School crowd is leading the way with mobile. As mobile phones increase in versatility and power, they have become more like pocket computers than phones. Colleges and institutions are taking advantage of this technology. We consider mobile to be an integral part of our marketing strategy, and we will continue to make it part of all our campaign portfolios.”

As a marketer, how can you maximize Back to School success with the peaked traffic? Here are a few tips:

• Prepare for the massive traffic spikes with appropriate budgets in place.
• Be on top 24/7. Bid to be in “above the fold” positions on Back to School categories. This is essential on mobile.
• Give them incentive. Include Mobile Offer ads to help drive redemption in-store, online or on the phone.
• Be local. Direct customers to your store by adding your location to your ads.

Back to School is a great opportunity to be in front of your target audience, especially if you maximize the potential of mobile marketing. Don’t miss out; visit the mobile ads site today to find out more.


Posted by: Grace Dolan, Account Executive, Google Mobile Ads

Source:
(1) Google Internal Data (2009-2011)

In May we let you know that tablet targeting options would be coming soon.  We are excited to announce that tablet targeting is now available to all advertisers. Tablet targeting is a new AdWords campaign targeting option that allows advertisers more precise control to target tablets and effectively reach the growing number of users of these devices.

You can find the new “Tablets with full browsers” targeting option under the “Networks and Devices” section of your Settings tab within your AdWords account.  While you were able to specifically target Apple iPad devices in the past under “Mobile devices,” the new tablet targeting option elevates the tablet to its own device category and enables you to target your ads to all tablet devices. In addition, the new tablet targeting option provides more granular control as you can also select specific operating systems. For example, to display your ads only on the Apple iPad, you would choose “Tablets with full browsers” as your device targeting setting and “iOS” as your operating system setting. 

With this launch, your ads will automatically start running on tablet devices and no further action will be necessary on your part.  If your campaigns were specifically targeting Apple iPad devices, you may notice an increase in impressions and costs as we include more tablets in our ad serving options. If you don’t want your ads to appear on tablets, you can change your tablet targeting settings by following these step-by-step instructions.

With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, we believe that the strong growth of tablet adoption and usage will provide significant opportunity for marketers to connect with consumers in more powerful and relevant ways. We hope this new tablet targeting option helps you better capture this opportunity.  

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Welcome to the fifth post in our Mobile Insights series featuring viewpoints from our Google mobile ads team. This week, our guest contributor is Matt Dorfman, Account Executive. Matt shares his insights on how mobile advertising in the consumer packaged goods space can make lasting connections with consumers.

Mobile is playing a central role in how customers interact with consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands. According to a recent smartphone study, 79% of users rely on smartphones to help with shopping – 69% for more product information, and another 70% while shopping in the store. (1)
The price-conscious shopper may want to redeem a mobile coupon to save $1 on a tube of toothpaste. Another may want to know the most eco-friendly brand of detergent as they shop in store. Or, the more competitive among us may use their mobile device to win a prize via a promotion for their favorite sports drink.

CPG companies typically rely mainly on brand advertising – often through TV campaigns – to connect with consumers. Mobile, provides new ways for consumers to experience CPG brands and connect with products and offers, yet many CPG marketers are not using mobile to reach consumers – and they are missing out.

Whether someone is looking for offers or trying to find your nearest location, many consumers are searching for you on mobile devices. Google’s research shows that 12% of mobile search queries are related to food and beverage items, and 15% of queries center around home and personal care. So how can CPG marketers mobilize their brands and make sure they stake their claim to the mobile marketing landscape?

Make consumers an offer
First, provide something useful or solve a problem that a customer has. Try couponing on mobile exclusively – and be sure you’re dovetailing with retailers to close the loop. 
 
In December 2010, Adidas offered customers 15% off purchases made in an Adidas store of $75 or more. The mobile Offers Ads campaign doubled in-store coupon redemption and increased the average in-store order value.

Go local
Mobile users are searching for information locally. Now, you can use hyperlocal distance information with location extensions, an enhancement that lets your customers know how close they are to a business. In this case, the business would be a retailer you have partnered with that carries your products. This high-end mobile device feature provides users with down-to-the-block-level detail about a business including address, phone number and location on Google Maps for Mobile.

Just test it!
Run a few mobile-focused campaigns to experiment with mobile advertising. In Q4 2010, Mindshare, Kimberly-Clark’s interactive agency, implemented a comprehensive mobile ad test program honing in on specific brands, devices and keywords. The combination of CPC and click-through rate (CTR) for mobile was 70% better than the same stats on the desktop for the test brand.

Get creative
Think of an experience for consumers that is unique to mobile. To engage Android device users across US, Coca-Cola decided in 2010 to promote a lighthearted holiday live wallpaper app. Says Wendy Clark, Senior Vice President, Integrated Marketing for Coca-Cola, “If your plans don’t include mobile, then your plans are not finished.” (2)

We tend to agree. CPG brands need to have a strong mobile strategy, and Google mobile ads can help.


Posted by Matt Dorfman, Account Executive, Mobile Ads


(1) The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm.
(2) IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2011

Cross-posted from the Google Conversion Blog

This is the third post in a series on optimising mobile websites for conversions. The previous two posts covered Content Prioritisation and White Space.

In Summary: Buttons rule on mobile devices. The rule of thumb means that big, well spaced buttons with clear calls to action will likely result in more conversions.

Before looking at how buttons can make the mobile user experience better we must first understand the way mobile users navigate. Think about the way you hold your phone. More often than not it’s in just one hand and because your fingers are gripping the phone from behind, you are left only with your thumb for navigation of the screen. The thumb is far less precise than a mouse pointer.

As you can see from this image, fingers are behind the phone leaving the thumb to do all the work

The Mobile Rule of Thumb: If it cannot be done with the thumb, it cannot be done.

The hyperlink is a poor user experience on a touchscreen mobile device because it is very hard to use with an imprecise instrument like the human thumb. If that’s not all, mobile devices are often used by people on the move, so hitting a small point on the screen is just getting harder and harder. The best way to alleviate these issues is to build your links into big buttons which allow for greater levels of inaccuracy.

Here are are a few things to consider when building button links:

Buttons Should be Big
In a recent study of iPad users, Jakob Nielsen, the father of human computer interaction studies, recommends that buttons be at least 1cm x 1cm in diameter. That’s 28px assuming the standard web resolution of 72dpi. There’s a lot of debate around this area.

Apple is recommending 44x44 at a minimum for buttons in apps.

A very interesting introduction to designing for different screen sizes on Android can be found here.

This is something you really need to test when building your site. Without a mouse or even a stylus, buttons need to be big. Put simply, you should build buttons for thumbs. And err towards large thumbs. There is also the issue of light. Many mobile screens perform poorly in daylight or bright light environments – big buttons make it easier to perform tasks while visibility is low.

Buttons Should be Isolated
How many times have you tried to click a button on a mobile device only to find that you have inadvertently clicked something else? It can be a really painful experience and is also a sure-fire way of making a user give up in frustration and go somewhere else. One way to avoid accidental clicks is to ensure that buttons have a little space between them. Call-to-action buttons especially should be isolated. Where possible, leave a little white space around buttons.

Buttons Should be Reachable
The placement of your buttons is also important. Just as we need to consider big thumbs for button size, we need to think about what is comfortable for thumbs when placing buttons. The standard navigation button is across the whole page on mobile sites so it isn’t really an issue but many mobile sites have call-to-action buttons which are shorter and sit on one side of the screen or the other. If possible, these buttons should be made longer and centred more. Not only does that make them larger but it’s easier for both left and right handed people to reach the buttons with their thumb. If you must choose a side of the screen, contrary to the right side placement often found on desktop, it is actually more comfortable for a right-handed thumb (the majority of users) to click a button on the left side of the screen.

Kiddicare found button placement on the left side of the screen was easier for users than the right

Smaller Buttons Should be Padded
Padding refers to making clickable an area larger than the button itself. This can be especially useful for check boxes or buttons that need to be smaller so as not to draw attention away from the main call-to action. The trick is to make the area immediately around the button clickable as well. In the case of check boxes, it is important to leave sufficient space between boxes and then to make the text next to the box clickable too.

Buttons Should Look Like Buttons
This might seem like common sense but it is not unusual to find links on mobile sites which behave like buttons but do not look like them. Whether it is a link that looks the same as the text around it or a button that looks like a heading, the user needs some form of visual cue to help them understand where to click. Make buttons look three dimensional and they are more likely to invite clicks. It is also important that your site clearly indicates to a user which button they have clicked. Some sites do this really well, but others are a little patchy. Touching any part of a button should result in a visual signal for the user.

Why use buttons? Imagine the difficulty of picking the right link in the example above.

So does this mean we can never use hyperlinks? Of course you can. But you should use them minimally and don’t put lots of them into the same space. As a rule, try to have no more than one link per band of text. For example, In the point above about making buttons big enough, I have spread the points with links across multiple lines to make it easier for touchscreen users to tap them on the mobile version of this blog.

Of course when it comes to a mobile site which is trying to convert visitors into customers, try not to have much text.

In summary, buttons on mobile sites should be:

1. Big
2. Isolated
3. Reachable
4. Padded
5. Obvious
6. Prioritised
7. Descriptive

Buttons that have been well thought out and follow the guidelines above should help increase conversions on your mobile website.

Mobile Website Testing Tip: When you are building your mobile site, physically test it while you are in motion to best replicate the real-world user experience.

The next post will be looking at how to make conversions easier to complete on a mobile website. If you have feedback, please leave a comment.

Posted by Shane Cassells, Google Conversion Team

Lennox International, a provider of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) solutions, has seen mobile become a viable customer acquisition channel as consumers have turned to their smartphones to locate a dealer from Lennox’s vast dealer network. In line with Lennox’s innovative nature, Lennox partnered with their agency, Power Creative, to stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on the growth in mobile traffic they were seeing using Google Analytics.
Power Creative’s first step was to help Lennox build a mobile-optimized site focused on helping customers locate a dealer nearby. To promote their mobile site, Lennox and Power Creative turned to AdWords and created a separate mobile campaign to gain additional insights and flexibility for optimization (shown below).

With cheaper CPCs than their traditional desktop computer campaigns, and an increasing number of users locating a dealer on the mobile site, Power Creative quickly realized that the mobile campaign was effectively reaching purchase-ready customers at the bottom of the sales funnel.

Lennox and Power Creative then began utilizing the different extension options, such as Click-to-Call and Ad Sitelinks, to connect users with customer support and the most relevant pages of the mobile site. It was becoming clear that investing in the mobile site, along with building separate mobile campaigns, was paying off. Overall, Lennox saw an average CPC on mobile that was 86% lower than their desktop campaigns, and a cost per conversion that was 90% lower. Continued optimization has now led to separate mobile campaigns for search, display, and specific geographic locations, allowing Lennox to continue innovating with different keywords and ad text that is specific to the mobile user.

To learn more about Lennox’s success with mobile ads, download the entire case study here.

Posted by Samira Lama, Mobile Ads Specialist

Kimberly Clark, one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies, was curious to see how mobile advertising could benefit their multitude of brands but also wanted to learn how their consumers searched on mobile and where they were when they did. 

To pursue this curiosity and explore mobile advertising, Kimberly Clark teamed up with media agency, Mindshare, who ran test campaigns with Google Mobile ads featuring several brand keywords, targeted exclusively to iPhones and iPads. With these very specific, targeted mobile campaigns, Kimberly Clark saw an average CPC 44% less on mobile versus their desktop campaigns. They also saw that 7% of all clicks on the brand tested were coming from mobile. The campaigns gave Kimberly Clark enough intel on mobile advertising to move forward with optimizing their sites for mobile so they could offer their consumers a better experience while exploring and learning about the brands on their mobile devices. 

Mindshare agrees that mobile search advertising can no longer be ignored and must be implemented to capture a greater share of the market, “Mobile ads are reaching millions of price-conscious consumers searching for staples while un-tethered from the desktop. And, by being early entrants in the mobile space, we were able to drive traffic at lower average CPCs and to set optimal bids for each mobile device,” said Mindshare Group Search Director, Danny Huynh.

Kimberly Clark continues to see success on mobile across many brands and is focusing on developing mobile-specific campaigns to ensure a good interaction with their brands on mobile.

To learn more about Kimberly Clark’s mobile campaigns, download the entire case study here.

Posted by Dalia Mitra, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

A poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumer’s opinion of your brand or your company altogether.  In a recent study, we found that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing from their phone, and 40% go to a competitor’s.  By the end of this year, more than half of all Americans will own a smartphone. Your customers are mobile, are you?  

Today, we’re excited to announce a brand new tool to help your business get “mobile”-ized: Google Sites mobile landing pages.  With Google Sites mobile landing pages, you can build yourself a professional mobile landing page in minutes, for free -- and without any coding experience.

Why use Google Sites mobile landing pages?

• It’s easy.  Creating a Google Site is as easy as editing a document, which means there's no markup language for you to learn -- just get started.
• It’s free.  Google Sites is one of many free products offered by Google.
• It’s measurable.  One-click Google Analytics integration allows you to monitor your site's traffic.
• It’s fast.  Create your mobile landing page in minutes by starting from one of five pre-loaded templates.  You can also start from scratch with the custom template.

Restaurant            Local Business         Lead Generation              Social                eCommerce 

Watch the video below to see how “small” businessman, Bob, transformed his business using Google Sites:



Visit sites.google.com/mobilize to get started today!

Posted by Shiv Kumar, Mobile Specialist