Box, a Silicon Valley based start-up focused on providing solutions in online content management, has been growing exponentially since it launched in 2005. Box has seen success with their online advertising campaigns but wanted to ensure they were in front of all prospective clients, so they tested mobile as another way to acquire new users. With Google Mobile Ads, Box was able to setup a mobile-targeted search campaign in just minutes. In the first month of running mobile search ads, more than 30% of Box’s overall conversions from Google came from their mobile campaigns, demonstrating the great potential for B2B businesses on mobile.
Hear more from Box below in the video case study about their experience on mobile and advertising with Google.
The best consumer experiences on mobile devices happen on websites that are designed for mobile. We all know the difference that sites designed for mobile make in pure usability - they are designed for the smaller touchscreen, making it easy to find what you are looking for and interact with. We believe that giving consumers the best possible experience on their mobile device is critically important. A poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumer’s opinion of a brand or company and make it hard for them to engage or make a purchase. A recent study which asked users about the performance of mobile websites found that 61% of users# are unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing from their phone.
Last year, we began to limit ad serving on high-end mobile devices if they pointed to landing pages with Flash-heavy content. This was an initial step taken to improve the experience for mobile users. In the coming weeks, we will be introducing the mobile optimization of a website as a new factor of ads quality for AdWords campaigns that are driving mobile search traffic. As a result of this change, ads that have mobile optimized landing pages will perform better in AdWords -- they will generally drive more mobile traffic at a lower cost.
We encourage you to visit the website for your business on a mobile phone, and experience your site as your customers do. If your site is not mobile optimized, we are committed to helping you get started. We recently launched a free Google Sites tool to help you create simple mobile pages. Here is a webinar that has useful best practices for mobile sites. There are casestudies from businesses who created successful mobile sites, and a series of blog posts (1, 2, 3) with tips on how to build a mobile friendly site. These are some resources that can help businesses get started.
Stay tuned to theGoogle Mobile Ads blog for news of upcoming events and initiatives related to mobile site optimization.
Posted by David Nachum, Product Manager, Mobile Ads
However you say it, Get Mobilized, Jouez La Carte Mobile, Mobil Werben or Get Mobilised, the time for mobile is now! With our Get Mobilized website now available in 3 new languages there has never been a better time for your business to join the mobile revolution. Don’t feel left out Japanese readers, you can モバイル最適化のおすすめ too! Your version is due to drop soon, keep your eyes on this blog for more information.
You just have to look around you to see how smartphones are radically changing the way consumers connect the real world with the online world. They are out and about, their smartphones are with them 24/7, they need your services and 82% of US smartphone users notice mobile ads. Is your business ready for them? They are searching more and more, in fact, at Google, we are seeing mobile search grow at an exponential rate, increasing five-fold worldwide in just the past two years - a rate comparable to the early days of desktop Google Search. No matter what your business size, you can get started with a few some simple steps to connect with your customers and grow your business with mobile advertising.
From tips on optimizing your mobile campaign performance to how to drive more calls to your business, there’s lots of getting started resources with short videos explaining the benefits of each key mobile ad solution. Want more clicks? Want more calls? Want more customers in your store? We’ll show you how.
Begin on the path to mobile advertising success by watching this introduction to mobile advertising video and don’t forget to Get Mobilized!
Posted by Jon Garwood, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
Incorporating social recommendations into display advertising will make ads more relevant for users and impactful for advertisers. Today the Google+ project is expanding to the Google Display Network.
The +1 button will start to roll out on AdSense for Mobile Content publishers for both text and image ads by early October.
The +1 button will appear on the left side of the ad and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then
fade out.
Advertisers interested in learning more about the +1 button can view today’s announcement or the AdWords help center for more details.
In the next several weeks, we will share the details of how developers can incorporate +1 ads into their mobile applications. Mobile web publishers who prefer not to show the +1 button can opt out starting today by signing in to your account at google.com/adsense.
We’re excited with the broad consumer engagement with the +1 button throughout the web. Find out more about the latest developments to the Google+ project here.
Posted by Neha Pattan, Software Engineer, Mobile Ads
We know that many of you have spent the better half of this year learning about how big the opportunity is to reach your customers on mobile. This Wednesday (9/21/11), we’re taking on a deeper dive of the five things every advertiser needs to have to get their business mobilized in a webinar, “Going Mobile: From Why to How?".
Are you ready to take your business and your clients forward with mobile? Sign up for our webinar today. To register, please visit this link:goo.gl/KFpeb We look forward to seeing you on September 21st!
Posted by Sonja Lee, Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads
India’s wildly popular MTV “Hero Honda” Roadies emulates the tried-and-true reality genre that has existed in some form almost from the get-go in television programming. Now in its eighth season on MTV, the youth-based show—with multi-lingual participants conversing in a mélange of Hindi and English—has expanded beyond the borders of India to encompass seasons in Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Africa, and, most recently, South America. When MTV wants to pique interest and engender buzz about the latest series, they now turn confidently to Google AdMob—one of the world’s largest mobile-advertising networks—to reach their core show audience of 18 to 24 year olds. AdMob reaches the roadie Roadies’ Gen Y version features a mismatched group of guys and gals and their adventures as they dash around a country—on eye-catching Honda motorbikes no less—completing myriad tasks and challenges. These consist of “Money tasks,” “Advantage tasks,” or “Immunity tasks,” the third of which grants immunity from the dreaded “vote-out” at the hands of their team members. Tasks can be either individual- or team-based and the final surviving “roadie” happily pockets the cumulative cash.
MTV Roadies ad opens to an interactive experience
Reaching a young, mobile-savvy customer In debuting MTV Roadies 8—set in exotic Brazil—the producers based their marketing campaign on Google AdMob to generate online excitement in the imminent launch. Targeting their core demographic of young smartphone-wielding males and females with a predilection for reality TV, the marketers created compelling banner ads that appeared across screens of a variety of downloadable apps. Users who clicked through to the mobile-optimized Roadies website could either view show previews, download special content, or participate in a relevant contest with goodies and vouchers. Because the targeted audience comprises the heaviest users of mobile handsets in India, MTV’s marketing team confidently expected healthy return-on-investment (ROI) for their advertising efforts. The data gleaned from Google Analytics exceeded their predictions. One quarter-million cellular users clicked through to the Roadies site and 80% of those, almost 200,000, then took the time to download show content or play different contests.
"We’re thrilled that we were able to capture so much attention during ourlatest mobile campaign and know that our Google mobile-ads strategy was instrumental in these results,” says Aditya Swamy, Senior Vice President MTV India. “From the tremendous online interest garnered before the first episode, we’re now predicting that our eighth season could well be our strongest. Based on these results, there will be no “vote-out” for Google AdMob as MTV plans its next mobile ad campaign for the popular show’s 9th season.
Here’s a question for all of you smartphone owners out there: If someone asked you whether you’d rather give up your phone or your TV, what would you say?
Earlier this year, Google teamed up with IPSOS Research to learn the answer to this exact question (and many others) by asking 30,000 people in 30 countries about how they use their smartphones, and where (on the bus? at the office?). It’s the first time anyone has asked this many people the same questions, for free: that means we can compare and contrast behaviour and trends across different age groups, different cities, and even countries.
So what did we learn about Australia? To start with, those of us at Google Australia were particularly proud to discover that Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world -- ahead of the US, UK, and Japan. This is a recent achievement for the land down under. The majority of smartphone owners we surveyed had bought their device in the preceeding 12 months, which means that Australia went from lagging to leading the worldwide smartphone revolution in just one year. We estimate that each month, 1-2% of the entire population of Australia buys a smartphone.
Here are a few other fun facts we found when we took a look at the numbers:
Not just on the go: You may think that your smartphoneis an “on the go” device, something you can use to kill time in line at thegrocery store or check email on the train. But our survey found that 81% of Australians used their smartphones at home during the past 7 days--compared to just 66% on the go. Nearly 1 in 2 use their smartphone while watching TV, while 1 in 3 use smartphones and another Internet-enabled device at the same time.
Smartphones are good for business: 49% use their smartphone to research and then call businesses--while 45% visit a business they’ve found using their smartphone.
We can now indulge our obsession with real estate 24x7: 1 in 5 Australians we surveyed had looked for an apartment or house with their smartphone--a figure 33% higher than the US or UK.
Search is big on smartphones: 2 in 5 of Australian smartphone owners use mobile search daily--more than the UK or Germany, and almost as high as the number who use desktop search daily.
Apps, apps, apps: our Australian survey respondents had 25 apps on average per smartphone--that’s versus 23 in the US & UK. They’re not just free apps, either; Australians averaged 8 paid apps per phone.
And now, the answer we’ve all been waiting for... 1 in 5 Aussie smartphone owners would rather give up their TV than their smartphone.
So what does this mean (aside from smartphones at the dinner table)? First, Australians are buying more smartphones, faster, than the rest of the world--and they’re using them more, too. Second, as more and more of us embrace the smartphone revolution, we’ll be watching more videos, searching for more businesses, buying more apps, and sharing more via mobile. In other words, there are a host of new opportunities for developers, web publishers, video creators, retailers, and advertisers to build and grow their businesses on mobile.
If you want to learn more, stay tuned: we’ll be making our global survey results public, in their entirety, for everyone who wants a closer look at the global mobile revolution.
Posted by Jason Pellegrino, Head of Mobile Ads, Google Australia and New Zealand
