Comcast is one of the nation’s largest Internet, phone, and cable television service providers for residential and business customers.  High-quality customer service and products are central to Comcast’s business. To this end, Comcast closely evaluates how users engage their online site and find ways to improve upon their experience. With the surging rise of mobile Internet users, Comcast wanted to take better advantage of the growing mobile platform for advertising. Partnering with Google, Comcast developed a mobile campaign strategy that utilized mobile AdWords and mobile search ad extensions driven by top keywords and created mobile-optimized sites for all of its products.

The search campaign engaged users searching for Comcast keywords and directed them to mobile-optimized sites with mobile-specific functions including streamlined ordering, checking service availability nearest their location, and clicking-to-call for assistance. Comcast also implemented a mobile ad extension that allowed users to call Comcast directly from the search results page on their phone.


By advertising on the right channel with an approach optimized for mobile, Comcast capitalized on the many consumers already searching for Comcast services on mobile but who previously could not access needed information as easily.  Making completing a Comcast order with a mobile device simple and convenient, the campaign led  to a surge in mobile sales with mobile now driving over 10% of all online sales.

• Average of more than 1 million impressions on mobile per month
• More than 270% greater CTR than desktop for mobile search
• More than 100% greater CTR than desktop for mobile click-to-call
• Over 10% of all online sales driven from mobile

To learn more about how Comcast maximized mobile, see here for  the full case study.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Hair Club, with the help of agency partner Integrated Media Solutions, uses Google mobile ads as a key way to reach new customers. With 35 years of experience, Hair Club is the world’s leading provider of proven hair loss solutions. In their marketing activities, their primary goal is lead generation from their target demographic of men aged over 25 and women aged over 35.

Hair Club launched their mobile strategy by optimizing their website for mobile and leveraging Google AdWords to target specific key terms on mobile devices. Separate AdWords campaigns were created specifically for mobile devices and Hair Club took advantage of mobile specific formats including location extensions.  On the mobile Google Display Network Hair Club began using contextually targeted call-only ads on relevant websites to generate additional qualified phone leads.

For their mobile site, Hair Club took steps such as prominently displaying a click to call phone number at the top of the page to drive new customers to their call center.  

“From our own research we know that 30% of the people visiting the Hair Club website do so because they’ve seen our TV ad, and often they are on the sofa with their mobile device or tablet. What better way to be able to have someone convert than calling on their mobile device?” says Lee Zoppa, Vice President of Marketing and Advertising for Hair Club.

The results show the campaigns are proving an efficient way to generate more leads and interest in Hair Club. “While desktop searchers constitute 94% of sales, mobile is rapidly gaining ground, capturing 6% of sales over the last three months,” says Lalita Warren, Hair Club’s Media Director.  The campaign exceeded Hair Club expectations with exceptional results:

• 30:1 return on investment on Google mobile ads
• 100% increase in mobile search ad clicks over the past year
• 11% higher conversion rate from mobile ads than desktop ads as tracked via online form

“Google mobile ads provide a successful, incremental platform for us. Mobile and tablet usage is increasing exponentially. Given our target demographic, we get more qualified traffic through mobile,” says Zoppa.

Get the full case study here.

Posted by Michael Schipper, Product Marketing Manager

Sweetwater Sound Inc., one of the largest dealers of musical equipment in the United States, launched the first version of its mobile site in 2008.   Sweetwater, partnering with top interactive agency RKG , became an early adopter of Google AdWords, and most recently incorporated mobile search into its marketing strategies. Since representing 2.6% of total sweetwater.com traffic in 2008, mobile traffic has now more than tripled to 8% of total traffic.

By tweaking bids for device-specific ads, mobile ads targeted at iPads are demonstrating a better return on investment than any other tactic. “Because iPad leads are targeted to that device and iPads are popular among musicians and sound engineers, order values generated from iPads run a full 10% higher in value than orders generated from any other source,” says Matthew Mierzejewski, Vice President of PPC with RKG. “We were able to leverage iPad user data to increase our bids on that segment of the mobile audience. By leveraging this segmentation, we’ve been able to increase iPad CPCs by close to 90% compared to bundling smartphone and iPad devices together, efficiently driving more revenue for Sweetwater.”  

Pleased with click-through-rates as well as the results from using tried and true keywords on smartphones like iPhones, Sweetwater is now making the most out of tablet-targeted mobile ads. With the help of Google mobile ads, Sweetwater:

• Increased conversions: iPad conversion rate was 30% higher than desktops and laptops rate, and orders originating from iPads had 10% higher value
• Improved ROI: Continuously tweaked ad copy, keywords, and bids based on performance by device
• Maximized successful sales model: Implemented the click-to-call feature to drive more leads into telephone service center, where hundreds of expert sales engineers nurture customer loyalty

To learn more, see the full case study here.

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

One of the biggest headaches in promoting your app is being able to work out how many downloads a specific ad campaign generated. AdMob is committed to providing app developers tools to optimize advertising spend and maximize ROI. App Conversion Tracking helps you do just that by measuring your app download campaign performance.

We’re rolling out a new feature that makes this even easier--automatic app conversion tracking for Android campaigns. All AdMob Android app download campaigns will now automatically report conversion data from the Android Market. This means that you’ll be able to see conversions from your app download campaign without configuring any special code.



To see conversion data for your Android download campaigns, simply go to the App Conversion Tracking section of your account.  You’ll be able to see the number of downloads driven by your AdMob advertising campaign. In addition, you’ll be able to keep tabs on the cost per download and conversion rate so you can better optimize your campaign.

Posted by: Morgan Hallmon, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Mobile devices are mainstream. In fact, according to our newest research more consumers in the US, UK, Germany, France and Japan use a mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone) than a computer (desktop or laptop).

But our most significant findings centered on the clear consumer shift to smartphones. This trend was evident in all countries, with the UK showing the largest increase in smartphone usage from 30 to 45% of the total population. We also found that the demographics of smartphone owners are shifting. Smartphone usage among females increased in all five countries. Smartphone ownership also rose among those aged 45+ in the US, UK and France. 



We partnered with Ipsos to conduct this research with a goal of gaining greater insight into consumer usage of mobile devices, the shift to smartphones and the emergence of tablets as a fourth screen. This study was fielded amongst the total population in the US, UK, Germany, France and Japan. Phase 1 of the research was conducted in January and February 2011 and Phase 2 in September and October 2011.

Some of the key findings of this new research include:

• Consumers are clearly shifting from feature phones to smartphones. Smartphone penetration reached 45% in the UK, 38% in the US and France, 23% in Germany and 17% in Japan.  
• Consumers are increasingly using their smartphones for Internet access. Germany saw the biggest increase with the percentage of smartphone owners using their device for daily Internet access jumping from 39% to 49%, while Japan had the highest percentage accessing the Internet daily on their smartphone at 88%.  A little over two-thirds of smartphone users in the US and over half of smartphone users in the UK access the mobile Internet daily.
• Smartphone owners are continuing to get online on their computers. Across all five countries approximately 75% of smartphone owners said they continued to use their computer to access the Internet daily.  
• Consumers are embracing tablets as the fourth screen. Tablet usage increased across all five countries with the highest penetration amongst the total population in the US at 11%. The rate of tablet usage is even higher amongst smartphone owners - hitting 17% in the US, 11% in Japan and 10% in the UK.

Download the PDF report here to see the full set of data from this research.

Posted by: Nicole Leverich, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Online advertisers seek to effectively reach people across all devices and platforms. This means that regardless of whether your customer is on a computer, a mobile phone, or a tablet, we want to provide you with specific ways to reach them through targeted ad campaigns.  

AdWords advertisers already have access to a range of campaign targeting options. For our advertisers running mobile campaigns,we offer the ability to run separate mobile and desktop campaigns, the ability to target tablet devices, or target specific mobile phone carriers in your country (1).

Today we’re introducing two advanced targeting options that are now available in your AdWords campaign settings: WiFi targeting, and targeting by mobile operating system version.

WiFi Targeting
To reach users when you know they’ll have a high speed connection, you’ll now be able to target your campaigns to mobile users specifically on a WiFi connection.  If you’re currently targeting users on specific mobile carriers,  you can now target users on WiFi connections too, and expand your reach. This is also useful if your campaign or landing page has high bandwidth content, like videos that you’d like mobile users to access.

AdWords advertisers in these countries can now use WiFi targeting

To get maximum visibility for your ads we recommend targeting all available carriers and Wi-Fi traffic.

OS Version Targeting
You can already target mobile users by their operating system platform. For example, you can specify whether you would like to reach Android, iOS or WebOS devices with your ads. We’re now giving you even more granular targeting options if your application or service is only applicable to particular platform versions, such as “iOS version 4.0 and above”.


Take advantage of these new campaign targeting options in your Campaign Settings. Stay tuned to the Google Mobile Ads blog for updates on new ways target and reach your mobile customers!

(1)

Available in select countries: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86623

Posted by: Morgan Hallmon, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Mobile turned a corner this year. As smartphones and tablets became a part of our everyday lives, business owners’ conversations shifted from 'Why should I advertise on mobile or build a mobile website?' to 'How do I get started?’.  

Five major industry trends emerged in 2011 that will carry us into 2012, and beyond.

1 - Everyone goes mobile
Smartphones and tablets proved that they weren’t just for the geekiest - er, ‘tech savviest’ - among us.  These devices are increasingly becoming the norm and they continue to change how people connect with each other, and with businesses, everywhere.  According to our research with IPSOS earlier this year:

• 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, to finding more product info, to locating a retailer.
• 70% use their smartphones while in a store.
• 77% have contacted a business via mobile, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business.

It’s not just that more people are using smartphones and tablets (though the numbers are skyrocketing at an accelerating pace)—it’s that a huge, and fast-growing base of smartphone users, now expect to engage with businesses on mobile. The mainstream consumer got mobilized in 2011.

2 - Mobile search transforms shopping, forever   
Analyzing mobile search trends helped the industry better understand how people were using their mobile devices in 2011.  For starters, we learned a lot about the ‘timing’ of mobile and tablets.  These devices enable us to be constantly connected to the internet, as mobile usage has proven to be complementary to the desktop.  We got a clearer picture of how search is changing the ways we shop and connect with businesses.  More people are looking for deals both en route to stores and within them on mobile - in the retail category, “Black Friday” related mobile queries were over 200% higher this year than in 2010.  Users have also developed some mobile-specific shopping habits - for example, 44% of all searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms are projected to come from mobile devices this holiday season.  For procrastinators, mobile has come to the rescue!

In October, we looked at some of the newest ways marketers can build their businesses via mobile search.  But, this is only the beginning - whether people are trying to find or call a business, compare prices in a store, or visit a site or app directly from their phones, search and search ads will be the tools that shape a new shopping experience, enabling us connect with businesses, research and buy products on or offline, all via mobile.

3 - Progress with the mobile advertising pipes
As an industry, we came a long way in terms of improving the ‘pipes’ - the systems, products and technologies that advertisers use to build, serve, and measure mobile ads.  It’s still early days, but the progress with standards like MRAID and the momentum behind HTML5, are helping to rally the mobile community and make it easier for marketers and customers to connect on the platform.  Getting existing tools to ‘speak mobile’ has been another key to helping mobile advertising grow-up as quickly users and businesses want it to.  Across search and display, the tools the industry is already familiar with are getting mobilized.  There’s plenty of work still to do, but significant progress is being made - watch this space in 2012.

4 - Tablets join the mobile party
Tablets made quite a splash this year.  Usage trends sharpened - we’re seeing that people people use these devices to shop, consume media, have fun, and they do so most frequently in the evenings.  Tablets are a third screen to be reckoned with for marketers - we saw a 440% growth in traffic from tablets in November 2011 compared to December 2010 on the AdMob network.  The business potential is tremendous: not only are users more inclined to shop and make purchases on tablets, but because campaigns can be more effective running across several screens instead of one, tablets offer an incremental opportunity for marketers.  Our research with Nielsen showed that campaigns on several screens can be ‘Better Together’ - indeed, in cases like Adidas’, that proved to be true.

5 - Businesses start (actually) thinking mobile first
Smartphones and tablets aren’t small desktop computers - they’re new devices being used in entirely new ways. This year, businesses began to embrace this at scale and many saw good things happen when they built ad campaigns and websites specifically for mobile.  Ticketsnow’s success with a mobile optimized site - increased site traffic, and more ticket sales - is just one example of the benefits of building for mobile.  Initiatives like GoMo and platform-specific ad features will help businesses better connect with mobile customers in the coming months, and beyond.

It’s hard to believe, but as far as the industry has come in 2011, we’re still in the earliest chapters of mobile’s story.  The ways people connect to businesses on their mobile devices and the tools they’re using to connect from them progressed by leaps and bounds this year and soon, we’ll see the mainstream shift that changes the way mobile connects people with brick-and-mortar storefronts as well.  Mobile will be moving full speed ahead in 2012 so keep those sleeves rolled-up and those seatbelts fastened - we’ll see you then.

Posted by: Karim Temsamani, VP Mobile Ads