Consumers are having a love affair with their smartphones. They have become the first thing we reach for in the morning and the last thing we put down at night. How do we know? We asked them. In January, we completed our new “Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Users” research, conducted with Ipsos, to drive a deeper understanding of how consumers use their smartphones.

Smartphone ownership has jumped globally - increasing 11% to 44% of the total population in Spain and by 7% to 38% of the total population in the US.  Smartphone owners are always using their device - in France, 90% use their mobile devices to access the web every day.  Smartphone owners are using their device everywhere - in Germany, 67% of smartphone owners use their mobile device while on public transport. Smartphone owners are not just browsing, they are taking action - in the UK, 84% of smartphone owners look for local information on their mobile and 78% take action afterwards such as calling or visiting the business.

This consumer love affair with their mobile devices is transforming how consumers connect and live their lives. It is also transforming industries, creating new opportunities and changing how businesses engage with their customers. I believe we will see significant advances in mobile this year and the companies who fall in love with mobile will be best positioned to capitalize on them. Here are my 12 predictions for the major developments we will see in mobile in 2012:

1. More than 1 billion people will use mobile devices as their primary internet access point.
2. There will be 10 days where >50% of trending search terms will be on mobile
3. Mobile’s role in driving people into stores will be proven and it will blow us away
4. “Mobile driven spend” will emerge as a big category
5. Smartphones will prove exceptional at driving a new consumer behavior
6. Tablets will take their place as the 4th screen
7. New industry standards will make mobile display easy to run
8. 5 new, mobile first companies will reach the Angry Birds level of success
9. The ROI on mobile and tablet advertising will increase as a result of the unmatched relevance of proximity
10. The intersection of mobile and social will spark a dramatic new form of engaging consumers
11. 80% of the largest 2,000 websites globally will have an HTML5 site
12. One million small businesses globally will build a mobile website

Businesses are no longer asking why do I need to go mobile. Now they are asking how do I go mobile. How can my brand find success in the mobile space? How can I maximize the relationship with my customers on mobile? The answer is to truly operationalize mobile. This year we are challenging businesses to fall in love with mobile, align their organization for mobile success, and create a mobile website.  The companies who choose to ignore their mobile customers will miss an incredible opportunity and risk getting left behind.  So get going.

Download the “Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Users” report to learn more about smartphone usage and mobile consumer behavior in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France,  Spain and Japan.

Posted by Jason Spero, Head of Global Mobile

Are you looking for a way to bring your business site to new heights?  Have you considered how users see your site on their mobile devices?  As we approach the end of the first quarter, we teamed up with DudaMobile’s Chief Marketing Officer, Dennis Mink, to learn more about the why and how of optimizing your site for mobile devices.  DudaMobile is a mobile website creation platform that makes it easy to turn existing websites into mobile-friendly sites.  Read the interview below and download the full whitepaper here.     

Google: First things first.  What exactly does optimizing your site for mobile devices mean?

Dennis: Take a look at your desktop and smartphone screens next to one another.  The desktop is a whole lot bigger than the smartphone, right?  Optimizing your site means that you’re simplifying it, keeping it clean and making sure it is clear what action you want visitors to take when they visit.  A mobile-friendly site is focused on speed, because the on-the-go user wants your site to load as quickly as possible.  To improve speed, you remove content like images, sticking to one or two images per page, and any other data-heavy or flash content.  You also add mobile-specific features like clickable call and map buttons.

Google: We’ve probably all stumbled across bad sites while on our smartphones.  The pinching and zooming can be infuriating!  Just how much of a business threat is having a poor quality mobile site?

Dennis: If you take a look at the research that Compuware released, 19% of mobile users will form a negative overall perception of a company if they are dissatisfied with the mobile experience.  In fact, nearly 2 in 3 users are unlikely to return to a mobile site with which they had trouble and 40% of consumers said they’d visit a competitor’s mobile site instead. Optimizing your site for mobile devices is an absolute must.

Google: And on the flipside, how much of a benefit is it for business owners to invest in optimizing their sites for mobile?

Dennis: Brand Anywhere and Luth released that 51% of consumers are more likely to purchase from retailers that have a mobile-friendly website.  Also, to give some context as to how significant this issue is, Compuware released that 74% of mobile phone users will wait 5 seconds or less for a page to load and 77% of top companies’ mobile sites take more than 5 seconds to load.  Right now we’re watching business owners catch up to user expectations.

Google: What are the most effective mobile-specific features to update your site with when optimizing for mobile?

Dennis: Click-to-call and click-to-map. These are powerful features that allow users to call a business or view a business’ location on a map with one tap of a finger.

Google: What sort of businesses will benefit the most from these features?  

Dennis: In Q4 2011 we did a sampling of 500 different businesses and looked to see what percentage of users were calling the businesses or going to the business.  We analyzed how consumers responded to different categories of local business sites.  We found that 1 in 5 visits to a local business mobile site result in an immediate call to the business.  Looking more closely, 44% of the times users visited transportation companies’ sites, like taxi and car services, were through the company’s click to call feature.  Here’s how other local businesses compare:
DudaMobile Internal Data Q4 2011

So what does all this data mean?  Basically, more and more people are contacting companies through a site’s click-to-call feature.  More calls into businesses means more clients, and more sales.

Google: So let’s say I’m a small business owner with a very limited budget.  I want to optimize my site for mobile, but may not be able to afford the full-charged mobile update my developer is quoting.  What’s the most important advice for a small business owner considering building a mobile-friendly site?

Dennis: Think speed, size and buttons.  

First, with speed, put the most important content at the top, remove unnecessary text and compress images.  Make it easy to convert by guiding the user closer to purchasing with simplified forms and click-to-call options.  Make it local and include an address, map and option to search for nearby locations.  

Second, for size, say no to left-right scrolling and more than 7 links per page.  Say yes to menus, back/forward buttons and a clear search bar.  Compare the desktop and mobile versions of your site side-by-side.  A user can return to where they left off on a desktop and they’ll want to be able to do that on a mobile device too.  Tell your developer to include a redirect code on your mobile site so that a user is prompted to choose between the mobile or desktop versions.  

Third, with buttons, be thumb-friendly.  Make buttons and check-boxes large because thumbs come in all sizes.  

Finally, listen to your users.  Use data from user surveys and web analytics to improve your site performance over the long run.  

Google: What trends are you seeing for mobile sites in 2012?  

Dennis: When I think of this next year, I think, “hold on”.  We expect it to be a crazy year of growth.  From our side we are projecting to triple the number of sites optimized for mobile by DudaMobile (http://www.DudaMobile.com/) by the end of 2012.  

The writing is on the wall.  Small business owners, it’s time to take your site to new heights and make your site mobile-friendly.  

To read more, download the full whitepaper here.  To learn more about why mobile matters, test how your site looks on mobile and receive a free personalized report, visit GoMo.

Posted by: Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing and Jessica Sapick, Google Small Business Strategy

This week Barcelona lives up to its title as the Mobile World Capital with the launch of 26 new mobile websites for some of the city’s most famous attractions, restaurants, nightclubs and businesses.  Barcelona Go Mobile is a new initiative created in collaboration with Invest in Catalonia, the support of the Government of Catalonia, the City of Barcelona and Google that enables businesses to better engage with their mobile customers through new mobile websites.  

The City of Barcelona is leading the way by mobilizing their own site as part of this initiative and encouraging other businesses to take full advantage of the mobile opportunity. Other famous attractions and businesses participating in this initiative include FC Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batlló (Gaudí), Aquarium, Picasso Museum and Fundació Joan Miró.

Check out the next game with FC Barcelona or go shopping at La Boqueria market on your mobile

We know that given a poor experience with a website on their mobile phone, 61% of mobile users won't visit it again. In Spain, 44% of consumers have a smartphone1, but only 10% of large businesses have a mobile optimized site. In addition, giving users an easy-to-navigate mobile-optimized site is key to a good experience as one in four smartphone users in Spain2 make purchases on their mobile.

With the arrival of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, there is no better time for the city’s businesses to launch new mobile sites that give them the ability to connect with new customers and tourists who are among the most frequent users of smartphones. Every year the autonomous region of Catalonia receives more than 15 million tourists, making a mobile presence essential for businesses.

Experience the might of the Sagrada Family or plan your trip in the City of Barcelona on your mobile

If you live in Barcelona, are planning a visit or just want to see some of the best this world class city has to offer, pull out your mobile and visit these new sites today through barcelonagomobile.com to discover the best of Barcelona on your mobile.

Posted by: Frank Albert Coates, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile & Social ads EMEA


1TNS Infratest GmbH, Global CATI Enumeration Survey, 2012
2Ipsos GmbH Smartphone research, 2012

Starwood Hotels & Resorts prides itself on delighting its guests wherever they are, and mobile has provided a tremendous opportunity to further Starwood hotel’s efforts, especially as travelers become more technically savvy across multiple platforms. Working with digital marketing agency Razorfish, Starwood Hotels & Resorts began running Google mobile search ads with click-to-call (CTC) and location extensions in November 2009, using a launch and iterate approach to achieve the best results. Through using mobile ads, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Razorfish learned how guests are using ads to call as well as find directions to property locations.

“Implementing click-to-call and location extensions simultaneously boosted ROI and improved user experience,” says Amos Ductan, Senior Search Manager at Razorfish. “Mobile users are 20 times more likely to click on a map than desktop users and people who make a call are much more likely to convert. Ad extensions improved both conversions and customer experience.”

The combination of click-to-call and location ad extensions resulted in an increase in mobile paid search ROI, with CTC now driving a majority of Starwood hotel’s mobile search bookings. Additionally, Starwood hotel’s hyperlocal mobile search campaign resulted in:

• 20x increase in mobile paid search ROI
• Mobile booking growth of 20% month on month
• 200% increase in mobile traffic

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

Posted by Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager

In September we announced that AdMob helps app developers build great app businesses, while AdSense helps publishers monetize their mobile web content. We have continued to invest in this vision by announcing today that our core AdSense product now supports mobile ad unit sizes, including the mobile banner ad unit for high-end mobile web pages.



Now publishers have a single AdSense product to manage their ad units across mobile and desktop, and they can accomplish powerful cross-platform tasks like unified revenue reporting broken out by desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Mobile web publishers need to update their tags to the new AdSense for content mobile ad units by May 1, 2012 when we will discontinue the AdMob mobile web product.  

To learn more about how this transition may impact you, please visit our AdSense Help Center.

Posted by Vishay Nihalani, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Ahh, Valentine’s Day.  The one day of the year when everyone tries to be a Casanova - carefully planning the details of a romantic evening - but most end up being passionate procrastinators.

Of course, you started off the week before Valentine’s Day with the best of intentions.  You planned to pick up a bouquet of her favorite flowers, make a reservation at the hot new restaurant in town, get a box of chocolate covered strawberries.  You took a midday break at work to do some online research.  But then your day got in the way.  So did the next one.  And despite your best efforts, on the final days leading up to the 14th, you found yourself thanking your lucky stars for your smartphone.  Fear not, you were in good company this Valentine’s Day.

Mobile makes up 62% of popular restaurant related searches on Valentine’s Day

For last-minute reservation makers, mobile was the device of choice.  A whopping 62% of total US searches for popular national chain restaurants on Valentine’s Day occurred on high end mobile devices or tablets. If you weren’t advertising on mobile, you missed an opportunity to reach nearly two-thirds of consumers looking to find a restaurant.

Volume of Searches for Popular Chain Restaurants in the US

Searches for these restaurants grew 359% on mobile, 142% on desktop and 135% on tablets between February 7th and February 14th.  These trends around restaurant related searches make sense when we think about the unique properties of our phones and how we use them in our daily lives - they are in our pockets and at our fingertips in that last minute frenzy; they are location aware, and they can, though we sometimes forget these days, make phone calls!

Clicks-to-call increase for last minute flower searches

Smartphones also helped save the day with last minute gift givers.  Mobile searches for flower-related terms grew 227% from February 7th to February 14th in the US.  On Valentine’s Day, the urgency to find flowers increased as more mobile searchers clicked on a phone number or on a link to “Get Directions” in an ad.  Consumers were 560% more likely to click to make a call week over week.  And mobile clicks to get directions increased 514% over the same period as people were scrambling to find a nearby florist.

Some of our passionate procrastinators went even further down to the wire, as can be seen in this chart which shows the hourly trend for clicks-to-call on flower queries in California on Valentine’s Day versus one week before. The lunch break was the last chance!

Volume of Mobile Clicks-to-Call on Flower Related Searches in California

Snuggling up to Tablets

For singles still looking for a special someone, tablets made a nice companion.  On the weekend before Valentine’s Day, we saw searches for popular online personals sites grow relatively more on tablets than on computers and smartphones in the US.  Those looking to make a last minute love connection seem to have been curled up with their tablets in their laps.

US Search Trends on “match.com” and “eharmony”: Scaled by Feb 6th

In the end, it all seems to have worked out for our Casanova friends.  They used the magic of mobile to make their last-minute Valentine's Day celebrations feel as memorable as if they'd been planned weeks in advance.

Posted by: Dai Pham & Samantha Podos Nowak, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

As part of Google’s Go Mobile (“GoMo”) initiative, we wanted to share the impressive results 1-800-Flowers saw from their revamped mobile site.  An early mover in the mobile space, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM began their mobile program over six years ago, and has since flowered to include both an app and mobile website as well as significant mobile advertising presence. Based on their analysis however, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM noticed that their mobile website still had room for improvement.  To address the problem, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM launched an initiative to revamp their mobile site. Amit Shah, Director of Mobile and Social Media at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, recognized that the best way to approach mobile was not to simply transport their desktop website onto mobile but prioritize specific features for the mobile user.

“Trying to bring all of your desktop site to mobile misses the picture. You need to bring the right things to mobile,” says Amit.

           Before    After

1-800-FLOWERS.COM prioritized features such as shopping cart saving but was careful to prune less used features such as order tracking, which they identified only a small percent of desktop users utilized. Next, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM identified key content that would improve the user experience specifically for their own customers. Finally, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM streamlined the mobile shopping experience as much as possible by significantly reducing the number of steps it takes to complete a purchase and ehancing features such as a calendar that allows users to easily choose the best delivery date based on shipping prices and personal delivery needs.



By thoughtfully analyzing user behavior on their mobile site, and building enhancements to make the browsing and purchase experience even more robust, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM saw heartfelt success in the performance of their mobile website.

• Increase in conversion rate and 25% increase in average time spent on site, despite decrease in steps to complete a purchase
• 53% reduction in cart abandonment
• Increase in the average order value on mobile

Get the full study here to learn more on how to optimize best for mobile or test how your site looks on mobile at http://www.howtogomo.com/en/#test-your-site and download a report with personalized recommendations for your mobile site.

Posted by: Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager