Today we're sharing some search insights around the Oscars on the Think with Google site. Mobile continues to play an increasingly larger role in consumer search behavior as confirmed by the 2012 Oscars. Please see Think Insights for full information on which stars and advertisers were the big search winners in this year’s Oscar Awards, and how mobile impacted the search landscape. Mobile insights are excerpted below. 

While desktop searches still capture the lion’s share of searching during the Oscars, a closer look at Sunday’s ad-inspired searches show the prevalence of consumers using their mobile devices and tablets. These devices are generally always within arm’s reach of the consumer and therefore important players in the quest for immediate information, particularly during large-scale live events.

On-air advertisers benefitted from cross-screen behavior, as well. Queries prompted by on-air advertisements were conducted on mobile devices and tablets an average of 30% of the time -- perhaps great news for advertisers that the smartphone or tablet is taking place of the refrigerator run during commercial breaks.

This cross-media consumption behavior represents a tremendous opportunity for marketers.
While concurrent TV-PC usage is well established, new data released from Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Research reveals that  51% of Americans report using the Internet on their smartphones while watching TV. Particularly relevant for marketers is that smartphone users search on their devices in response to ads they see on TV, with 58% of users reporting this behavior.

ABC’s much hyped and highly promoted upcoming dramedy, “GCB,” illustrates this growing cross-media behavior  as consumers watched the big screen and searched on the small screen.  Searches clearly spiked the two times that ABC aired the the GCB promos during the Oscars and were more pronounced on mobile.  The ads with Broadway legend Kristin Chenoweth and Designing Women star Annie Potts had consumers reaching for their smartphones and tablets for more information. 53% of GCB searches came from mobile, with 42% from smartphones and 11% from tablet users. 


A look at the data also shows that tablets are becoming increasingly common couch companions. Searches for vacation rental specialist homeaway.com as a result of their on-air advertising show that mobile queries were split almost evenly between tablets and smartphones. The combination of a tablet’s connectivity and comfortable screen size makes it a popular choice for consumers and is an important trend to watch for savvy marketers developing cross-media strategies. 

Fame Drives Fortune

From bridesmaids to Muppets to Marilyn Monroe, the 2012 Oscars leveraged the passions of an adoring public and their thirst for more glamour, gossip, and goods. More searches through more channels by an increasingly digitally-connected audience will continue to provide new opportunities for advertisers to reach and energize consumers.
Posted by Christina Park, Product Marketing Manager, Think with Google

Yesterday we shared some topline insights into consumers’ love affair with their smartphones and why businesses must fall in love with mobile in 2012. Today we go deeper into key findings on mobile consumer behavior in six countries - USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Japan - from the new “Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Users” research we conducted in January 2012 with Ipsos.  

Consumers love multi-tasking while using their mobile phones

• In general Americans are the biggest mobile multi-taskers, with 81% having used their smartphone while engaging with other media.
• 54% of UK smartphone users watched TV while engaging with their smartphone.
• 36% of Spaniards exhibit true multi-screen behavior as they use their smartphones while also using another internet connected device such as their computer.

This offline media consumption causes consumers to search on their smartphones

• Across most of these six markets, roughly 60% of smartphone users are searching because of an ad they’ve seen offline or in a store.
• Smartphone owners in Spain lead the way in searching as a result of seeing an offline ad. More than two-thirds (68%) search because of something they saw offline, with 62% searching as a result of something they saw on TV.
• Half of German smartphone users (49%) have searched because of something they’ve seen in a store, and one-third (34%) of French smartphone users have searched on their mobile due to an ad they’ve seen in a magazine.

More than 90% of global smartphone users are searching on mobile, making it a truly mainstream behavior

• 99% of smartphone users in Japan have used a search engine on mobile. This means that practically everyone who’s gone online on mobile has searched on their phone.
• Mobile search is a frequent activity. In most of these six countries more than 75% of smartphone Internet users search at least once a week.

Consumers Take Action After Looking for Local Information

• 92% of Americans use their smartphones to look for information about local businesses or services.
• Local information seekers take action. 81% of French smartphone users who’ve looked for local information then acted on it with a quarter (26%) having called the business and 43% having visited the business.
• Globally, 1 out 5 smartphone users in all six countries made a purchase after looking for local information, whether in-store or online.

One quarter of global smartphone Internet users have made a purchase on their smartphone

• Japan leads the way in mobile commerce with 40% of smartphone Internet users having made a purchase on their phone.  One third of Americans (34%) and approximately a quarter of those in the European countries have made a purchase.
• Mobile shoppers are frequent purchasers. Across all markets, more than 50% of those who’ve made a mobile purchase do so at least on a monthly basis. In Spain, 64% of mobile shoppers make a purchase at least monthly, with 15% purchasing on a weekly basis.

Smartphones Influence Consumer Purchase Decisions & Channels

• Nearly one in four (26%) French smartphone owners say they intentionally have their mobile with them to compare prices and get product information. And the French say they have changed their mind about purchasing something in-store (19%) or online (17%) as a result of information they gathered on their smartphone.
• Smartphone research also leads to purchases online and offline.  37% of UK smartphones Internet users have bought something online and 26% of German smartphone users have made a purchase offline in-store or over the phone after having researched something via their smartphone.

These insights into mobile consumer behavior have clear implications for businesses. The companies that make mobile central to their marketing strategies will have an advantage in engaging with the mobile consumer. Savvy advertisers should adopt integrated marketing campaigns to take advantage of consumers’ natural multi-tasking media behavior. Businesses should also develop cross-channel strategies that make use of mobile as a bridge between the online and offline world as consumers shop and look for local information.

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

Posted by: Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Last November, we launched our Go Mobile (“GoMo”) initiative to help business build mobile friendly websites.  By popular demand, today we’re launching a new suite of tools on howtogomo.com designed specifically for the needs of web content publishers.

4 out of 5 online publishers don’t have a mobile-optimized website, and they risk losing their fastest-growing audience.  Online publisher Baby Gaga is one of the 20% who have made the leap to mobile.  Two weeks after launching their mobile-friendly website they saw a 64% increase in mobile visits. This leading destination for educational materials and social support for pregnant women also saw an 82% increase in mobile page views and a 50% increase in revenue from mobile (full case study).  

Today Baby Gaga’s mobile users don’t need to squint and they view more pages per visit.

Visit howtogomo.com today to:

1. See how you rate. Use the GoMoMeter to analyze your site’s mobile user experience.
2. Start planning.  Download the GoMo Publisher Guide for mobile best practices.
3. Find a partner.  Learn about vendors who can help with implementation.

As mobile continues to take off, we believe it's important for publishers to develop a strong mobile strategy now and make the most of this new opportunity. Baby Gaga’s decision to go mobile allowed them to improve the user experience for their mobile visitors and also to make more money. We want to help you do the same.

Posted by Chris LaSala, Director, Strategic Partner Development, Mobile

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