As smartphones grow in number and importance, finding good data to understand mobile consumer behavior is increasingly important for businesses. Today we are launching the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet smartphone research for 26 countries at thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet.  Altogether Our Mobile Planet provides free access to unique data for a total of 40 countries in 22 languages from the 2011 and 2012 waves of research. We commissioned Ipsos MediaCT to conduct this research and are making it available in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

So which 6 countries have the highest smartphone adoption? Australia, UK, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and UAE all have more than 50% of their population on smartphones.  An additional seven countries - the US, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland - now have more than 40% smartphone penetration. These numbers show that a global mobile movement is happening as smartphone  adoption moves mainstream.  Mobile devices have become indispensable to people’s lives and are driving massive changes in consumer behavior.

Visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet today to:

thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet provides smartphone usage data for 40 countries

• Discover new mobile insights and create custom, presentation-ready charts.  You can compare across 40 countries, see year-over-year trends, or segment by demographics to understand specific  smartphone usage patterns  with our updated chart builder tool.
  
• Get the country level Executive Summary Reports.   Download a summary of the key research findings to learn how smartphones have transformed core consumer behaviors, including how we search, shop, keep ourselves entertained and navigate the world.  Country reports are available for the 26 countries in the 2012 research.
• Dive deeper with full data downloads.   Access the raw country level data for the 2012 research.

Global Findings from the 2012 Research
These are key highlights and findings from the 26 countries in the 2012 research:

Mobile moves mainstream as smartphone adoption advances rapidly around the world.  

Explore smartphone data patterns on thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet

• The UK (51%), Sweden (51%) and Norway (54%) all saw a dramatic increase of more than 20% in smartphone adoption in less than one year.  
• 52% of Australians own a smartphone, 15% more than did last year.
• Among the 26 countries, smartphone penetration was highest in the Middle East at 62% in the UAE and 60% in Saudi Arabia.  
• Argentina is starting to see  strong traction in smartphone adoption as nearly a quarter of the population (24%) uses a smartphone.

Consumers in emerging markets have some of the highest levels of mobile engagement.
New in 2012, we’ve added data for China, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  

• People in these countries are the biggest information seekers with 68% of smartphone users in China, 73% in Saudi Arabia and 72% in Argentina searching on their mobile device daily.
• Consumers in Egypt and Brazil are among the heaviest social networkers with 91% and 88% of smartphone users doing this.
• 59% of smartphone owners in China have made a purchase on their device, the highest among all countries in this study.

Looking for local information is a near universal smartphone behavior.
Consumers everywhere are using their smartphones to find businesses near them, then take action.

• 91% of Mexican smartphone owners look for local information and 88% take action.

• 58% of the French visit a business after looking for local information
• 48% of smartphone users in the UAE call a business after a local smartphone search.

Consumers are multi-tasking their media consumption.
There’s a clear global pattern of increasingly fragmented media attention as consumers shift between screens.

United States: Multi-tasking Mobile with other Media

Country Reports provide an executive summary of key smartphone findings
for the 26 countries in the 2012 research

• 80% of Japanese use their mobile device while consuming other media.  53% use their phones while watching TV and 30% while using the Internet on their computer.

• In the US, 51% use their phones while listening to music
• In Spain, 36% engage with mobile while reading a magazine.
• 75% in Brazil have performed a mobile search after seeing an offline ad.

Smartphones have made us smarter shoppers and influence purchase decisions.
Smartphones have  become an important shopping tool that impact if and where we make a purchase.

• 100% of smartphone owners in Japan use their phone to research a purchase.
• 36% of Egyptians have changed their mind about a purchase while in a store due to smartphone research.  
• People are researching items on their smartphones before making a purchase in other channels. 52% in Ireland end up making a  purchase on their computer and 37% in Argentina purchase in a store after researching on their smartphones.

We’ll be diving deep into regional data and insights over the next few days, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, visit www.thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet  to find answers to more of your questions about the mobile consumer.


Posted by: Dai Pham, Group Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads

Today we are posting an update to the AdMob SDKs for iOS and Android. This SDK update features several minor bug fixes and improvements.
We are also releasing an optional version of our SDK for iOS that includes the UDID parameter, which is used to improve ad performance and relevance. Apps utilizing this version must obtain appropriate user consent for sending device identifier information in compliance with relevant iOS policies. Posted by Chrix Finne, Product Manager

Join us on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST and watch as Google showcases how two businesses, Top Mast Resort in Massachusetts and Sava’s Restaurant in Michigan, go mobile and build mobile-friendly sites--live on air.  

You’ll see how Top Mast is preparing to take advantage of mobile travel purchase intent - which is five times higher than online travel purchase intent, according to InsightExpress.  You’ll also see Sava’s move ahead of 95% of restaurants that do not have mobile-friendly sites, according to a study by Restaurant Science.

Finally, you’ll hear from the CMO of Dudamobile, Dennis Mink; he’ll talk about best practices when using the mobile site builder and walk through important questions to ask yourself when building a mobile-friendly site.

Details on how to tune in

1. Sign into Google+ on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST
2. Go to the Think with Google Google+ page
3. Look for the stream post and click to enter the live stream  

Be sure to set a reminder in your calendar! If you have questions before or during the Hangout, post them with the hashtag #GoMoSite as a comment on the Google+ page.

Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Did you know that 40% of mobile web users reported that they’ve turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience1? With about half of all Americans now owning a smartphone2, it’s time for businesses to meet user expectations by delivering a mobile experience as good as the desktop experience. In short, it’s time to step up to the plate and build a site optimized for the mobile web.  
 


Google can help. We recently teamed up with DudaMobile to release a free mobile site builder.  In three easy steps you’re able to get started with mobile: (1) enter your site’s URL, (2) customize your site and (3) redirect mobile users automatically to the new mobile-friendly version.  It’s free and takes just a few minutes to complete!  

Join us on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST and watch as Google showcases how two businesses, Top Mast Resort in Massachusetts and Sava’s Restaurant in Michigan, go mobile and build mobile-friendly sites--live on air.  

You’ll see how Top Mast is preparing to take advantage of mobile travel purchase intent - which is five times higher than online travel purchase intent, according to InsightExpress.  You’ll also see Sava’s move ahead of 95% of restaurants that do not have mobile-friendly sites, according to a study by Restaurant Science.

Finally, you’ll hear from the CMO of Dudamobile, Dennis Mink; he’ll talk about best practices when using the mobile site builder and walk through important questions to ask yourself when building a mobile-friendly site.

Details on how to tune in

1. Sign into Google+ on Thursday, May 10th at 1pm EST/10am PST
2. Go to the Think with Google Google+ page
3. Look for the stream post and click to enter the live stream  

Be sure to set a reminder in your calendar! If you have questions before or during the Hangout, post them with the hashtag #GoMoSite as a comment on the Google+ page.

Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing
Source: (1) Gomez 2011 (2) Nielsen February 2012

As head of online marketing for Carphone Warehouse, Gareth Jones instinctively believes in the “ripple effect” of mobile. “We have this hypothesis that a lot of what you do on mobile may not immediately affect the mobile sale, but that mobile is the glue that ties together multi-channel activity,” he says. “So a pound invested in mobile shouldn’t be assessed only from a mobile ROI.”

An unbeatable opportunity to test this theory landed in Gareth’s lap when Best Buy UK, a joint venture between Best Buy Inc and Carphone Warehouse Group, launched a fully transactional mobile website. Although Best Buy as a brand was subsequently pulled back from the UK, the insights Carphone Warehouse gained about mobile’s contribution to multi-channel brand building has already been built into its strategy.

Starting from a baseline of low brand awareness of Best Buy in the UK, Gareth and his team implemented an integrated Google advertising approach to supplement existing search activity. A series of roadblocks ran on YouTube for mobile to raise awareness, while pre-rolls on YouTube showed the brand’s TV ads. They also ran display ads across the AdMob network. Through these means, they hoped to gain mass reach and high frequency at relatively low cost while interacting with users through an on-the-go rich media experience.

The campaign saw a 45% increase in desktop CTR, a 30% increase in tablet CTR and a 29% lift in mobile CTR. Over the weekend of the YouTube takeovers, Best Buy brand terms saw an organic lift of about 25%. Meanwhile, mobile traffic grew week-on-week by 37% off the back of the YouTube takeover.

But these numbers are only part of the story; Carphone Warehouse also derived rich analytical insights about user behaviour. YouTube results provided much deeper information than what’s available when users consume a TV ad on TV, and the CPM for running it on YouTube was around 20% cheaper than TV boxes too. The YouTube roadblocks ran on specific days, and this enabled Gareth to study the mobile’s multi-channel influence. “We pretty much saw an immediate ripple effect,” he reveals. “Post-roadblock we saw a 29% increase in the subsequent week in brand searches on desktop.”

Earlier this year when Gareth’s team launched m.carphonewarehouse.com – the first fully transactional site in the telco category – they applied the insights from Best Buy and rolled them straight into the mobile plan for Carphone Warehouse. Going forward, the aim is to replicate the successful Best Buy Mobile model outside of North America and Western Europe too, and when that happens they’ll be ready.

Read the full case study on Best Buy UK’s mobile activity here.

Posted by: Matt Brocklehurst, Product Marketing Mobile Advertising

We’re delighted to feature a guest post from Amit Shah, Director of Online, Mobile and Social Media, 1-800Flowers.com.  Amit tackles Questions 1 & 2 from The Mobile Playbook.  

For more than 30 years since Jim and Chris McCann started 1-800-Flowers.com, our mission has been rather simple: to deliver smiles. Whether it is a customer sending one of our truly original floral arrangements to celebrate a family member's birthday or a corporate executive sending one of our delicious gourmet food gift baskets to thank a business client, we deliver smiles across thousands of communities every day. Central to being successful in this mission is to make the experience of sending smiles easy. So we have always been at the forefront of whatever technology our consumers adapt and make it easy for them to interact with us whether it is using a telephone to dial our toll-free number, or using a laptop to reach us online or increasingly firing up their mobile phones and tablets to reach us on the mobile web or through an app.

This third wave of change for our business from mobile has been a real disrupter in how quickly we have seen our users embrace it, especially as the penetration of smartphones has rapidly increased in the last few years. This has really sharpened our focus on providing them an outstanding user experience on mobile. So even though we started with a mobile site, we followed it up with rich apps designed for the top three platforms used by a majority of our users. Along the way we realized that the mobile ecosystem allows for adoption across a spectrum of user types and use cases and our ability to meet these expectations while keeping the experience easy is a critical component of our value proposition. For example, power users can leverage our apps for rich functionality like push notifications and set them up to get reminders for an event like Valentine’s Day making it easy to send smiles to that someone special, whereas the more casual users can use their mobile browser and quickly reach our mobile site to also send that smile easily. Or for example, in the case of last minute shoppers, they can leverage our real time delivery calendar functionality on both the mobile web and apps to get same day delivery on the gift of their choice.

The focus on making it easy for our users also means that we are rarely static with our optimization efforts. In spite of having created an award winning mobile experience, we noticed from analytics data and consumer ethnographic studies that our users could be served better so last year we partnered with Moovweb to revamp our entire mobile experience including mobile site and all of our apps. By looking at best practices from around the web and taking a deep dive into the customer experience and functionalities of our old mobile website, we identified the right elements to guide our redesign efforts. The important lesson here is not to just bring all of the desktop functionalities into the mobile experience, but to bring the right elements to mobile that are both useful and engaging for the users.

                        Before                                                                    After

We were especially rigorous in tightening the checkout flow where we eliminated more than half of the steps to checkout from the old experience. Even after we rolled out the new site and apps, we have continued our optimization efforts leveraging analytics data like purchase funnel metrics and qualitative inputs. For example, post-launch, we noticed that our ‘Find a Gift Fast’ functionality was heavily used by our mobile site users and it was buried a click deep on category pages and not on the home page. Through design iterations and testing we were able to move it upstream in the mobile web experience and add it to the homepage itself, thus eliminating even that single click barrier to access. The results from this build, test and iterate model have been exceptional both from business and customer satisfaction metrics alike. As we ramp up our preparations in the next couple of weeks for Mother’s Day, we will continue to make it easier for our customers to leverage our mobile experience. It takes us closer to our mission of delivering smiles– one smartphone at a time. Posted by: Amit Shah, Director of Online, Mobile and Social Media, 1-800Flowers.com

Thanks for your guest post, Amit!
Visit www.themobileplaybook.com to learn more. View it from your tablet if you can!

Last week Google launched The Mobile Playbook, a resource guide for executives on how to implement mobile into their organizations and win with mobile.  Today, we’d like to shed some light on the actual work that went behind themobileplaybook.com and what that means for advertisers from a technology and mobile strategy standpoint.

We built The Mobile Playbook in partnership with Hello Monday, a creative agency with strong capabilities in HTML5 design. We saw this site not only as an opportunity to showcase useful content but also as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of HTML5.  To put it another way, we wanted to walk the talk.  It is one thing to recommend that advertisers optimize across screens and another to actually do it ourselves.

To that end, we required that the content be staged on a mobile website instead of an app because of the cross-platform reach we could get from this approach; themobileplaybook.com can be viewed not only from tablets and smartphones but also from PCs. In optimizing for PC, smartphone and tablet,  we created two versions of the site -- one for smartphones and one for tablets. The PC optimized site is actually the tablet version with some minor modifications to the UI.



The Mobile Playbook posed unique design challenges as well. The core playbook content itself is long-form, representing 5 chapters and over 6,000 words. Our goal was to engage users and get them to read as much of the playbook as they could. Most of the creative energy went into thinking about how to make the playbook easy to read, visually stimulating, and fun to interact with -- an opportunity seemingly made for tablets. Based on our own data and other research findings, we know that users engage with tablets primarily as lean-back content consumption devices.

Instead of some of the original format ideas we considered such as an ebook or PDF presentation of the content on the tablet, we worked with Hello Monday to explore the interactive potential of HTML5 and think about how the long form content could be best presented through a tablet browser window. According to Andreas Anderskou from Hello Monday, “Inspired by interactive magazine apps, The Mobile Playbook utilizes a dynamic progress bar, interactive navigation menu, example gallery, and the ability to swipe through content. What's unique about this experience is that we've brought app-like interactivity to the user without requiring them to download an app. To emulate app functionality the content is loaded upfront without the need to ever load a new page.”

“In our time working on the site, we’ve seen that HTML5 has the potential to take browsing experiences on the tablet to the next level. Since modern browsers are rapidly deploying with HTML5 capabilities, the end user no longer needs to download specific apps or plugins to enjoy a consistent experience. We hope that this will inspire others to design around the capabilities of the tablet and HTML5 mobile websites to enhance the browsing experience,” says Anders Jessen, Lead Developer at Hello Monday.

We were fortunate to partner with Hello Monday to illustrate the power of HTML5 websites and tablets. We hope you’ll enjoy www.themobileplaybook.com from your tablet or whichever device suits you.

Posted by: Johanna Werther, Sr. PMM Mobile Ads