We hope you can join us on the Think with Google Google+ page on Thursday June 7th at 4:30pm EST/ 1:30pm PST to learn from mobile thought leaders Time Warner Cable and their partner agency Leapfrog Online to understand how a well executed mobile search marketing campaign helped grow Time Warner mobile revenue from 0% to 10% of total digital sales in just 3 months. Google’s Andy Miller, Head of Global Mobile Search Sales and Strategy, hosts Rob Roy, VP and GM of e-Commerce and Interactive Marketing at Time Warner Cable, and mobile guru Cass Baker, EVP of Leapfrog Online, as the three of them explore insights from Time Warner Cable’s phenomenal success in acquiring new customers through mobile.  

Tune-in for tips and strategies on putting together a winning mobile marketing campaign, how to best take advantage of click-to-call, Time Warner Cable’s latest mobile success metrics, and the latest Google has seen in mobile search momentum.  We’ll be releasing a full case study here on our blog that you can read to learn more.  We hope you’ll be there. Details on how to tune in:
In order to view the Hangout on Air, visit the Think with Google Google+ page at 4:30pm EST on June 7th, look for the stream post, and click to tune in.  Don’t forget to be signed into Google+!

On June 7th, look for the Hangout on Air post like the image above on the Think with Google +page and click to tune-in!

Posted by: Kevin Otsuka, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Cross-posted on the DoubleClick Advertiser Blog 
Advertisers want to manage their mobile display campaigns with the accountability and ease provided by the DoubleClick platform. Toward this goal, in November 2011, we introduced a streamlined workflow for mobile display campaigns by adding support for a “Mobile In-App” rich media format in DoubleClick Studio and DoubleClick for Advertisers. Today we’re happy to announce that advertisers can serve mobile ads, in both standard and rich media formats, from DoubleClick for Advertisers into the AdMob network with no beta restrictions and new options for easily creating beautiful, mobile rich media ads.

This ad serving solution makes it easier to build, traffic, serve and measure mobile rich media ads, allowing easy integration of mobile into the overall workflow. Media teams gain access to interaction rate and clickthrough rate for their mobile rich media ads and can compare this to these metrics for their other ads. There is no need to fuss with multiple reports from different publishers, all information can be aggregated with our robust reporting system.

Building mobile rich media ads can start in DoubleClick Studio, where creative agencies upload HTML5 assets to build and test their creatives. Or, our services team can assemble any one of eleven mobile rich media designs ideal for showing your videos, retail locations or products via a rich ad placed within AdMob mobile apps. These designs make it easy for advertisers to create beautiful and highly interactive ads with no HTML5 expertise.

With desktop display and rich media, advertisers have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it in multiple places. We are continuing to work towards making this a reality for mobile display advertising by extending our reach beyond the AdMob network and integrating with other mobile in-app networks, and are actively performing initial testing. As our reach grows, so will our ability to help advertisers manage their mobile display campaigns with accountability and ease.

To learn more about how DoubleClick’s mobile solutions can meet your needs, download the DoubleClick Guide to Mobile Rich Media.

Posted by Jen Klimas, Wook Chung and Shamim Samadi

Did you enjoy the warm weekend across Europe with a nice BBQ and some relaxation in front of the TV with the Eurovision Song Contest? If you were watching the exceptional vocal achievements of the contestants like 100 million Europeans did last Saturday, it is likely that you had a smartphone or a tablet device in your hand at the same time.

From our recent Our Mobile Planet research, we know that consumers actively use their smartphones when multi-tasking with other media and more than 50% of Europeans do this while watching the TV. We therefore wanted to understand how Eurovision viewers were using their mobile devices during the finals by analyzing Google search results.

Top 10 mobile Eurovision countries - share of Google search queries related to Eurovision

Looking at related search queries from all 42 Eurovision countries on the day of and day before the finals of the Song Contest, we saw an increase in the share of smartphone and tablet searches by nearly 50% from Eurovision 2011. Consumers in a handful of European countries were particularly savvy, actively using their mobile devices to learn more about  the mind-blowing performances they saw on screen. More than 54% of Eurovision fans in Denmark searched from mobile devices, along with more than 40% in both Switzerland and Norway. Additionally, Denmark and Norway had the highest share of Eurovision searches conducted on tablets with 11% of Norway’s and 14% of Denmark’s Eurovision queries occurring on tablets.

Tablets and smartphones come out when the show starts - please note this does not show absolute search volume

Looking at a timeline of searches for Eurovision (normalized based on total search queries for each device type), show us that these mobile and tablet searches were largely complementary to desktop searches. At the primetime of the Eurovision finals, on the evening of May 26th,  we observed that people were switching to their smartphones and tablets with more than 38% of queries coming from mobile devices. This is similar to previous search data showing that tablets come out as the sun goes down. The large screen and compact form factor of tablets favour usage in front of the TV and from previous studies we know that the top browsing location is on the couch.

So, how can advertisers take advantage of all these multi-tasking mobile consumers? Make sure that you are on their screen with Google Mobile Ads so that you can get in front of them at the right time with the right ad formats. This way, if a customer sees your TV commercial and then picks up their phone to find more information, you may show up at the top of the results.

You can easily show your ads only when your customers are on their couch looking for information thanks to custom scheduling in AdWords. Or, you can configure your account to bid more aggressively at the times of the day that correspond with your television advertisements.

And don’t forget to add a mobile specific call-to-action such as a clickable phone number for potential customers holding a phone in their hand. You should also ensure that the site your users see on their smartphones is mobile optimized for the best user experience. With all that done you can sit back, relax and watch the stunning performance of Loreen from Sweden who finally won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Published by Frank Albert Coates, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile & Social ads EMEA.

Earlier this month, we announced new features in AdWords that provide a simple solution for developers and businesses with a mobile app looking to acquire users and track downloads. Tomorrow (May 31st) at 10am PST, 1pm EST, we’re hosting a live Hangout On Air with Product Manager Anurag Agrawal  in a conversation with businesses who have been early to test this out - Brian Wright, Sr. Marketing Manager at Lookout Mobile Security, and Troy Morris, Mobile Marketing Manager at WhitePages.   We’ll also be demonstrating how to use the new Mobile App Extension, and set up Android Download Tracking inside AdWords.  

How to tune into this Hangout On Air:

1. Visit the Google Ads +Page at 10am PST/1pm EST
2. Look for the stream post, and click to tune in.  Don’t forget to be signed into Google+!

Look for the Hangout on Air post like the image above on the Google Ads +Page and click to tune-in!

Leave us comments and questions! We’ll be sure to answer these during or in a follow up to the Hangout On Air.

Posted by: Sonja Lee, Google Mobile Ads

Today we continue our  exploration of regional findings from the new 2012 Our mobile Planet research and examine smartphone behavior in Latin America.

Did you know that Brazil has more smartphone users than Germany or France do?1 In fact, with about 27M and 23M smartphone users respectively, Brazil and Mexico both have more smartphone users than Australia has people (Australia’s population is around 22M).2  These are some of the surprising results from the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet smartphone research, which mark Brazil and Mexico’s arrival as mobile giants on the global scene.  The study also revealed exciting insights from Argentina - with 24% smartphone penetration, Argentina has not only the highest penetration of the three Latin American countries included in the study - it also has higher smartphone penetration than Germany did just one year ago.

These numbers defy the common perception that these large Latin American markets are far behind the rest of the world in smartphone adoption.  They in fact already possess larger absolute numbers of smartphone users than many other countries, and above-average usage patterns in many areas.  For example: 

• 65% of Mexican smartphone users search on their phones every day, compared to 57% in the U.S.
• 90% of Argentine smartphone users use their phones to access social networks, compared to 63% in Japan
• 29% of Brazilian smartphone users have changed their minds about a purchase while in a store due to research conducted on their phone, compared to 15% in Canada

It’s clear that mobile has arrived in a big way in these markets.  To better understand the importance of smartphones across Latin America and the world, visit thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet to gain free access to powerful data across 40 countries in 22 languages.  Other Latin America highlights from the study include:

Mobile Is Changing the Way Latin American Consumers Interact with the World...

• 57% of Brazilian smartphone users read newspapers or magazines on their phones
• 73% of Argentine smartphone users check email on their phones every day
• 81% of Mexican smartphone users watch video on their phones

...Especially When It Comes to Shopping

• 26% of Mexican smartphone users have made a purchase on their phone itself
• 45% of Brazilian smartphone users have made a purchase on their computer as a result of conducting research on their phone
• 82% of Argentine smartphone users have researched a product or service on their phones

Smartphones have arrived in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, and businesses who sell to customers in these markets need to react quickly to follow the consumer and implement cross-channel strategies that incorporate mobile.  To learn more about Latin American mobile consumer behavior, check out the data explorer and chart builder on thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet. Get the data you need to understand the new mobile consumer and to help shape your mobile business strategies.

Posted by Peter Fernandez, Head of Mobile Advertising, Latin America


(1) With a population of about 195M (World Bank) and smartphone penetration of 14%, Brazil has about 27M smartphone users. With populations of about 82M and 65M and smartphone penetration of 29% and 38% respectively, Germany and France have about 24M and 25M smartphone users.
(2) With a population of about 113M and smartphone penetration of 20%, Mexico has about 23M smartphone users.

Today we continue our  exploration of regional findings from the new 2012 Our Mobile Planet research by examining smartphone behavior in Europe and the Middle East.

UK, Sweden and Norway increased smartphone adoption by 20% in just a year

Click to view UK mobile consumer infographic

Do you see smartphones everywhere these days? As the new Our Mobile Planet smartphone research shows, the Middle East is leading the smartphone race globally with 62% of mobile users being on smartphones in UAE and 60% in Saudi Arabia. In the UAE 71% of users are accessing Internet every day and 75% use their smartphones at airports, proving that the UAE is an international hub. In addition, more than half of consumers in the UK, Norway and Sweden now have a smartphone. Smartphone adoption in these 3 countries increased by more than 20% since our study last year.

All these results are a part of a global study we conducted with Ipsos MediaCT on smartphone users across 26 countries in Q1 2012, including 17 countries in Europe and the Middle East that is available on thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet.

Now let’s have a closer look at the region with the highest mobile adoption.

The Middle East has young active mobile shoppers and social networkers

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are new countries that we added to the study this year. What stands out in the demography of this smartphone population is that they are predominantly young and male; more than 72% are below 34 years old and more than 62% are male. These consumers are so dedicated to their mobile devices that more than 73% don’t leave home without them.

From the data, we can see that smartphone owners in the Middle East are the most active mobile shoppers. In Egypt, 41% of smartphone owners have a made a purchase on their mobile device, and of these mobile shoppers 80% make purchases once a month or more.  This monthly shopping behavior is the highest out of all of the countries that participated and in fact, 46% of Egyptians expect to make more mobile purchases in the future.

Among smartphone shoppers, Egyptians purchase most frequently

Mobile consumers in the Middle East are also using their smartphones to engage with online and offline advertisements. For example, more than ¾ of smartphone users in Egypt have performed a mobile search after seeing an ad such as a TV commercial offline. Although, only half look at the first page of search results on their phones, more than 90% of smartphone users in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE notice mobile advertising when they are surfing the mobile web.

Be ready for the mobile revolution with GetMo, Start Mobile & Mobilisez-vous

GetMo (aka GoMo) site launched in the UK

One of the major takeaways from this study is that Europeans are among the most active smartphone users globally. This means that it is about time for your businesses to follow consumers and give them a mobile optimized experience when they are looking for services on-the-go. To help businesses get ready to create mobile sites, we have recently launched our Go Mobile (GoMo) initiative in many European countries; GetMo (UK), Start Mobile (DE), GetMo (NL), Mobilisez-vous (FR), Haz tu web movile (ES) and Move mobile (IT). If your business is currently creating a mobile strategy, you can get concrete advice and start creating your mobile presence through the GoMo initiative. In addition, find out more about your future mobile customer by visiting thinkwithgoogle.co.uk/mobileplanet.

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

One of the things we hear the most from our agency partners and customers is that it’s hard to keep track of all the features, resources, or tools to help your business succeed on mobile. We understand! We’re inviting you to mark your calendars for the first week of June, “Mobile Education Week”. From June 4th-8th, we’re running a series of free webinars in partnership with the Learn With Google program, which will take you on a deep dive on some hot topics in the world of mobile marketing. 

Tues, June 5: GoMo: Mobilize your Site with Quick and Easy New Tools from Google & DudaMobile  (Register here)

• Watch as we showcase how businesses can go mobile and build a mobile-friendly site live in the webinar.  We’ll be partnering with the experts at Dudamobile to show you the new tool to mobilize your site for free.

Wednesday, June 6th: Our Mobile Planet: Understanding U.S. Smartphone Consumers (Register here)

• We recently unveiled Google’s latest edition of our mobile usage research here: thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet. Discover how smartphones are transforming core consumer behavior and the way we connect with others, stay informed, keep ourselves entertained, shop and navigate the world around us. Join us as we discuss implications for advertisers and strategies businesses can use to win the moments that matter with mobile.

Thursday, June 7th: Introducing Mobile Apps Inventory in AdWords  (Register here)

• According to comScore, 4 out of 5 mobile media minutes in the US are spent in apps. Now, AdWords makes it easy for you to extend your campaigns to reach users inside mobile apps. We'll review mobile-specific targeting, ad units, and reporting than enable you to optimize your ROI.

Click on the links next to each event to register. To see more Learn With Google educational events, visit http://www.google.com/ads/experienced/webinars.html.

Posted by Sonja Lee, Google Mobile Ads