As smartphone adoption continues to rapidly increase, consumers are increasingly turning to their smartphones to order phone and internet services.  Not having internet in their new apartment is no obstacle for today’s smartphone users.  Time Warner Cable recognized the opportunity to innovate through mobile, and implemented a mobile strategy in late 2011 together with digital partners Google and Leapfrog Online.  Time Warner Cable’s mobile strategy identified the right media buying opportunities and then linked interested consumers to a rich, mobile-focused ecommerce experience.

With Leapfrog Online’s guidance, Time Warner Cable built a mobile-optimized consumer experience that focused in three strategic areas.

1. Mobile-optimized site design
   Time Warner Cable’s new mobile website deployed strategic functionality specifically optimized for mobile, allowing users to order services right from the mobile website.  The new mobile website incorporates the latest best practices such as concise and condensed information, the prioritization of key calls to action, and simplified screen layouts optimized specifically for the mobile screen.  
2. Designed distinct user-experience pathTime Warner Cable designed unique customer experiences paths based on whether customers were looking to purchase service or receive customer care, driving users to separate mobile experiences with separate dedicated call centers for each.  Leapfrog Online continually monitored the campaign with integrated mobile media and call center tracking, constantly adjusting budgets, key words, and even call-center staffing to match the ebb and flow of consumer demand.
3. Driving calls and traffic through mobile searchTime Warner Cable recognized that customers with more complex questions or those who preferred a personal touch were more likely to convert over the phone.  In addition to promoting their mobile website with search ads, Time Warner Cable added a click-to-call search extension to enable customers to call Time Warner Cable easily and directly from their mobile devices.

In just weeks, Time Warner Cable delivered a brand new channel with stunning results.  Key insights and results include:

• Approximately 50% of Time Warner Cable’s consumers sought to complete an order for voice, video and data on a smartphone when given the opportunity
• Approximately 3% of overall digital traffic has been mobile
• Over 10% of total digital sales are driven by mobile with growth of 20% month-over-month
• 30% reduction in cost per acquisition and a 3x increase in conversion rate as compared to desktop, despite continued strong desktop numbers

To learn more, read the full case study here and watch below Google’s Andy Miller’s interview that we hosted yesterday via Hangout on Air with Rob Roy of Time Warner Cable and Cass Baker of Leapfrog Online.



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

Just a quick reminder to tune-in today to the Think with Google Google+ page at 4:30pm EST/ 1:30pm PST for a special Hangout on Air to learn from mobile thought leaders Time Warner Cable and their partner agency Leapfrog Online.  Tune-in to learn 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. We’ll also 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 today (June 7th), 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 Think with Google +page and click to tune-in!

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

When we acquired AdMob two years ago, we made a big bet on mobile - and on mobile display advertising. As smartphone adoption has continued to grow around the world, we’ve seen that bet pay off with the increasingly strong appetite to engage customers on mobile devices.   Starting today, over one million AdWords advertisers will now be able to reach engaged consumers on more than 350 million mobile devices in the AdMob network and in some of the world’s most popular mobile applications.

By bringing our products and tools together, advertisers can work with Google to more effectively accomplish their marketing goals.  Earlier this week, we unveiled a newly unified digital ad platform that makes online marketing easier and more effective for large marketers and agencies using Doubleclick’s ad serving tools.  Similarly, with today’s announcement, AdMob mobile advertising becomes a seamless part of AdWords.

AdWords advertisers’ will now have access to mobile app inventory from directly within the AdWords interface, giving them the ability to create and manage ad campaigns that run across more than 300,000 mobile apps in the AdMob network.  Advertisers will be able to easily build, launch, and optimize their mobile campaigns across multiple platforms, and have full transparency about where their mobile ads run. AdMob’s network of apps gives advertisers true global reach with 23 countries each generating over one billion ad-requests last month, up from 11 countries in April 2011.

Starting today, a new campaign type is available in AdWords that makes it easy to launch an ad campaign to run on mobile apps on the AdMob network.  To start this new campaign type, advertisers can select “new campaign” from the Campaigns tab, and then “Display Network only (mobile apps)”.  

In addition to the ability to launch a mobile app campaign from within AdWords, advertisers can now reach individuals by targeting specific smartphone or tablet device models (e.g. Samsung Galaxy) or by targeting a particular manufacturer brand.  AdWords already enables targeting by operator, wifi, or operating system version.

Advertisers can also reach their desired audience by selecting from the categories available in the Google Play Store (e.g. ‘Games’) or App Store and search for individual apps (e.g. ‘Flood it’).  In the next several weeks, we’ll also provide an estimate on the number of devices reached and impressions targeted given your selections.

For more information on these new features, please join our webinar on mobile apps inventory in AdWords today at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET (register here).

This is the latest chapter in our ongoing efforts not only to bring AdMob’s and Google’s tools together, but to mobilize all of our ads products and services.  Over the last year, we’ve brought mobile app inventory to the Doubleclick Ad Exchange, transitioned AdMob CPC campaigns to an AdWords-style auction, and launched the ability for advertisers to serve ads from DFA into the AdMob network.

As mobile continues to grow, we’ll continue to develop integrated advertising solutions designed to harness the specific features of mobile devices, usage, and context.

Posted by: Jonathan Alferness, Director Product Management, Mobile Ads

Want to learn how to use new AdWords search ads to promote and track your mobile app, and hear from early adopters who have done so?

Last Thursday, we hosted Product Manager Anurag Agrawal in conversation with Troy Morris, Mobile Marketing Manager at WhitePages.com and Brian Wright, Senior Marketing Manager at Lookout Mobile Security in a Google+ Hangout. They discussed the value of using search to promote their respective mobile apps. Anurag then showed us in a live demo how to set up features that can help any app developer promote and track downloads of their mobile app. 

To see the full conversation, watch the Hangout here:

Below, Troy (WhitePages.com) and Brian (Lookout Mobile Security) discuss role of search advertising in growing their mobile app business.  

Why has your business chosen to promote your mobile apps?
Lookout Mobile Security: We provide a mobile app that helps smartphone users protect their phones against data loss, theft and malware. The more users we have, the more data we have about the threats out there in the mobile ecosystem - so in order to make our technology effective, it’s important for us to acquire users.

Why use AdWords search ads to promote your mobile app?
Lookout Mobile Security: We promote our apps on the major mobile ad networks and via carrier partnerships. However, search encourages a different type of user behavior that’s different from iTunes or Google Play Store browsing. Our search users are looking for more information, but they might not know an app is a solution to what they’re looking for. It’s great to get in front of those people with search ads.

WhitePages.com and Lookout Mobile Security promote their apps using AdWords mobile search ads

What’s the value of running search ads to promote your mobile app?
WhitePages.com:  There is an intent users have on search, in our case - to find someone. Conversion rates easily eclipse that of other ad networks so we’re able to get downloads at responsible costs, which helps the overall lifetime value of these users. What’s also great is that even before Android download tracking was launched, Google was ahead of the curve to give us insights we couldn’t get through other channels. We could track performance from the campaign, down to the ad group and keyword level.  It gives us a massive amount of control we don’t see on other ad networks. It gives me the ability to go in at any point in the day to adjust bids or ads, and optimize to where every single penny counts.

To learn more about how to set up these new features in your AdWords account, check out the recording of the Hangout, or view these instructions in the AdWords Help Center. 

Posted by Sonja Lee, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Mobile Ads

We recently introduced The Mobile Playbook: The Busy Executive’s Guide to Winning with Mobile, a new resource that offers Google’s perspective on how to strategically approach mobile.  The Mobile Playbook is now visiting New York, where we’ll be presenting and hosting a reception at the MMA Forum on June 11.  Jesse Haines, Head of Mobile Ads Marketing, and Tim Reis, Head of Mobile and Social Solutions, will both be presenting and answering questions at the upcoming event.  We’ll be presenting at 1:40pm and be back for the reception at 5pm.  The event will be filled with great learnings on mobile marketing and be a chance to learn from other brands, agencies, and mobile gurus.  We hope to see you there on June 11 at The Roosevelt Hotel!

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

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