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How many households have land line phone service these days? In 2013 the National Health Interview Survey showed preliminary results of 40% of U.S. Households strictly have cellular service. This figure us up over 15% from 5 years prior to the survey. With the number of smart phones and tablets in use wouldn’t it make sense to direct some of your advertising to those devices? They are used for everything from calling friends to searching for a restaurant for a dinner date.
In Marlin Software’s 2014 annual report, they projected that by the end of December 2015 mobile devices will account for 50% of paid search clicks. They also showed CTR rates on smartphones to be 64% and tablets 18% higher than desktop average CTRs. These simple statistics reinforce the benefit of advertising on a mobile platform. Google provides options for mobile ads, worked in with your standard AdWords ads or by themselves. More and more mobile devices have full internet browsers that have to same abilities as a desktop, even those without full browsers have host apps available to give the user search capabilities. This opens the door for a world of opportunities to reach users on the go.
At the top of most consumer’s lists is how relevant something is and this holds true in the mobile world. Presenting what you offer, whether it is a product or service, should leave the user feeling they had a positive experience, causing them to return to your site or continue to use your app if they have uploaded it on their phone. Some advertisers may not see mobile users as engaging as someone sitting at their desk on a desktop computer. The truth is mobile users are the same people no matter what device they are on. They are on the hunt for a product or service and they are just as likely to convert for you as anyone.
Mobile devices have changed consumer shopping especially at the store level. More and more shoppers are buying online but that doesn’t mean store visits are less important. There are those who use their mobile devices to search for stores that carry the product they are looking for and still want and like to see before they buy. Some of the successful keys that help deliver consumers to store are:
- Attracting consumers to your store with the right ads
- Targeting them to the right locations
- Ability to measure the offline impact of your online spend
You can use location bidding to reach people close by. If a mobile user is in the area and searches for products you care there is a higher likelihood of them coming to your store. So your online investment does help bring in store sales in this respect. Your ads are the first line of attack so be sure to include information such as store hours and address to name a couple. You can utilize links to offer more information such as directions or phone numbers. You can setup an image based storefront so when your ad is clicked on, the user can see your inventory and its prices.
If you are wondering if you need to have an app for mobile devices if you have a mobile site the answer is yes. Your mobile site can be accessed by anyone, anywhere these days. A mobile app adds a contact point for mobile users that have shown interest in your business already and want a quick and easy way to come back to shop. Take advantage of every opportunity to reach a customer.
When developing your mobile site you have to take into consideration the viewing area and how the user navigates around the screen. You should try to keep scrolling to a minimum if you can’t eliminate it and have touch buttons that are large enough to use with ease. It isn’t as easy as transferring your desktop site to a mobile site, you have to take into consideration not only the size of the device but also a different consumer mindset.
When designing a mobile be sure it delivers compelling value for the user or it could sit in an app menu until the time comes to clean space for new apps. Don’t just transfer your mobile site to your app as apps offer features that mobile sites can’t. Add camera integration and one click purchasing to make the overall use more advantageous. Unlike website bidding, mobile campaign bidding is a percentage adjustment of the desktop bids. You can raise or lower your mobile bids across devices, locations, and time of day.
Google offers this formula for mobile bid adjusting:
Mobile Bid = (mobile conversion rate / desktop conversion rate) – 1
They recommend using Campaigns that have tracked data for at least 90 days and has at least 20 conversions in both desktop and mobile.As with your regular search and display network ads you can use Targeting within your apps. You can choose categories of apps to target or match ads through the Display Network. In addition to the targeting options available with Search Network and Display Network, you can target specific device models, wireless carriers, or operating systems.
In addition to Call extensions, Location Extensions, etc. you can use App extensions to direct users to your app when they click on your ad. This is a great way to give consumers access to your app as well as your website. Anytime a consumer doesn’t use their mobile device for all steps to make a purchase, AdWords is unable to track that conversion to the device. Untracked conversions happen on all devices but generally mobile devices have a higher occurrence than other devices. This can be attributed, in part, to the small screen size and sites that are not mobile friendly.
Whether it is a mobile site or mobile app, you have a great potential waiting in the palm of your hand. Don’t miss out on the growing world of mobile advertising.
– Gary Harvison, PPC Manager
