Google Adwords Mastery » Mobile

Think With Google’s December Adventure: Mobile Tips Recap

Geoff Alexander — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 23:30:00 +0000

Think With Google’s December Adventure continued this week with a focus on mobile.

Here are the four mobile-related insights and tips we covered this week (and a fun factoid):
Click on the titles to view the original posts and comments.

#1 Monday: Search from mobile devices up 5x in the past two years!

Capture the mobile opportunity with separate campaigns targeting mobile devices only. Advertisers with mobile-optimized sites and mobile-targeted campaigns have seen an average 11.5% increase in mobile CTR.

#2 Tuesday: 59% of users visit a business and 40%+ make a purchase after using their smartphones to find local information

Use AdWords location extensions to showcase key business information, including your address, phone number and driving directions.

#3 Wednesday: 65% of tablet owners use their tablets at least one hour per day

Target tablet devices as part of your AdWords campaigns and, if you have tablet specific products or services, create tablet-only campaigns.

#4 Thursday: 51% of consumers are more likely to purchase from mobile-optimized websites

Get best practices and personalized tips on how to make your website more mobile-friendly at www.HowToGoMo.com.

#5. Friday Fun Factoid: One, Two, Dial my Smartphone

Sign of the times: We agree with this article and predict that more kids will know how to use a smartphone than know how to tie their shoes. Watch endearing video on the post to see just how important it will be to market your content to the four screens: mobile, tablet, laptop and TV.

To learn more, follow Think with Google on Google+ or add this helpful holiday calendar to automatically see these tips on your Google Calendar.

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords Crew

More ways to reach your audience with YouTube mobile ads

Geoff Alexander — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Editor's Note: As of December 1st, 2011, you will start to see Promoted Videos referred to as TrueView in-search and TrueView in-display.

There’s no debate that the world is going mobile. Mobile web searches have grown five times over the past two years. YouTube mobile now gets more than 400 million views a day, representing 13 percent of our total daily views.

For advertisers, this opens up more opportunities to reach customers. And in some cases, it can amplify existing campaigns. In a recent study conducted with Nielsen research, we found that promotions perform better together when displayed across multiple screens. In fact, brand recall jumps dramatically to 74 percent for people who saw ads across TV, PC, smartphone and tablets, up from 50 percent for those who saw ads only on TV.

Here are a few ways you can extend your mobile reach with YouTube:

YouTube’s Promoted Video ads on mobile

Do you use Promoted Video ads to reach viewers searching for relevant products and potential customers browsing videos on YouTube.com? You can also use Promoted Videos to reach viewers on the go. Promoted Videos are featured at the top of the video search results on m.youtube.com, YouTube’s mobile platform.

Advertisers pay only when the viewer chooses to watch the video, and all mobile and desktop view counts are summarized into one complete view count on your channel page. Mobile Promoted Video ads are auction-based campaigns that can be managed in your Google AdWords account. All Google AdWords campaigns are opted into “all devices” by default, but creating separate mobile campaigns helps optimize your mobile advertising efforts and the performance of your brand channel.

A Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com includes an ad thumbnail, title and channel name; similar to the organic video results.

Promoted Video ads have recently joined YouTube’s family of TrueView ad formats. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will become TrueView in-search ads and TrueView in-display ads. TrueView in-search ads show up in display ad units against search results on YouTube, whereas TrueView in-display ads show up in display ad units against suggested videos on YouTube and across website content on the Google Display Network. These TrueView video ads can be set up and managed in any Google AdWords for video account and purchased on a cost-per-view basis.

YouTube mobile in-stream ads

YouTube mobile in-stream ads are 15-second pre-roll ads that appear before the video begins to play. Similar to your desktop experience, mobile in-stream ads may show before videos produced by YouTube partners. In addition to the Android YouTube app, in-stream ads are also available to viewers accessing m.youtube.com from their iPhone.

You can optimize your mobile in-stream ads to reach specific audiences, locations and content. In-stream ads are priced on a CPM basis and can be arranged via ad reservation through your Google sales representative.

Animal Planet used mobile in-stream ads to promote the new season of River Monsters.

YouTube mobile roadblocks

YouTube Mobile roadblocks give brands 100% share of voice on the YouTube home, browse and search pages on m.youtube.com. According to recent Nielsen data, these roadblocks add 17 percent incremental impressions for advertisers.

adidas used mobile roadblocks to complement their homepage masthead ad. Using multiple mobile tactics in addition to roadblocks, channel views jumped 26x over the span of their “adidas is all in” brand campaign.

Mobile brand channels extend your online presence

Many advertisers use banners, background images and gadgets to customize their YouTube brand channels. Extend your brand presence to mobile users by creating a customized mobile brand channel. Accessed through m.youtube.com, mobile channels offer the same high level of customization, including the use of gadgets. You can drive traffic to your YouTube mobile brand channel by running ads on the AdMob network or on m.youtube.com.

YouTube’s AdBlitz brand channel features custom-designed elements which engage our growing mobile audience.

For more information about YouTube mobile ads, connect with your Google sales representative or visit www.youtube.com/advertise/mobile.html.

Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager

Re-thinking Mobile Marketing & Analytics webinar recording featuring Avinash Kaushik

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Missed the Think Mobile webinar on Nov. 2nd? The recording is now available here on the Google Business Channel on YouTube.

In this video, Avinash Kaushik shares some best practices regarding mobile marketing strategies, and points out some strategies that you should be aware of. He also shares a framework for bringing fast, innovative measurement to your mobile data (including a special downloadable report).

We hope you enjoy the webinar!

Posted by Jaime Mayer, Marketing Manager

New: Tablet targeting options now available

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0000

In May, we let you know that tablet targeting options would be coming soon. We're excited to announce that tablet targeting is now available to all advertisers. Tablet targeting is a new AdWords campaign targeting option that gives you more precise control to effectively reach the growing number of tablet users.

You can find the new Tablets with full browsers targeting option under the Networks and devices section of the Settings tab within your AdWords account. While in the past you were able to specifically target Apple iPad devices under Mobile devices, the new tablet targeting option elevates the tablet to its own device category and enables you to target your ads to all tablet devices. In addition, the new tablet targeting option allows you to select specific tablet operating systems to target. For example, to display your ads on only the Apple iPad, you would choose Tablets with full browsers as your device targeting setting and iOS as your operating system setting.

(click for full-size image)

With this launch, your ads will automatically start running on tablet devices, and no further action will be necessary on your part. If your campaigns were specifically targeting Apple iPad devices, you may notice an increase in impressions and costs as we include more tablets in our ad serving options. If you don’t want your ads to appear on tablets, you can change your tablet targeting settings by following these step-by-step instructions.

With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, we believe that the strong growth of tablet usage will provide significant opportunity for marketers to connect with consumers in more powerful and relevant ways. We hope this new tablet targeting option helps you better capture this opportunity.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

“Mobile”-ize your business with Google Sites

Geoff Alexander — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

A poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumer’s opinion of your brand or your company altogether. In a recent study, we found that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing from their phone, and 40% go to a competitor’s. By the end of this year, more than half of all Americans will own a smartphone. Your customers are mobile—are you?

Today, we’re excited to announce a brand new tool to help your business get “mobile”-ized: Google Sites mobile landing pages. With Google Sites mobile landing pages, you can build yourself a professional mobile landing page in minutes for free—and without any coding experience.

(click for full size image)

Why use Google Sites mobile landing pages?

It’s easy. Creating a Google Site is as easy as editing a document, which means there's no markup language for you to learn—just get started.
It’s free. Google Sites is one of many free products offered by Google.
It’s measurable. One-click Google Analytics integration allows you to monitor your site's traffic.
It’s fast. Create your mobile landing page in minutes by starting from one of five pre-loaded templates. You can also start from scratch with the custom template.

(click for full size image)

Watch the video below to see how “small” businessman, Bob, transformed his business using Google Sites:

Visit sites.google.com/mobilize to get started today!

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Animal Planet leverages rich media and video advertising across platforms to engage viewers for River Monsters premiere

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:59:00 +0000

Mobile, video and rich media advertising are changing the way that businesses capture user attention by bringing together the power of sight, sound, and motion to engage audiences like never before. For example, to build awareness for the new season of their popular River Monsters series, Animal Planet, the "Surprisingly Human" TV network, launched an integrated media campaign across platforms to bring the show to life with the broadest audience possible - driving more than 900k YouTube video views in the weeks leading up to the premiere.

The River Monsters campaign ran across both the YouTube and AdMob networks, delivering users a sneak peak of the upcoming season whether they were on their desktop computers or their mobile phones. Rich media display ads on YouTube enabled the star of the show to pop out of the YouTube Channel to introduce new creatures to potential viewers, while video advertising offered a glimpse at upcoming episodes of the new season.

On the YouTube desktop website, users were able to interact with the River Monsters whether they were searching for their favorite video, watching partner content, or browsing the homepage. Ads led visitors to a custom mimicry gadget on the Animal Planet Brand Channel, where the host of the show jumped out of the ad to highlight the most exciting portions of the featured video.

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In-Stream Ads on YouTube are also available in the YouTube Android app, enabling Animal Planet to extend this engagement opportunity to mobile users. Including Interactive Video Ads on the AdMob network further expanded the mobile campaign, giving users the opportunity to watch a preview of the River Monsters show, share the video through social media, learn more on the show’s mobile website, and watch additional videos - all from within the mobile ad.

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To stir up even more excitement on the day of the premiere, a Rich Media Masthead on the YouTube homepage revealed clips from the upcoming episode and reminded users to tune in.

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The River Monsters campaign was hugely successful:

YouTube advertising generated more than 930,000 video views on the River Monster clips
Nearly 2,000 users subscribed to the River Monsters Brand Channel
Mobile In-Stream Overlay Ads received more than 3 million impressions, with 84% of mobile users completing the video
Interactive Video Ads on AdMob generated another 6 million impressions, with 75,000 users engaging with one of the interactive elements in the ad creative

The combination of compelling rich media and video advertising on both desktop and mobile created an engaging experience that increased social buzz around the show and led to a premiere that exceeded expectations.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Introducing new ways to reach your customers on tablets

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:08:00 +0000

With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are becoming a popular device with engaged, tech-savvy consumers. So we’re pleased to announce that we’re developing new targeting options to help you better connect with this audience. To give you greater control over your AdWords ads, we’re changing the way you can target tablet devices.

In the next couple of weeks, the “Networks and Devices” section of your Settings tab within your AdWords account will include a new targeting option titled “Tablets with full browsers.” While you’ve been able to specifically target Apple iPad devices in the past, the new capability will enable you to easily target your ads to the entire tablet device category. In addition, you'll be able to select more precisely the types of devices and operating systems on which your AdWords ads will show. For example, to display your ads on the Apple iPad, you’ll be able to choose “Tablets with full browsers” as your device targeting setting and “iOS” as your operating system setting. Tablet targeting will be available initially for Apple devices only, but we'll expand ad serving to other specific devices in the near future.

Once this capability is available in your account, your ads will automatically start running on tablet devices and no further action will be necessary on your part. If your campaigns were specifically targeting Apple iPad devices, you may notice an increase in impressions and costs as we include more tablets in our ad serving options. If you don't want your ads to appear on tablet devices, you’ll be able to specify this preference in your device targeting settings by following these step-by-step instructions.

For now, only standard text and image ads can be shown on tablet devices. So please make sure your landing page renders properly on tablet devices, as our system will automatically limit your ads from running on tablet devices if we detect that users will be led to a landing page containing a significant amount of Flash or other content that will not render properly. To learn more, please visit this Help Center article.

We’re constantly working to provide our advertisers with new targeting capabilities for their AdWords campaigns. We hope that these targeting options will enable you to successfully connect with your customers across a variety of devices and platforms.

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Smartphone User Study Shows Mobile Movement Under Way

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:33:00 +0000

Cross posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog:

71% of smartphone users search because of an ad they’ve seen either online or offline; 82% of smartphone users notice mobile ads, 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase as a result of using their smartphones to help with shopping, and 88% of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day.

These are some of the key findings from “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010. Join us in tomorrow’s webinar where we’ll present the full research findings. In the meantime, enjoy this research highlights video and read on for a summary of our main section findings:

General Smartphone Usage: Smartphones have become an integral part of users’ daily lives. Consumers use smartphones as an extension of their desktop computers and use it as they multi-task and consume other media.

81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone
72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV
93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home

Action-Oriented Searchers: Mobile search is heavily used to find a wide variety of information and to navigate the mobile Internet.

Search engine websites are the most visited websites with 77% of smartphone users citing this, followed by social networking, retail and video sharing websites
Nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.)
24% recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search

Local Information Seekers: Looking for local information is done by virtually all smartphone users and consumers are ready to act on the information they find.

95% of smartphone users have looked for local information
88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs
77% have contacted a business, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business

Purchase-driven Shoppers: Smartphones have become an indispensable shopping tool and are used across channels and throughout the research and decision-making process.

79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer
74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones
70% use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store

Reaching Mobile Consumers: Cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behavior and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.

71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%)
82% notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads
Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35% visiting a website and 49% making a purchase

Implications

The findings of the study have strong implications for businesses and mobile advertisers. Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information. Incorporate location based products and services and make it easy for mobile customers to reach you because local information seeking is common among smartphone users. Develop a comprehensive cross-channel strategy as mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions. Last, implement an integrated marketing strategy with mobile advertising that takes advantage of the knowledge that people are using their smartphones while consuming other media and are influenced by it.

Learn More

To learn more about the study, please join us in a webinar tomorrow where we will present and discuss the research findings in-depth. Register for “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” webinar on Wednesday, April 27th at 11am PST/ 2pm EST. To receive the research report, please visit the Google Mobile Ads blog after April 27th to download a complimentary copy of the study.

Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Join us for Google’s Think Mobile Event Live Stream

Geoff Alexander — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 19:32:00 +0000

The rise of the mobile web is driving one of the most dramatic consumer behavior transformations in history. Billions of people are using their smartphones to search for information, consume news, watch videos, interact through social networks, and engage with advertising every day. So what does this mean for mobile marketing?

Tune in and find out what Mary Meeker, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, and Google’s Dennis Woodside, SVP of Americas Operations, and Jason Spero, Head of Americas Mobile Advertising, have to say about the future of mobile and what marketers can do to better connect with the mobilized, modern consumer.

The live stream will start on February 10, 2011, at 1:05 pm EST, and you’ll be able to watch from your desktop computer or mobile device. Please register for this virtual event by visiting the Think Mobile Live Stream page.

Following us on Twitter? Use the #thinkmobile hashtag as you're watching the event.

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Get started with mobile advertising in a new live online course

Geoff Alexander — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:58:00 +0000

On Wednesday, November 3rd we’ll be hosting a live online course about how you can start using mobile advertising to reach more customers.

Did you know that there are now 4 billion mobile phone owners globally? Half of all new internet connections come from mobile devices, and by 2014 it's projected that there will be more mobile internet users than desktop internet users.*

In this course we'll take you through the changing landscape of mobile advertising. We'll also show you how to identify if users use mobile devices to find your services and how to set up Mobile Search and Display Campaigns.

This course is for those of you interested in learning more about mobile advertising and how to easily set up your AdWords account to target more users on mobile devices. The interactive course will be delivered by an Online Media Specialist and will take approximately 1 hour including time for Q&A. It will take place on Wednesday 3rd November from 3pm - 4pm BST / GMT+1 (London), 10am-11am EST (New York), 7am-8am PST (San Francisco).

If you're interested in this course, sign up now!

*Morgan Stanley report, 'Internet Trends' published on April 12, 2010.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew