New Video Resource: Creating Mobile Only Campaigns

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 | 1:04 PM

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed that we frequently advise our advertisers to create mobile specific AdWords campaigns. This is because separating out your mobile and desktop campaigns is a powerful method of driving performance on mobile.  In fact, advertisers have experienced an 11.5% average increase in mobile clickthrough rates when they’ve ran and optimized a mobile only campaign.


So today we are happy to share a new resource that will help guide you in setting up a mobile specific campaign. Watch the video below and learn how to create a mobile-only campaign directly in your AdWords account or by using the AdWords Editor tool.





After you’ve set up your mobile-only campaign, follow these optimization tips to gain competitive advantage and maximize your performance on mobile.
  • Exercise more control and flexibility:  By using a separate mobile-only campaign you’ll gain better visibility into your mobile specific performance. Use this information to  optimize your bids, keyword lists and creatives without impacting your desktop campaign.
  • Budget and bid separately for mobile: Since less ads show on mobile devices, bid aggressively to ensure your ads are competitive and appear in the top spots.  
  • Tailor your ad creatives for mobile:  Create mobile specific ad copy and calls to action such as “Receive a quote on your phone” which could attract more attention from mobile consumers.  
  • Make the most of mobile:  You can take better advantage of powerful mobile-specific ad features such as Click-to-call and location-based ads which offer more relevance and convenience to users on the go.
We hope that you’ll enjoy this new resource and find it useful in optimizing your mobile marketing campaigns.
Posted by Anna Khesed, Product Marketing Manager

Important changes to clicks on directions for AdWords location extensions

Friday, May 27, 2011 | 6:30 PM

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Cross-posted on the Inside AdWords blog
 
Many advertisers use location extensions to automatically show the most relevant addresses and business information in the ads they run on Google both on desktops and mobile devices. Along with address and phone numbers, these ads also show directions to the business location. A click to access directions enables customers to map the quickest route from where they are located to a business that they want to visit.

We’ve also observed that location extensions with “directions” are beneficial to users and lead to more interactions with the ad. And, in January, we launched a report in AdWords to help you measure these useful interactions.

And, over the next few weeks, you’ll see performance metrics for “directions” alongside those for clicks and phone calls. We’ll also begin to charge for “directions” clicks in the same manner as a click on your ad’s headline and/or phone number. If your campaign has a high number of “directions” clicks, this indicates that your customers are interacting with your ads to get directions to your business.



(click for full-size image)

Below are some answers to a few questions that you may have as a result of this change:

Where will I see the performance metrics for “directions” clicks?
You can see the number of directions clicks in the same place as your other click metrics (select Segment, thenClick type from your summary tables). You can review the performance of “direction” clicks to determine if they are helping you meet your marketing goals.

How will “directions” appear in ads on desktop and mobile devices?
For AdWords campaigns with location extensions enabled, a “directions” link will be eligible to appear in the ad and on sponsored map bubbles in Google Map on desktops.

On mobile search ads, a “Get directions in Google Maps?” pop-up will appear when the user clicks on the expandable map. Clicking on “OK” in the pop-up allows users to access directions and will be charged.

Where can I see past performance of “directions” clicks?
For a report, select the Free clicks view within the Dimensions tab of your AdWords account. If you don't see theDimensions tab in your account, click the arrow button next to the existing tabs above your performance table, and select Free clicks in the dropdown menu.

I do not want to pay for “directions” clicks. How can I opt out?
You can do this by removing location extensions associated with your campaign. However, location extensions provide valuable information to your customers about your local business, so we encourage you to carefully analyze your campaign performance before doing so.

To learn more about location extensions and directions in ads, please see the location extensions overview section of the Help Center.

AdMob celebrates one year at Google as mobile growth accelerates

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 | 10:38 AM

Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog
As we approach the first anniversary of AdMob’s arrival at Google this Friday, it’s amazing to look at how much the mobile industry has grown since last year: an estimated 300 million smartphones were shipped, average smartphone data-usage doubled and hundreds of thousands of new mobile apps have been created.

Many thousands of mobile publishers and developers use ads to support their businesses, so we’re excited to see rapid growth in mobile advertising, too.  For example, in the last year, traffic on the AdMob network has grown more than three and a half times, and we now get more than 2.7 billion ad requests every day. We have thousands of advertisers both large and small getting great results every day on AdMob’s network of more than 80,000 mobile apps and sites.  To celebrate AdMob’s first year at Google, today we’re introducing a set of new products and features for mobile advertisers and publishers.

New ad formats for tablets 
In the last six months alone, traffic from tablets on the AdMob network has increased by 300 percent.  To help advertisers better connect with tablet users, today we’re launching a variety of new, tablet-specific rich media ad formats.  These new HTML5-based ad formats are built specifically for tablets’ larger, high-definition screens, and make use of features like touch, tap and swipe. Together, these features will enable advertisers to develop rich, engaging campaigns and run them across multiple mobile platforms.


Enhanced tools for mobile app developers
To help app developers grow their app businesses, we’re releasing a significant upgrade to our AdMob “House Ads” product, which developers can use to promote their own products within their mobile apps. The new version includes improved campaign management, new ad formats and better ad targeting options.
In the coming months, we’ll also improve mobile app developers’ ability to use AdMob to deliver the most valuable ad by integrating a new “mediation” feature that selects the best ad from multiple, competing ad networks directly into the Google AdMob Ads SDK.
Deeper integration with Google advertising products
Many advertisers, agencies and publishers use DoubleClick’s ad serving and measurement tools to manage their digital ad campaigns. We envision a single platform that enables seamless management of ads across desktop, video, mobile and tablets. Our announcement earlier this week about the availability of DoubleClick Rich Media ads on the AdMob Network on the AdMob network is one example of this commitment. In a few weeks, we’ll also add support for mobile to our DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business ad serving product, which thousands of web publishers use today to manage ads that appear on their sites.

The last year has seen incredible growth, but it’s just the beginning. We believe that the products we’re announcing today will further accelerate the growth of mobile advertising, enable marketers and developers to rapidly grow their businesses and help to fund more great mobile content and apps for users.


Posted by: Clay Bavor, Product Management Director, Mobile Display Ads

Mobile Insights: Click-to-call proves a valuable addition to the advertising mix

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Here’s the second post in our Mobile Insights series, featuring expert views from members of our mobile ads business. Welcome this week’s guest contributor, Anjali Vaidya, an Account Manager on the mobile ads team who shares her experiences on our Click-to-call (CTC) offering in mobile ads.

We’re continually making enhancements to the Click-to-call ad format. Launched in early 2010, CTC allows mobile consumers searching Google or visiting sites in the Google Display Network, to click on the phone number and speak to someone who can explain more about the product or service. 

One enhancement was our Call-only format to allow advertisers to receive only calls, instead of clicks, to their website. Starting this week, we’re making the Call-only format even better by including a phone icon and moving the phone number above the ad.



The convenience and immediacy of CTC for users has made it one of Google’s fastest-growing advertising solutions. Click-to-call is a great addition to the advertising mix. You can still drive searchers to your website, but it gives you other advantages:
  • it’s a great option if you don’t yet have a mobile-optimized website; 
  • it captures consumers who are ready to act; 
  • it allows you to drive traffic to a strong call center, giving you a competitive edge over other online advertisers.
We’re generating millions of calls every month on mobile devices and the number of advertisers using phone extensions is growing quickly. The uptake for CTC is fast because advertisers are realizing great returns.
  • Home security provider Defender Direct gets 75-80% of online advertising clicks using Click-to-call. Four out of their top 10 campaigns in terms of clicks are now mobile. And the calling customers  are ready to consult with an expert about the ins and outs of alarm systems. Once the company started targeting high-end smartphones, their returns from mobile ads and CTC skyrocketed. Results were soon double what they got from desktop search. Today, Google mobile ads constitute 24% of the company’s overall online budget.
  • When auto insurance company Esurance started using mobile ads and CTC they found that they could acquire customers at 20-30% less cost compared with other channels. Esurance wanted to put interested people in touch with agents or claims representative in a few simple steps. Reaching the company is faster and easier for customers, and a less expensive way to acquire leads for Esurance. Calls coming from CTC mobile ads are more likely to result in sales.
  • The Carphone Warehouse has had great success with mobile ads CTC too. The UK mobile phone retailer created a mobile website where visitors can search for headset details and price plans. They used Mobile Ad Sitelinks to provide deep links into the site and incorporated CTC in ads to allow users to reach a call center agent to get advice or buy.
Our advice? Test Click-to-call, whether you’re a national or local business, to see how it can generate sales. Our customers have shown us that mobile searchers will research your products on their phones, and they appreciate the convenience of calling from that same device. Once they call, they are even closer to purchase. Your best leads are only a phone call away, try Click-to-call today!


Posted by Anjali Vaidya, Google Account Manager for Mobile Ads

Delivering Mobile Branding at Scale with DoubleClick Rich Media

Monday, May 23, 2011 | 7:50 AM

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AdMob is excited to announce that rich media ads can now be served from DoubleClick into the AdMob network. This feature is currently in beta and will also enable advertisers to create and measure rich media ads from DoubleClick Rich Media. 

To date, AdMob advertisers have relied on AdMob systems to serve their mobile rich media ads. Today, the beta will pave the way for advertisers in mobile to build, serve, manage and report on rich media ad units using the DoubleClick tools that they, and their agencies, are already familiar with. Creative agencies will be able to use DoubleClick Studio, a creative platform for producing rich media ads, to output rich, HTML5 mobile creatives for placement on AdMob apps. Media agencies will be able to use DoubleClick’s ad server, DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA), to serve and report on rich media ads in mobile.  

To date, advertisers on DoubleClick have enjoyed the ability to build an ad once and run it anywhere with online display and rich media ads. AdMob’s beta with DoubleClick gets us one step closer to making this possible for mobile display advertising too. 

Posted by Ben Chung, Product Marketing Manager

AdSense for mobile content in 15 new countries

Friday, May 20, 2011 | 8:40 AM

Cross-posted on Adsense blog

We’re excited to announce the launch of AdSense for mobile content in 15 new countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Philippines, Slovenia, Thailand, and Turkey.

AdSense for mobile content allows publishers to generate earnings from their mobile webpages using targeted Google ads. Just like AdSense for content, Google matches ads to the content of your site -- in this case, your mobile site. You'll earn money whenever visitors to your mobile site click on the ads they see.

For mobile websites, AdSense will automatically detect the type of phone viewing your site and deliver ads to match. For example, if someone views your site through an iPhone, we'll deliver ads specifically designed for high-end phones.

Please note that AdSense for mobile content ad units may be used in mobile websites only, not in mobile applications -- our policies don't permit placement of AdSense for mobile content ads in a mobile application. If you’re looking for an advertising solution for your mobile application, sign up for AdMob, Google’s leading mobile advertising display product.


Posted by Emanuele Brandi, Product Sales Lead

Launch a mobile business with The Guide to the App Galaxy

Thursday, May 19, 2011 | 2:16 PM

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Cross-posted on the Official Google blog

The Guide to the App Galaxy, which we showed off last week at Google I/O, is designed to help mobile app developers—regardless of platform—navigate the complexities of launching an app and building a business on mobile. As you maneuver through the "galaxy” using the arrow keys on your keyboard, you’ll get the basics about app promotion, monetization and measurement—with tips from Google as well as successful developers.


There’s no exact blueprint for mobile app success and no developer’s journey is the same, which is why The Guide to the App Galaxy contains different advice and best practices from developers around the world. Here are some key insights from developers who have successfully built a business on mobile:


Rovio Mobile
Making money on mobile is not black and white—there's actually a lot of color. There are a number of business model options that aren't exclusive to any particular platforms.




Best, Cool & Fun Games
Offering your app for free lowers the barrier for users to download and try your app. The free version of Ant Smasher went viral because players could easily recommend the game to their friends through social media sites and word of mouth.




The Weather Channel
Don't forget to think beyond mobile. If you have a website or even a television channel, you can cross-promote your app with banner advertising or in-show mentions to drive downloads.





If you’re a developer who has successfully navigated the App Galaxy and launched your own app, you’ve probably picked up some tips of your own. Share your insights by creating your own journey and sharing it with your friends. We might even feature your story on The Guide to the App Galaxy.


The Guide to the App Galaxy is currently available in English, Japanese, Korean, French and German. We’re continuing to expand the guide to other developers around the world with new languages and new content like case study journeys. For more information about our solutions for mobile app developers, visit www.guidetotheappgalaxy.com/about.

Mobile Ads and AdMob at Google I/O

Wednesday, May 18, 2011 | 11:29 AM

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Last week, I had the pleasure of attending my first Google I/O as a Googler and speaker. It was a high-energy event and lots of mobile developers interested in building a business on mobile stopped by our Office Hours. Additionally, the videos from two sessions we hosted are now available:
  

Learn how to build a business on mobile apps so you can quit your day job. Walk away with an understanding of app business basics and how to use house ads for app promotion, mediation to optimize in-app advertising revenues and analytics to measure real ROI.


  
Watch our experts integrate the Google AdMob Ads SDK across Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7. Learn integration tips and tricks so you can start making money from your app today.

   
If you didn’t get a chance to catch all the announcements and excitement in-person or via the live-stream, we hope you’ll get a chance to experience it by visiting the Google I/O website.
 

Posted by Wayne Pan, Software Engineer for Mobile Display Advertising

Google and Digitas collaborate to drive original mobile marketing insights and research

Monday, May 16, 2011 | 11:39 AM

We’re always looking for new mobile insights to help advertisers better understand the mobile environment, build their brands and grow their businesses on this platform.  Today, we’re announcing that we’re teaming up with Digitas, an integrated brand agency, to deliver original mobile marketing insights and usage research.  The initiative will combine original Google and Digitas search and marketing data to forecast trends, inform investment strategies, and drive the creation of mobile optimized websites.  Below is the the first of many outputs from this collaboration -- specific insights from Mother’s Day 2011.

Mother’s Day is the second largest U.S. consumer spending holiday1. As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the mobile device has become a trusted shopping companion for many users and this Mother’s Day consumers once again turned to mobile to help them find the perfect gift for mom.  Google analyzed both mobile and desktop search behavior in the days leading up to Mother’s Day and here’s some initial findings:

  • On Mother's Day 2011 (May 9th), 33% of Google search queries on the term “flowers” came from mobile devices.
  • Mobile search queries for "flowers" both on Mother’s Day 2011 and in the week leading up to the holiday increased by over 100% compared with the same periods last year.
  • In the week prior to Mother’s Day desktop searches for “flowers” increased from Monday to Friday, then declined on the weekend, while mobile queries steadily increased all week and maxed out on the weekend.  While this is in line with general mobile/desktop usage trends, on the weekend of Mother’s Day, the increase in mobile searches on “flowers” was much higher that usual, as last minute shoppers scrambled to find a bouquet for mom.
  • Google searches on “mother’s day gifts” were relatively consistent across mobile and desktop suggesting that perhaps flowers were the last minute purchase of choice for many Mother’s Day shoppers.

Relative to last year, Mother’s day shoppers looking for flowers
relied more heavily on mobile.


Mobile technology is clearly changing the way businesses engage their consumers.  In response to Mother’s Day activity, Rich Lesperance, Heads of Online Marketing at Walgreens, commented: “Mobile is critical to our long-term goals of reaching customers and building relationships.  Our shoppers are busy and on-the-go, and mobile is the gateway to provide them information, access and service when they need it. This is especially true for last minute shopping around important holidays like Mother’s Day.”

Over the course of the year, our collaboration with Digitas will look at a range of mobile trends to better understand how the advancement of mobile technology and smartphone adoption impacts consumer behavior.  We look forward to sharing them with you.

1
National Retail Federation survey, April 2010


Posted by: Torrence Boone, Managing Director, Google Agency Business Development



Mobile Insights: 19% of hotel queries come from mobile devices

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 | 1:01 PM

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Today, we’re pleased to launch the first in our new Mobile Insights series, featuring expert views from members of our mobile ads business. Welcome this week’s guest author Erin Schultz, Senior Specialist, Mobile Ads, with contributions from Melissa Moody, Sales Development Manager for Travel. They share their thoughts during Travel & Tourism Week.

Let’s imagine you’re stranded on a trip and need to book a last minute flight or hotel. At a time like this you fully appreciate the power of the mobile web and mobile search. As consumers embrace their phones for all types of activities, we’re seeing mobile devices play a increasingly important role in the travel sector.

We like to think about travel in five stages from: dreaming of that perfect vacation; researching it; booking the trip; experiencing the place; then, sharing the experience with family and friends. Mobile now plays an essential role in this process. In fact, industry analysts at eMarketer predict the number of US consumers using mobile devices to research travel will climb from 19.7 million in 2010 to 29.7 million in 2012.

Mobile devices make all five stages of the travel process more accessible and more robust for consumers. It also opens opportunities for marketers.

  • Dreaming: Westin Hotels & Resorts created a display campaign on The Weather Channel’s app. It invited users to "Tap here to warm up," planting the seed for the dreaming user to begin planning their travel with Westin to warmer climes.
  • Research: At Google we’re seeing 19% of all hotel queries conducted on mobile devices.
  • Booking: Giving users an easy way to book on the spot is crucial. Scott Durchslag, President of Expedia.com revealed "70% of people searching on a phone are looking for a single room, for a single person for a single night that same day." (2)
  • Experiencing: Features such as reviews, translation, “scan and go” check-ins for flights, and  location maps make the travel experience easier.
  • Sharing: A study we conducted with Ipsos/OTX indicates that 49% of travelers report making travel plans based on the experiences and reviews of others. (3)
Many travel marketers are scaling up their mobile advertising investments, but for some, this remains uncertain territory. Here are four tips you can use to get started.
  1. Use location extensions to provide travelers with the opportunity to view ads that are more relevant to their locations. According to Priceline, 82% book within a day of arrival, and 58% are within 20 miles of their hotel. (4)
  2. Secure bookings with Click-to-Call. In a Google case study, IHG in Europe noted that by adding mobile creative and Click-to-Call with their mobile revenue increased over 91% YOY. They also found that 40% of their mobile revenue was driven by Click-to-Call.
  3. Drive app downloads through click-to-download ads. This functionality allows users to install apps in two easy clicks.
  4. Anticipate growing use of tablet devices and make sure you’ve developed a strategy to reach potential customers on tablets. View our recent blog post to learn how.
The mobile marketing industry is young and the window of opportunity is wide open, especially for travel brands. Now is the time to travel to an increasingly popular destination for consumers: the mobile platform. Has your brand taken travel mobile? We’d love to hear about your success in the comments below!

Posted by Erin Schultz, Senior Specialist, Mobile Ads.

Sources:
1. ‘Mobile Travel Takes Off’, eMarketer, March 2011.
2. Scott Durschlag, President, Expedia.com, March 2011.
4. Priceline Press Release, September 2010.

Getting ‘mobile-ready’ part 3: Experimenting with landing page design

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Recently we looked at how to test content on mobile to maximize user engagement. Today we want to take this one step further and share how variations in design can influence click-through behavior.

That creating a mobile-specific site would result in a better customer experience seems intuitive, but that’s only half the battle. How do you decide what your site should look like? Which calls-to-action are most compelling to mobile customers? How do layout and language affect engagement? To find out, we worked closely with Amit Shah who leads the mobile and social media efforts at 1-800-Flowers to test a series of landing pages with different layouts and call-to-action elements.

First 1-800-FLOWERS created pages to compare performance of click-to-call and click-to-store buttons. They also tested how the position of call-to-action buttons and their text (“Shop now” versus “Mobile deals”) can affect engagement. Pages with a product image and a single call-to-action were tested to understand how imagery and simplicity perform against multiple call-to-action options.



Adjusting the length of descriptive text allowed a comparison between calls-to-action above and below the “fold” to discover the impact of scrolling. Finally they contrasted offer types to find how percentage discounts perform against dollar discounts.



This experiment unearthed a number of key findings about landing page features and how they influence click-through behavior to help with your own design decisions:
  1. Keep calls-to-action above the fold. Offer language should be brief to maximize screen real estate. The landing page with long descriptive text requiring scrolling received a 57% lower click-through rate than all other test pages.
  2. All landing page elements should be clickable to make it easy for smartphone users to engage through touch. In the test, 45% of clicks came from the flower image or 1-800-FLOWERS logo.
  3. Include a product image to grab user attention and make it clickable to your mobile store. Pages with a product image received 26% higher click-throughs.
  4. Offer language can have an impact on performance. The “10% off“ click-through rate was 19% higher than the “$5 off” alternative. Testing different offer language will help you identify what appeals most to your mobile customers.
Have you improved user engagement on mobile by optimizing your website? We want to hear from you! Email mobile-optimized@google.com to share your story.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Introducing new ways to reach your customers on tablets

Tuesday, May 10, 2011 | 10:02 AM

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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 Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager

Mobile site optimization resources for download

Monday, May 9, 2011 | 10:52 AM

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Last Tuesday we presented a webinar on Mobile Site Optimization and shared some best practices and next steps to help you get started on the path to a fully optimized mobile presence.

Google Senior Mobile Account Executive, Elliott Nix, and Mobile Specialist, Shiv Kumar presented key statistics surrounding the current state of mobile readiness and made a strong case for the importance of mobile site optimization.

With half of all Americans predicted to have a smartphone by the end of year* and rates of mobile web usage continuing to grow rapidly, it should come as a real surprise that so many marketers, including 79% of Google’s largest customers, do not have a mobile optimized website.

As the number of mobile visitors to your site grows, it’s increasingly important to make sure you’re providing your users with the best experience you can. In one study, 11% of users expressed being so frustrated with a mobile transaction that they’ve screamed at their device and 23% have reported cursing at their phones.** Don’t let that be your site!

To learn more about mobile site optimization, download the Mobile Site Optimization webinar slides or watch the recording of the event on the Google Mobile Ads YouTube Channel or below.



Posted by Martina Agapakis, AdWords Account Manager

*Source: Nielsen March 2010, Morgan Stanley 2010
**Tealeaf: http://portal.sliderocket.com/AHJJM/Tealeaf-Mobile-Transactions-Survey, 3/31/11

Join us at Google I/O 2011

Friday, May 6, 2011 | 10:54 AM

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As you may have heard, Google I/O sold out in a record 59 minutes. If you were one of the lucky ones to snag a ticket, we look forward to seeing you in person at the Moscone Center in San Francisco next week.  Don’t forget to download the official Google I/O 2011 conference app for your Android phone or tablet.

We will be hosting two sessions at Google I/O:

May 10, 2011 @ 1:15 PM – 2:15 PM
“Don’t Just Build a Mobile App. Build a Business.”
Wayne Pan, our lead front-end engineer for AdMob, will show you how to build a business on mobile apps so maybe one day you can quit your day job. Walk away with an understanding of app business basics and how to use house ads for app promotion, mediation to optimize in-app advertising revenues and analytics to measure real ROI. 
May 11, 2011 @ 1:45 PM – 2:45 PM
“Implementing Money Making SDKs”
Watch our mobile display ads engineers, Mike Ying, Dean Browne and Paul Hounshell, integrate the Google AdMob Ads SDK across Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7. Learn integration tips and tricks from our experts so you can start making money from your app immediately.
Additionally, if you have any questions or just want to drop by and say hi, our product experts and engineers will be at Office Hours on both days.

If you weren’t able to grab a ticket or can’t attend one of our I/O Extended viewing parties around the world, don’t worry.  You can watch the keynote and other major sessions (including our “Don’t Just Build a Mobile App. Build a Business session”), live.  In addition, HD video recordings from all sessions that are not livestreamed will get posted within 24 hours.  For more about the livestream event, check out the I/O Live blog post.

Posted by Lauren Usui, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Mobile and the Shopper Marketing Business

Monday, May 2, 2011 | 1:13 PM

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“What gluten-free cake mixes taste the best?”
“Where can I buy allergy medicine at 11:00PM?”
“Which diaper brand is on sale this week?”

What do these questions have in common?
1. They all imply a purchase will be made in the near future.
2. They can all be answered using your mobile device.

Recently, Google’s Jim Lecinski and Brian McDevitt spoke at the In-Store Marketing Institutes's annual Shopper Marketing Summit. The duo discussed the impact of mobile on the path-to-purchase process and what this shift means for marketers.

Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director, U.S. Sales and Service, kicked off the session by stating that mobile’s role in the path-to-purchase is actually very simple. Shoppers rely on the mobile web to research products and services both pre-store and in-store.  And when shoppers read reviews or find weekly deals online, this information can change what they buy and where they buy it.  In fact, 79% of smartphone users use smartphones to help them shop and 74% have purchased due to using their smartphone while shopping (Google’s “Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” study 2011).

Because the mobile Internet has a direct impact on consumer purchase decisions, it is critically important for marketers to have a mobile presence when their target shoppers are in mobile errand planning and buying mode.  

Continuing the presentation, Brian McDevitt, Google's Mobile Display Ads Lead, shared a scenario of the mobile-mom-of-the-not-too-distant future using her mobile device to plan for her son’s birthday party.  Through the course of her day, she experiences:
  1. A Mobile Website that helps her find the right product, quickly and easily.
  2. Mobile Brand Applications that assist her in tracking down the right recipe to serve her guests.
  3. Mobile Retailer Applications that show her weekly deals at local stores
  4. Third Party Applications & Sites that enable her to build shopping lists across retailers, provide coupons and give suggestions for relevant products
  5. Google Maps or Ads with Location Extensions that help with navigation to local stores
  6. Google Mobile Search & Display Ads that connect the entire experience so it’s easy to find relevant information on a mobile site or application.  
And the great part is that this fictional mom could exist today.  All of these mobile capabilities and more are available now to create a seamless mobile shopping experience for your customers. 

Wrapping up the session, Jim laid it on the line when he said, “Mobile is the key to shopper marketing.”  I happen to agree.

Posted by Katrina Shonbeck, Mobile Display Account Planner