Shopping Blog

(cross-posted on The Google Commerce Blog)

People today are constantly connected, presenting a tremendous opportunity for retailers to deliver the right products to them across devices anytime, anywhere. We recently announced the release of enhanced campaigns to help advertisers reach customers in a multi-screen world. Today we're pleased to announce the Product Listing Ads are now eligible to appear on smartphones globally, extending the shopping experience already available desktops and tablets. When a user enters a shopping-related search, a commercial format that displays products in a single unit may appear above organic search results. This ad unit is labeled as a 'Sponsored' and displays rich product images, prices, retailers, and more. This mobile shopping experience will be available in all markets currently serving Product Listing Ads.

Below are a couple of examples of what a shopper might see when searching for a product from their phone.




In the image on the left, a user searching for a plaid tie may see an ad unit displaying three options. He can click any of them to learn more and buy, or click 'Shop on Google' to continue browsing on Google Shopping, as shown in the image on the right. From there, the user can look at an even wider variety of options from different retailers. He can review and compare images, prices, reviews, shopping options and other information. Perhaps he'll narrow his search down to plaid ties over $45, or filter to see just the selections available nearby. Finally, once the user has honed in on the perfect choice, he can easily complete his purchase on the retailer's site.

Ensure your products are eligible to display in this new unit for smartphones.

If you've already upgraded your Product Listing Ads to enhanced campaigns and made appropriate bid adjustments, your products will automatically be eligible to display in the new unit for smartphones. If you haven't yet upgraded your Product Listing Ads to enhanced campaigns, we recommend you upgrade to increase coverage of your products and easily manage bids across devices, locations, and time of day - all from a single campaign.


During this webinar, attendees will learn about how Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads work in concert with features that are part of enhanced campaigns. We will also discuss the latest Google Shopping user experience on smartphones and cover new multi-screen opportunities for retail advertisers.

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Earlier this year, we launched The Mobile Playbook in the US to help brands and agencies develop winning mobile strategies. At the time, most marketers had already moved beyond the “why mobile?” question, but didn’t know where or how to get started. Now it’s become clear that, when done right, mobile works for marketers. As the industry has evolved, we’re seeing examples of marketers designing compelling mobile creatives, and how savvy advertisers are finding ways to measure the real value that mobile has on their businesses. These are two areas that have been top of mind for the thousands of marketers that we’ve talked with and we’re excited to expand the playbook to delve deeper into these topics.

In The Full Value of Mobile section, we dive into the range of mobile conversions possible today and how they provide economic value to businesses in ways that marketers may not realize. For example, Adidas worked with iProspect to evaluate how mobile clicks on their store locator links were driving in-store sales, and ultimately found that each mobile store locator click was worth $3.20.

With mobile debuting as a new category at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity this year, it’s clear that mobile has truly arrived as a creative platform. According to Terry Savage, Chairman of Cannes Lions, "We're now starting to see some marketers build incredibly engaging and immersive creative for mobile. We sought out to celebrate these great mobile creatives at Cannes Lions this year and inspire others to think about how to bring their brands to life on mobile." The Mobile Creativity section explains why mobile is unique and powerful from a creative perspective, and shares examples of how marketers from around the world have used mobile to bring their brands to life.

The Mobile Playbook was created as a one-stop resource to spotlight brands that are making mobile work for them and to reflect our latest recommendations on how marketers can approach mobile strategically. We’ve also rolled out international versions of The Mobile Playbook across different countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, France, and the UK, and will bring the playbook to Japan, Australia and Italy over the coming weeks. We welcome your input, and will keep adapting the playbook as the industry continues to evolve.

Posted by Jason Spero, Head of Global Mobile Sales & Strategy

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

We’ve had conversations with hundreds of business leaders about mobile over the past year and two clear themes emerged from these discussions. Today, companies understand that they need to invest in mobile to engage with their customers on this platform. The problem is, most don't know where to start. To help address this issue, we launched a new resource: The Mobile Playbook. In this interactive guide, we pose 5 crucial questions all executives should be asking to win with mobile:

• How does mobile change our value proposition?
• How does mobile impact our digital destinations?
• Is our organization adapting to mobile?
• How should our marketing adapt to mobile?
• How can we connect with our tablet audience?

Visit www.themobileplaybook.com from your tablet, PC or smartphone today. If you can, visit it from your tablet. Because The Mobile Playbook site is built with HTML5, we had the flexibility to customize the experience for different types of screens. We designed it for tablets first, then scaled the content up for the PC and streamlined it for smartphones. This way, we were able to ensure that readers will have an enjoyable browsing experience, no matter what context they’re in. We hope this resource will help you have productive conversations with your teams and agencies and ultimately help you adapt to the mobile consumer who is waiting to engage with you.

Visit www.themobileplaybook.com from your tablet today.

Mobile represents a sociological shift with how users relate with both the digital and physical world. The companies that understand that all businesses are becoming mobile businesses will be primed to succeed today and in the years to come.

Posted by: Jason Spero, Head of Global Mobile Sales and Strategy

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Just a quick reminder to tune in to the Think with Google Google+ page this Wednesday, April 25th, at 3pm EST/ 12pm PST for a special Hangout on Air mobile strategy discussion. We’ll be introducing our new resource, The Mobile Playbook, and talking about how mobile can help businesses win the moments that matter, make better decisions, and go bigger, faster. Our incredible mobile panelists have all been early movers in the mobile space, and we’ll be hearing their perspective on the 5 key questions we feature in The Mobile Playbook that every business executive should be asking today in order to win with mobile. We hope you’ll be there. Leave your questions for the panel in advance by clicking on the scrapbook photo at the top of the Think with Google Google+ page and leaving a comment on the photo.

• When: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 3pm EST/ 12pm PST 
• How: In order to view the Hangout on Air, visit the Think with Google Google+ page at 3pm EST on April 25th, look for the stream post about the Hangout on Air, and click on it to tune in. Don’t forget to be signed into Google+! If you aren’t started yet with Google+, get started here with just your Google account. 

On April 25, look for the Hangout on Air post like the image above on the Think with Google +page and click to tune-in!

Posted by: Jason Spero, Head of Global Mobile Sales and Strategy

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Retailers are largely focused on how consumers are shopping across channels and devices. We know consumers love their mobile and tablet devices, but we are just beginning to develop a strong understanding of how they engage with these devices as they make their purchase decisions. To gain greater insight into this key behavior, we partnered with Ipsos during the 2011 holiday shopping season to study online shoppers. We uncovered a number of interesting consumer behaviors across desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. The powerful data we uncovered can drive best practices for advertisers at every holiday and year round.

The first key mobile insight every advertiser should know is that consumers use their smartphones at many different points in their purchase path. 41% of those who used their mobile phones to help with shopping said they made a purchase directly on their smartphone. 46% said they researched an item on their smartphone then went to a store to make their purchase. 37% said they researched an item on their smartphone then made their purchase online.


Another key mobile insight that emerged is that consumers used all three devices throughout the research process, but some activities were more popular on specific devices. Consumers who owned tablets read product reviews and looked for product information more from their tablet devices than from their desktop computer or smartphone. This is likely due to the combination of the large screen and portability of the device that enables consumers to use it more often and in more places. Consumers are carrying tablets with them to the couch, while in the kitchen, and even to bed.

Not surprisingly, more consumers used their smartphones to contact a retailer. With the natural calling ability of phones and many click-to-call phone numbers on websites and in ads, smartphones make it easy to contact retailers, whether to see if the store has the product in stock, get directions or find store hours.


While the 2011 holiday season is now firmly behind us, it’s clear that smartphones and tablets are only going to become a bigger part of the consumer shopping experience. Among consumers that used their devices to shop last year, 80% of smartphone shoppers and 70% of tablet users said they used their device more frequently this year.

To stay ahead of this shift in consumer behavior, advertisers need to make sure they have a mobile optimized site, make it easy for customers to reach them with click-to-call and deliver a seamless experience between online and offline in-store. It’s the advertisers who engage with their customers across all three devices that will have a distinct advantage in 2012.

To learn more about consumer shopping behavior across the desktop computer, smartphone and tablet and view a full report on Post Holiday Learnings for 2012.

Posted by: Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

To ensure that we deliver the most effective mobile ads marketplace to our customers we are changing the AdMob auction for all cost-per-click (CPC) ads.

Effective February 15, 2012, AdMob will move to an AdWords-style auction, where the winning price is determined by the quality of the ad and the other bids on that impression; the price we charge will never exceed the advertiser’s bid. In addition, we’re removing minimum bids and targeting fees to allow AdMob CPC advertisers to compete for inventory under the natural forces of supply and demand.

Advertisers will benefit from more efficient pricing and could receive cheaper clicks depending on the inventory on which they bid. High quality ads will be rewarded with an improved chance at winning the auction.

This change will occur for all CPC auctions globally on Feb 15th. There are no changes to non-CPC campaigns at this time. Advertisers should monitor their bids to see the effect on their particular campaigns, and be prepared to adjust bids & budgets to ensure they are meeting their volume & ROI goals.

We look forward to bringing AdWords auction components that have been refined over the years to the AdMob platform to benefit advertisers, users, and publishers.

Please visit the Help Center for more details.

Posted by: Chrix Finne, Product Manager

With the free shipping cutoff looming, shoppers are turning to the streets to find last-minute gifts in stores. You can make your brand stand out after the shipping cutoff by taking advantage of the consumer’s companion this holiday season -- smartphones.

Mobile queries have spiked the week before Christmas (see chart below) for the past two years. In the retail category, “Black Friday” related mobile queries were over 200% higher in 2011 than last year, and Google Mobile Ads project that 44% of this season’s searches for last-minute gifts and store-locators will be done on mobile phones.1 So ensure your mobile site experience is on par with your desktop site as 40% of users will turn to a competitor if not.2 


Prepare for this influx of foot-and-mobile-traffic by doing the following:

Make it easy to find your store. 95% of mobile users will be looking for location-specific information, and 61% will go into stores after finding a store’s address.3 Promote findable and easily clickable links on your site to drive users to your store. If you’re an AdWords advertiser, take advantage of Location Extensions. When a user searches on Google or within Google Maps, your location will be displayed if your ad is the most relevant answer. Find more information at the Adwords Help Center.

Display your phone number. 59% of smartphone users call a store after searching.3 Smartphone users are ready to act, and if you don’t have a mobile-optimized site, or you know your users are more likely to convert over the phone, show your phone number in an easy-to-click format with Click-to-Call ads.

Promote other mobile-specific actions. In addition to viewing maps, calling stores, and purchasing, smartphones also encourage actions such as signing up for reminders, downloading applications, and looking for deals and offers. During this year’s Black Friday weekend, Google trends showed that searches for [mobile coupons] were up 90% in volume over last year. If you’re using ads to increase awareness, consider implementing Ad Sitelinks to help customers navigate to pages that promote important actions on your site.

Let shoppers share your deals. Beyond the 70% of mobile users who compare prices before purchasing, 90% of mobile users are social mavens, too.4 Don’t ignore this behavior as your customers can be trusted brand advocates. For example, they are 50% more likely to create content that will influence their peers’ shopping decisions.5 Try sharing your deals through various social platforms, such as incorporating Google’s +1 button on your site. Read about integrating a +1 button here.

Connect your devices. Finally, focus on the shopper, not just the device. Your customers use multiple devices to inform purchases -- desktop, tablets, and smartphones. Provide a cohesive shopping experience across all devices so your customers can find you easily at any time.

Happy Holidays, and Happy Shopping!

Posted by Julie Jin, The Google Mobile Ads Team

1. Google Internal Data, “Last Minute Shopping Analysis,” 2011
2. Compuware, "What Users Want from Mobile," 2011
3. Google "The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users," 2011
4. Lightspeed Research, 2010; Google "The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users," 2011
5. ROI Research, 2011, “S-Net: The Impact of Social Media”

(Cross-posted on the Inside Adwords Blog)

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 just saw ads 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 help optimize your mobile campaigns and 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 setup 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 CPM 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

(cross-posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Yesterday we introduced you to the GoMo initiative and today we take a deep dive to share what makes for a good mobile website experience.  

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

HP launched a campaign to build awareness and preference for its ink cartridge products. As part of the digital marketing program, HP took advantage of Google’s mobile rich media capabilities to engage consumers on smartphones and tablets.

The rich media ads featured a short interactive game that HP developed for Android and iOS phones and tablets. Users could drag their fingertips across the screen to guide a net andcapture floating butterflies and score points for coupon savings while learning about the HP supplies value proposition.



As it turned out, HP’s playful mobile experience yielded impressive results. Within seven weeks, HP drove significant engagement with consumers. The campaign, executed with the help of mobile agency Airwave, resulted in:

• Over 400,000 games played
• 15% of consumers replaying the game
• Over 26,000 video views

HP took notice of the mobile engagement rates and are now considering other ways to take advantage of the rich creative palette that mobile can provide. According to Tariq Hassan, VP WW Marketing and Communications at HP, “Our customers are looking to mobile devices for entertainment as well as education. Through this collaboration with Google, we were able to deliver both at the same time, giving our customers valuable information about our products in a fun and engaging way.”


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

Not sure how to most effectively leverage and measure your mobile marketing campaigns?

We just wanted to remind you to tune this week to Google’s Think Mobile webinar, Mobile Advertising: Right Person, Right Time, Right Message - Finally!, led by Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist. Avinash will share tips and best practices for mobile marketing campaigns, new metrics unique to mobile, and how best to measure mobile ads and websites.

• When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011 9-10:30am PST/ 12-1:30pm EST
• How: Register here

Well, you’re not alone. While mobile is an incredible new way to distribute content and reach customers on the go, it also presents a unique challenge when it comes to measuring the impact of our mobile efforts (like applications, advertisements or mobile-optimized websites).

(cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

Mobile advertising has created an entirely new opportunity for businesses to drive phone calls to sales teams and call centers, generating a new method for our advertisers to receive qualified incoming leads. In fact, since we introduced the click-to-call feature to advertisers over a year ago, we’ve had more than half a million customers globally run campaigns with phone extensions.

Two of the most common ways to get mobile customers to call you are either by listing your phone number on a click-to-call ad, or adding your phone number onto your website. It’s easy to measure calls from a click-to-call ad from your Campaign reports, but it can be more challenging to track the calls made by consumers clicking on the phone number on your website.

Today, we are introducing a new conversion tracking metric to help advertisers and agencies do just that: all AdWords accounts will now have the ability to report calls placed from mobile pages.



You’ll now be able to attribute clicks on your phone number or ‘call’ button back to the AdWords campaign, ad group, ad or keyword that brought a customer in. As this is a new tracking metric, there won’t be new charges or changes to CPCs. We hope that this new metric will give advertisers and agencies new, richer information on the value and returns from their mobile advertising.

Red Ventures, a customer acquisition company in Charlotte, NC, was a beta partner for this new conversion metric. In addition to their own proprietary in-house tracking platform, they used this new metric to track the use of click-to-call numbers on their mobile websites for a variety of partners. John Sutton, VP of Online Marketing at Red Ventures, said, “Now, every advertiser can get full insight into calls generated from their AdWords spend on mobile devices, directly inside the AdWords interface and at a very granular level.” Moreover, John sees this as a new added benefit to AdWords advertisers who “don’t have the capability required to produce unique keyword or ad level phone numbers on their mobile websites.”

This new metric enables all advertisers to leverage existing AdWords tools to now optimize for calls. According to John Sutton at Red Ventures, this “opens the doors to participation in AdWords features that rely on conversion metrics like Enhanced CPC and Target CPA bidding.” You can start using this new metric by installing a snippet of code on your landing pages. Upon doing so, you can set ‘calls’ as a conversion metric to track on your landing page. Next, you can pair calls focused campaigns with tools like Conversion Optimizer, then bid by setting a target CPA for calls, and ultimately automate ad serving to optimize for calls.

If driving calls is an important part of your mobile advertising strategy, and you’ve placed a phone number or ‘Call now!’ button on your site, begin measuring these calls now using this new conversion type. Moreover, in doing so you’ll be able to leverage a rich set of existing AdWords tools available to you to optimize performance. For more information on how to set this up, please see our Help Center article.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

[cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog]

It’s time for our third post in our Mobile Insights series featuring expert views from our mobile ads team. This week’s guest contributor is Adam Compain, a Mobile Specialist at Google. Adam explains why it’s vital to create a mobile website now versus later.

In the early days of the Web, businesses didn’t believe their customers were online, nor did they think the Internet would become a viable medium for customer interaction. Companies were hesitant to build websites, let alone advertise online.

Of course, the Internet ramped up faster than anyone imagined. Companies that hesitated were left behind and those that took action became industry leaders, reinventing their business models to become more efficient and profitable marketers. In this new age of mobile computing, how can you ensure your business remains present? Build a mobile site. Research has shown that web retailers can increase consumer engagement 85% with a mobile-specific website (1).

At Google, we’ve worked with many advertisers who’ve already built excellent mobile experiences for their users. Each one of the examples showcased below focuses on the needs of a mobile user and is designed for ease of navigation on a mobile device. These sites, all stemming from different industries, prioritize content, use a simple layout and are designed specifically for touch interaction with large buttons.




Meanwhile, 79% of large online advertisers do not have a mobile site (2). Those who have not taken action may be harming their relationship with potential customers: 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% said they’d visit a competitor’s mobile site instead (3). Throw in the astonishing rate of mobile web adoption - which is ramping 8x faster than the desktop web did in the mid 90's - and the importance of having a mobile site is clear. (4).

Think about the 4-inch mobile screen as your new storefront. It may be the most important one you ever have: it’s always open; it’s in the hands of nearly everyone, and it’s increasingly how people are finding your business. As important as it is to have a mobile advertising strategy, it’s even more vital to build a mobile website that delivers a seamless and satisfying experience to your users.

Avoid falling into the trap of marketers in the mid 90’s who didn’t think the Internet would evolve into a viable medium for customer interaction.

Ready to take action? Download our new two-page guide: “5 Easy Ways to Mobilize Your Website”.


Posted by Adam Compain, Google Mobile Specialist

Sources:
1. Research by Brand Anywhere and Luth Research, “Supply and Demand of the Mobile Web” Nov, 2010.
2. Google Research, 2010
3. Compuware, “Why the Mobile Web is Disappointing End-users,” March 2011
4. Mary Meeker, Economy & Internet Trends, Oct 09

Google Analytics installed on this blog tells me that about 8% of you are reading this post from a mobile device right now. How many of your customers are completing purchases on their mobile devices today? Do you know how many are looking for driving directions to your store right now? Whatever that number is, expect it to continue increasing as a percentage of your total traffic, and for there to be significant incremental query demand in your keywords from mobile devices over time.

As usage of mobile devices for both digital and physical commerce grows, so does the number of touch points for reaching your customers on the portable web. Mobile devices are not just used for communication anymore; in fact, only 27% of time spent on smart phones are devoted to communication (calls, texts, skype), while 60% of time is web-based, including web apps, games, social, search, maps, and other activities. So, how many touch points are you covering in your mobile strategy?

If you have a mobile application out there, great! (I hope you’re promoting it and not just letting it sit in the marketplace and collect dust at rank #128,395). Don’t think you have all your bases covered with that app, though. Mobile app markets are just one of the many touch points where your customers may be expecting to find you. The number one place they are expecting to find you is on your own domain. In addition, they expect that you have thought through and developed an excellent experience catering to their small screen and mobile network speeds. Here are five reasons why you should develop a mobile optimized version of your site in addition to your mobile app:

1. 63% of all online adults said they would be less likely to buy from the same company via other purchase channels if they experienced a problem conducting a mobile transaction
2. 68% - Users prefer mobile sites to apps for browsing for products (eMarketer October 2010) 
3. 40% of mobile users would visit a competitors site if they are dissatisfied with the performance of the mobile site
4. 58% expect websites on your phone to load almost as quickly or faster than desktop sites
5. Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access devices worldwide by 2013, which means very soon, more views of your site will be from mobile devices than on desktops (Gartner)

So it’s not just what you could gain by taking action, it’s also what you could lose if you don’t. Also, if 2013 sounds pretty far away when you already have a to-do list that’s miles long, just remember that Mobile web adoption is ramping up about 8x faster than desktop web adoption did in the mid '90s. So, before your customers head over to a competitior’s mobile-friendly site instead, get a comprehensive strategy together and mobilize your website!

Posted by Tiffany Lin, The Google Retail Team

We invite you to take a few minutes tomorrow and hear mobile insights, strategies and best practices from mobile search specialists. Today at 1:00 pm EST, Google’s Anjali Vaidya, Mobile Account Manager, and Bon Mercado, Senior Mobile Account Manager, will speak to 1000+ members of the American Marketing Association in a webinar; please join us.

Since marketers tend to combine their mobile and desktop campaigns in order to drive additional traffic, many marketing efforts are not yet optimized for the mobile platform. Today, Bon and Anjali will share tactics and tools for setting up mobile specific campaigns to maximize traffic and conversions. Major topics of the webinar will include the mobile search landscape and how to optimize mobile campaign structure. Specifically, Anjali and Bon will discuss keyword selection, ad creative and click to call options, mobile landing pages, and analytics and reporting.

To register, click here. Dial in for a the latest and greatest mobile strategies from Google’s Mobile Search Ads Team!

Posted by, Anjali Vaidya, Mobile Account Manager at Google

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Ads Blog)

As mobile technology continues to accelerate, our phones are quickly becoming indispensable shopping tools. Whether researching a product or comparing prices before purchasing, 79% of US smartphone users have used their devices to help with shopping and 74% of those smartphone shoppers have made a purchase.*

This means that having a mobile strategy is key when engaging with these tech savvy, connected consumers. And this is especially true for advertisers focused on driving online and in-store conversions. To help you develop your mCommerce strategy, we’ve put together the following list of best practices for driving smartphone users to purchase from your site. Please note that these tips are geared towards ads running on high-end devices with full Internet browsers.

Extend your Online Brand Reputation to Mobile with Seller Ratings
It’s no secret that having a great online reputation is essential to driving online conversions. With Seller Ratings on mobile, you can extend your online reputation from desktop to mobile devices and leverage the power of the mobile platform to drive conversions on your website.

The Seller Ratings extension enables mobile searchers to see merchants who are highly recommended by other shoppers. By showcasing relevant and useful rating information for your business, the extension can help differentiate you from your competition and guide potential customers to purchase from your site. In recent studies, campaigns with mobile Seller Ratings saw a 7.5% increase in clickthrough rates when compared to campaigns without this extension.

click to enlarge image

Seller Ratings are aggregated from merchant review sites all around the web and the extension will only show when a merchant's online store has a rating of four or more stars and at least 30 reviews. To learn more about Seller Ratings, please read this Help Center entry.

Take your Customers Directly to your Desired Conversion Path with Mobile Ad Sitelinks
Ad Sitelinks enable direct navigation to specific pages of your website. Since navigating on the mobile web can still be difficult, sitelinks for mobile can be especially useful in taking customers directly to the desired conversion path on your site. For example, with sitelinks you can quickly guide your customers to the best selling products on your site or to your online store locator. Mobile users find this format particularly helpful and on average campaigns with mobile sitelinks see a 30% increase in clickthrough rates when compared to campaigns without sitelinks.

Right now a maximum of two sitelinks can appear on mobile devices with ads displaying two links across one line or stacked vertically on two lines. One-line sitelinks can show with the Click-to-Call Phone Extension and will display one link to your website alongside your phone number. One-line sitelinks can also show with the Seller Ratings Extension and will display your online store rating as well as two links to your website.

click to enlarge image

The quality of your ad will determine which variation of mobile Ad Sitelinks will show. Two-line sitelinks typically show for higher quality ads. To learn more about mobile sitelinks, please read this Help Center entry.

Drive Customers to your Store with Offer Ads
Are you running an in-store promotion? You can get the word out and incentivize customers to visit your store by placing a coupon right in your AdWords ads.

Mobile Ads with Offers enable advertisers to include special deals in their mobile search ads, allowing users to store coupons via email or SMS. Ads will also display your phone number or your business location on a Google Map for Mobile so that customers have everything they need to go to your store, redeem the offer and make a purchase. Mobile Ads with Offers are currently in beta, but we hope to make it broadly available soon.

click to enlarge image

Make it Easier For Customers to Contact you with Click-to-Call Ads
Whether you take orders over the phone or have a physical store location, you can ensure that your customers can easily connect with you by including your business phone number in your mobile search ads. Since users who make a call are showing interest in your product or service, they are more likely to make a purchase. With a call costing the same as a click to your ad, this is a very cost-effective ad format for driving quality leads and conversions for your business.

Are you specifically focused on driving calls to your business? Try the Call-Only Creative, an enhancement to the Click-to-Call ad format that ensures your phone number is the only clickable part of your mobile ad.

Do you have a vanity phone number? Use the Vanity Phone Numbers feature of Click-to-Call to display an alphanumeric phone number in your mobile ad and ensure that customers easily remember how to get in touch with you.

click to enlarge image

 

To learn more about mobile ads with Click-to-Call please read this Help Center entry.

We hope you’ll find these tips helpful in driving conversions with your mobile campaigns and look forward to developing more mCommerce ad features for you in the future.


Posted by Anna Khesed, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team
*source: US Mobile Smartphone Consumer Study, Google & Ipsos, 2010

The past ten years have brought surging growth in countless areas of technology and communication for US consumers: The number of personal computers, the number of mobile phones, accessibility to high speed Internet. However, there is one growing number whose rise has not generally been welcomed: the price of gas.

Since the early years of the past decade, gas prices have been rising in the US. Yet, as we move out of winter and into spring, another round of gas price increases again besets the US--at historically sharp rates. The week of February 28, 2011 marked the second greatest week-over-week leap in US gas prices since 1990.

At the start of this month, the national average price-at-the pump was currently around $3.39/gallon--a year-over-year increase of 27%, or $0.72. Looking ahead for the rest of the year, the US Department of Energy predicts an overall 2011 average price of $3.15/gallon. This represents a $0.37 year-over-year increase.

This latest uptick does not seem to show signs of slowing any time soon. The same DOE report forecasts prices climbing to a $3.30/gallon average in 2012, with a steady $0.05 average rise per gallon each year for the foreseeable future. There is a 10% probability that prices could “exceed $4.00 per gallon” in the summer of 2011. West Coast states should brace for even higher gallon averages during peak season, by as much as $0.25.

Rising gas prices have complex, difficult to predict outcomes. However, one nearly certain impact will be a shift in driving habits of many Americans--which will in turn impact their shopping habits and, thus, retailers. What should retailers look for, and how should they respond?

Romy Ribitzky, a writer at Portfolio.com, believes that there might be a silver lining to rising gas prices--at least for pure player retailers: “Gas prices put pressure on traditional bricks-and-mortars retailers that online ones don’t have to worry as much about.” The implication is clear: It could reinforce long-term cross-channel shifting of shopping and buying from the real world to the online world. Rising gas prices could also compound and accelerate growing trends of consumer savvy, with even more of the upper purchase funnel--research and browsing--occurring at home, rather than in stores. Conversely, when consumers do make the trip, they may be even more primed to buy once in the store.

For pure player retailers, this builds on a decade-long trend of increasing e-commerce activity. For retailers maintaining both a physical and virtual world presence, this calls for keeping an eye on upticks in traffic to their sites or other signs pointing to a gas-price-driven migration of consumers online--and to plan growth strategies and budgets accordingly.

Yet, many pure player retailers also have a major connection to gas prices: shipping costs. Ribitzky warns in the same article that “when oil prices rise, they take a profit-margin percentage out of the retailer’s equation” as shipping costs increases. This makes free shipping enticements a more expensive offer for the retailer. But, shipping is only the most obvious area of impact for gas prices.





With high gas prices here to stay--and, in all likelihood, rising for the foreseeable future--now is the time to reflect upon all the possible ways your business intersects with the real economy. Hyperlocal merchants may have an edge in locations within walking and biking distance. Acquiring retail locations near major public transit routes may matter more than ever. Travel could become more expensive for cars and planes, impacting retailers that depend on tourist seasonalities. At a big picture level, any marketing strategies should follow suit--engaging all the mobile and local advertising products possible.

Yet, there might be a flipside here as well. Local merchants may have to contend with other countervailing trends. Phil Wahba, a journalist with Reuters, reports that “the International Council of Shopping Centers expects February chain store sales to be up 2.5 percent to 3 percent.” Such a shift may hint at an increasing consumer trend toward packing as many purchases into as few trips as possible.

Regardless of size, retailers might consider ad creatives that appeal to the consumer’s desire to minimize fuel costs, with mentions of free shipping, or crafting ad campaigns around the cross-selling potentials of your store. If you sell bikes and helmets, inspire (or entice with special deals) buyers to save a trip and buy both your store. Increased fuel costs may key new segments of consumers into ecological awareness. With the rise of green marketing trends, this could mean new or greater traction for eco-friendly products.

As long as gas prices remain in flux and predictions are difficult even for the short term, many recommendations to retailers can seem contradictory. Every recommendation should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt--and, of course, due consideration of your business’ subvertical, region of the country, history, target audiences, and business model. However, this latest spike in gas prices reminds all retailers to comprehensively consider the impact of rising energy prices.


Posted by Paul Nauert, The Google Retail Team

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Blog)

Looking to reach out to your customers on mobile? Join us for our live streamed discussion on February 10th, 1:05pm EST with Mary Meeker, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, Google’s Dennis Woodside, SVP of Americas Operations, and Jason Spero, Head of Americas Mobile Advertising on the future of mobile and mobile marketing. To learn more about the event and live stream, please visit the Google Mobile Ads blog.


Posted by Suzanne Mumford, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team