Mobile Search Ads at SMX West

I just finished listening to a great panel on mobile search ads at SMX West.  Included on the panel were Paul Cushman from Yahoo, Dennis Glavin from Microsoft, Jeff Licciardi with Performics, Michael Slinger with Google, and Kerri Smith with iProspect.

There were two great highlights from this sessioN; advice and data.

Mobile Search Ads Advice

Dennis Glavin’s advice?  Crawl, then walk, then run.

Crawl: Port your desktop campaigns to mobile.

Walk: Update your keyword & bid strategy, keeping in mind that keywords perform differently on mobile than keywords on the desktop.  Include a very strong call to action in the creative, and use mobile specific copy. Keep the landing page simple, light and formatted for smart phones.

Run: Use advanced mobile features like location-based coupons and offers.

Some other advice from the panelists:

• Treat mobile differently; separate mobile campaigns from your desktop campaigns.
• Understand what part of your product or service your customers want to hear about on mobile devices.
• Plan the ad and landing page experience for mobile delivery.
• Think local.
• If you have an app, use mobile ads to drive discoverability for the app.
• Iterate, iterate, iterate.  Test, test, test.  Measure, measure, measure.

Mobile Search Ads Data

The panel came prepared with some really interesting data points.

Here are some highlights:

• Mobile traffic during TV shows (such as the Academy Awards) spikes during the commercials.
• Including mobile, there is an average of 6 connected devices per household, and 3 per person.
• People use mobile devices for short sessions, and tablets/desktops for longer sessions.
• 50% of users want coupons and offers on their mobile device, 61% want location based offers and 39% of US retailers plan on deploying mobile ads.
• Mobile use spikes between 6 and 9 PM daily.
• Adding click-to-call in a mobile ad can increase click through rate by 6-8%.
• 80% of retailers haven’t created mobile-friendly landing pages.
• About 29% of restaurant searches are from mobile devices, whereas it’s around 15% for electronics, beauty products, finance, and auto.
• Desktop searches dominate during the week, mobile searches complement by filling in on the weekend (pictured above).

Conclusions

The over-arching theme of the panel was that while mobile search is a young discipline, you can definitely be successful.  Start out by following best practices, measure the results and get a baseline.  Then experiment, experiment, experiment to improve from that baseline.

For more information, check out Microsoft Advertising Mobile Advertising.

Okay, I need to run… my phone just buzzed.

Thanks!

David Kline - Program Manager, Global Web & Community Team

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