Top PPC Tips for Smartphone Advertisers

And so to 2011: the year of the rabbit, the year when London is desperately trying to prepare for the Olympics, and the year when mobile phones are taking over the world. It seems everywhere you go now people are “tweeting” of “liking” something while they are on the move.

In this blog, hopefully you can find some words of wisdom on how to make the most of your telco advertising.

The Rise of the Smartphone

With the releases of so many new and innovative phones (predominantly smartphones) on the market, consumers are getting excited.  Following the launch of Windows Phone 7 in Q4 2010, the end user has been benefitting from an increasing amount of apps to choose from. Consumers are becoming more and more interested in smartphones, as is shown by the 61% increase in traffic on Bing for smartphone-related search queries between 2009 and 2010.

According to (BCS), worldwide sales of smartphones grew 72% in 2010 with further rises expected in 2011. With the news that Microsoft has partnered with Nokia, and Sony Ericsson with Android up against Blackberry and the iPhone, there really is a battle going on to bowl over consumers with the latest gadgets.

What Bing Can Offer

If we look closer at smartphone search trends on Bing, it is interesting to note that 42% more traffic occurs during the week, peaking between Tuesday and Wednesday, with 63% of these searchers being between the age of 25 and 49 (Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool).

adCenter, Bing’s advertising platform, allows you to target these searchers and make the most of your advertising budget, helping to boost your ROI. You can increase your bids on these days and to these demographics, something which Bing is uniquely able to offer amongst the search engines. Learn more about demographic targeting with adCenter here.

With such a competitive market, make sure that you have all the relevant keywords in your account. Update the campaigns with the newest phones that are coming out, but don’t forget about the more traditional styles. Smartphones might be on the rise, but the market for the traditional phone is still there and the searches prove it. By the end of Q3 2010, 50% of the UK market had Pay as You Go phones, many of which were of this type.

5 Top Tips for SmartPhone Advertisers:

Make sure that you cover all the opportunities. Smartphones are on the rise, but still only represent 27 % of the mobile market (comScore).  There is a wide choice of other mobiles which still need to be marketed.

1. Use the adCenter demographic targeting tools to increase your bids on certain demographics and on certain days of the week.
2. Create a specific campaign for your top performing keywords. Monitor your campaign, ensuring that the ads are relevant, fresh and clickable with competitive bids.
3. Use dynamic text in your adverts, showing discounts and offers when they are available. Get the latest best-practices on how to use dynamic text here.
4. Increase the amount of negative keywords in your account. With so many phones available, help to increase your CTR by blocking phones that you don’t stock.
5. Hopefully these tips prove useful and best of luck with the campaigns.

Thanks for reading,

Tobias Larsen, UK Search Media Analyst

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