Mobile marketing is already big and it’s going to be huge.  But is it just a bunch of male tech geeks using these phones to look up the GoDaddy girl during the Super Bowl? Paul Cushman of Yahoo says, “No, we’re beyond that” and states that they have 55 million unique users per month. Notably, he did indicate that, in short, the users are there and by the end of 2012, one-third of all mobile phones will be smartphones. So, what does the opportunity look like here?  Let’s summarize what Jamie Wells, Director of Product Marketing from Microsoft Advertising had to say at the session about Microsoft’s offering…

  • 3 billion queries per month by 2012.
  • 77% of data plan subscribers use mobile search.
  • 74% year-over-year unique user growth for Bing + Y!.
  • +22M Bing app activations across mobile ecosystem.
  • On-the-go mobile queries supplement desktop search volume, focused on location-based actions and with greater commercial intentSmart_Mobile_Marketing.
  • The query chain (i.e. the time it takes a consumer to begin and complete their search) on desktop takes around 1 month, on mobile it takes 1 hour.
  • Microsoft is designing for completing tasks quickly and through alternate search methods such as voice, camera, location, etc.
  • Voice search is notoriously long at 10 to 14 words in length on average per query, which opens up the tail for mobile advertising.
  • Regular keyboard input on phone search query average is 6 words, which is closer to average desktop length.
  • Mobile users are generally lower in the purchase funnel. 
  • Mobile search is an extension of the desktop.
  • 37% to 40% are searching on their phones after seeing a different ad (tv, print, etc.).

Another thing Wells pointed out is that those things that you have ruled out of your desktop search campaigns should be back on the table for consideration in your mobile advertising campaigns.  He encourages advertisers to shoot for positions 1 and 2 when advertising on mobile as lower positions often times aren't seen.  When your ads are seen, it’s important to have a very strong call to action (CTA).  Passive CTAs don’t work well in mobile; folks are short on time and they need their problem solved now – it’s not a time to say “for more info”, it’s a time to get specific and staightforward. 

Lastly, when you do get a click, make sure that the landing page is optimized for mobile.  To the right is an admittedly bad picture of a good example of a mobile landing page presented by Paul Cushman from Y!.  It shows the CTR rates of the different elements on the page; not surprisingly, the users that clicked on this mobile deli ad were very interested in either finding where they could pick up the food (40% of clicks) or even ordering the food on their mobile (22% of clicks). This is a great example of getting a mobile landing page right to have an excellent user experience and advertising campaign.

If you are doing mobile advertising and are interested in participating in helping Microsoft roll out new features, email us with your contact info and we’ll forward it on to see if we can get you in!

Thanks for reading,

Phil Greenwood, Global Web and Community Manager, Microsoft Advertising