What Mobile Search Means For Your Mobile PPC Campaign

Mobile search has reached its tipping point.

On a regular day, you only need to look around to see just how many people are preoccupied with their mobile devices. Today, up to 1.2 billion people are using smartphones or tablets to access the internet.

For digital marketers, a mobile strategy can no longer be just another marketing milestone to be attained in the future. Mobile marketing is an indispensible aspect of the online marketing matrix, right now.

So, what are online consumers using their mobile devices for? Up to two thirds of consumers use their mobile devices to access social network sites including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Entertainment queries for restaurants, travel and shopping are also popular among mobile device users.

Google’s Mobile Moments Study indicates that more than 55% of mobile conversions take place within an hour. Compared to desktop users, mobile searchers are more likely to purchase, spread the word about a product, visit a store or make an inquiry call within a short time.

Unsurprisingly, digital marketers are going where the consumers are, with mobile ad spend rising to $4.07 billion at the end of 2013. The rise of mobile ad spend is backed by higher click through rates and conversion rates on mobile, compared to desktop clicks and conversions.

In light of these trends that point to the growing importance of mobile, marketers must implement several best practices to boost the effectiveness of mobile PPC campaigns :

Optimize your platform for mobile

By now, you most likely know that you need to optimize your website experience for mobile. But designing your website to be viewable across all devices is not enough. It is important to create a separate website platform specifically for mobile.

Your mobile strategy, including your PPC campaign must take into consideration the intentions of your targeted users. The fact is that mobile users typically have very different intentions from desktop users.

Mobile users are typically looking to take a simple and specific action. As such, mobile ads should be designed to prompt users to take a desired action, whether this is calling, popping by your store, or placing an order immediately.

Optimizing your site separately for mobile ensures that users have a seamless experience when they land on your site. In other words, proper mobile optimization can boost conversion.

Leverage ad extensions for greater visibility

Many advertisers overlook ad extensions as part of their mobile strategy. Adwords ad extensions show additional information about your business such as the phone number, website and contact information.

These ad types can boost click through rates, traffic and conversion. Also, ads with extensions have a better chance of attaining greater visibility at the search engines compared to other ads of a similar quality and bid limit.

Ad extensions do not require an additional budget allocation to your PPC campaign.

Incorporate dayparting into your mobile strategy

Most adult mobile device users keep their devices at arm’s length. As such, mobile allows marketers to send targeted messages at specific and appropriate hours. Understanding how dayparting works enables you to deliver timely messages and to improve the effectiveness of your mobile marketing campaign.

Admittedly, implementing a dayparting strategy is not always easy for most marketers because the process requires extensive data analysis. Even then, an effective mobile PPC campaign will require you to go beyond statistic about peak and off-peak traffic hours. Other factors such as customers’ demographics, competitors’ pricing, geographic location etc. also affects your mobile dayparting strategy.

Delivering the right message at the right time can translate to more actions and conversions that will justify your mobile ad spend.

Take Charge of Your Mobile Bid Adjustments

At the start of 2013, Google made changes to mobile ad campaigns in an effort to encourage mobile advertising. Before these changes, Google would automatically adjust your bid for mobile if your campaign were set to target both desktop and mobile users.  Google enhanced campaigns now require you to set bid adjustments on your own.

If you are just getting started with Google’s mobile ppc ad campaigns, you can determine how much of your ads should be shown on mobile. The adjustment scale ranges between -100 and 300%, with a -100 adjustment not showing any ads and 300% allowing all ads to be visible for mobile.

How do these adjustments impact your mobile PPC campaign? You can begin with a lower percentage adjustment, say 180% at the start of your campaign then adjust your bid depending on your campaign goals and the resultant outcome.

The rise of mobile search presents an exciting opportunity for marketers to engage with consumers, in a way that desktop no longer does. To justify your mobile PPC budget, you will need a strategy that is versatile enough to embrace the ongoing changes in the mobile marketing landscape.

Mobile search is here to stay, are you prepared?