Creating ad campaigns for mobile devices

As brands continue to reach and exceed their advertising goals by leveraging mobile advertising, advertising budgets will continue to shift from the more traditional channels to mobile. The top three campaign goals in 2010 were 'brand awareness', drive traffic and join/download/purchase. This underscores that mobile campaigns can cover a broad array of campaign objectives regardless of where the target consumer is in the purchase funnel. It is believed that how advertisers measure the effectiveness of their mobile campaigns will become much more sophisticated in 2011.

There are well over 100 million mobile web users in the US alone, according to comScore. Mobile advertising pie in 2010 was estimated to be between $550–$650 million in the US, according to an industry survey conducted by PwC and sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

And travel, as a sector, has been incredibly active in mobile, and will likely become even more invested in 2011 if current trends continue.

In fact, the travel vertical, which was number eight in among the top 10 mobile ad verticals in 2010, grew 249% in 2010 alone, according to Millennial Media. The company, in an interview with EyeforTravel this year, indicated that going by the first three months of 2011, by all indications, brands are increasing their investments in mobile. The company saw a shift in the way brands think about mobile from an optional to an essential component of their media strategies last year. This move was marked by the continued rapid growth of advertisers, publishers and developers leveraging mobile to reach their target consumers and monetise their sites and applications.

Maturity level

The differences in consumer behaviour between static desktop searches and mobile searches means that advertisers can't simply transfer a search campaign to mobile. Advertisers are embracing the mobile web and are including it in their web strategies by developing mobile sites and apps.

Assessing the maturity level of advertisers' approach at this juncture, Rob Torres, Head of Travel, Google, says the same is still in its infancy as there is still so much more that travel advertisers can be doing.

"Bidding for top position matters in mobile, where only the top few ads have real screen space," Torres told EyeforTravel's Ritesh Gupta in an interview.

"Implementing strategy that uses the phone's true purpose – calling – has proven extremely valuable to a few advertisers and I'm surprised more companies aren't' taking advantage of that. IHG has said that, in their European markets, click-to-call ads are generating over 40% of their mobile revenue. We are encouraged by the trend in travel of brands providing end-to-end mobile booking functionality for users via an app or a mobile site," said Torres, who is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Online Marketing Strategies for Travel 2011 Conference, to be held in Miami (June 7-8).

Torres added, "Many of the OTAs including Expedia, Hotels.com and Priceline have added this feature to their mobile offering. We are also seeing some great new use cases of the phone's ability to track location, such as TripAdvisor's iPad app with Street View and SuperShuttle's map view for customers of the pick-up vehicle's location."

Creating mobile-specific campaigns

It is critical to know how to create mobile specific campaigns and also how can advertisers go about learning how consumers use mobile search, which in turn will help one bid appropriately on mobile search terms.

"Don't be afraid to start. I bet you that the companies you view as "success stories" in mobile today, did not get it right the first time. The mobile user experience is evolving rapidly, so you need to have a fast development cycle," said Torres. "Do not sit in a board room debating your mobile strategy - jump in. If you observe performance and iterate quickly, you'll be able to craft your own best practices, based on actual results."

He said in general, here are a few standard practices that Google endorses for mobile campaigns:

• Track Mobile separately from other campaigns. On average, mobile-only campaigns perform 11.5% better than hybrid desktop-mobile campaigns.
• Use custom creative. Tell users that you know they are on a mobile device and you have something to offer them.
• Use device targeting. Target Android, iPhone, and tablet users with separate campaigns.
• Leverage click-to-call to give the user an option. There is an average CTR increase of 6-8% from just adding a phone number to ads.
• Bid aggressively. First position matters in mobile. There is a drop off in CTR of over 90%, when an ad drops from 1^st to 4^th position.
• Use Sitelinks. This ad format has driven CTR increases of up to 30% in some cases.
• Iterate, iterate, iterate. Don't just "set it and forget it." You have insights into what works, what converts, and what doesn't.
• Take a deep breath and have fun. This is a brand new platform that marketers are all trying to figure out. It may take some patience and some effort, but will be worth it as consumers and technology evolve even further.

Smartphone shoppers

A recent survey has indicated that 74 percent of smartphone shoppers make a purchase as a result of using their smartphones to help with shopping. As per the key findings from "The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users," a study involving Google, 71 percent of smartphone users search because of an ad they've seen either online or offline; 82 percent of smartphone users notice mobile ads, and 88 percent of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day.

As per the findings of this survey, cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behaviour and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.

• 71 percent search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68 percent) to online ads (18 percent) to mobile ads (27 percent).
• 82 percent notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads.
• Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35 percent visiting a website and 49 percent making a purchase.

Online Marketing Strategies for Travel 2011 Conference

Rob Torres, Head of Travel, Google is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Online Marketing Strategies for Travel 2011 Conference, to be held in Miami (June 7-8). For more information, click here