The Importance of a Mobile Search Strategy

Increasingly, mobile’s importance in our lives is becoming more evident. Our mobile phones can essentially be considered a permanent fixture of our daily routines. Can you leave home without it?

In conjunction with Nielsen, Google’s new report, “Mobile Search Moments: Understanding How Mobile Drives Conversions”, attempts to decipher what triggers people to do mobile searches and when, what actions follow as a result and how marketers can utilize this intelligence. This report explains the measurable connections between mobile searches and their correlated online and offline conversions.

What are the main drivers for mobile searches? Speed and convenience, with 77% of mobile searches performed in a location (work or home) likely to have a PC available to them.

Here are a few additional highlights from the report:

• 45% of all mobile searches are goal-oriented and conducted to help make a decision

• 81% of conversions (store visit, call or purchase) triggered by mobile search occur within 5 hours

• 55% of conversions from mobile searches happen within one hour

As a key factor in the decision-making process, a mobile search strategy is an essential piece of your overall marketing strategy.

What mobile search opportunities do you see for your business? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.

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Understanding a Customer’s Mobile Experience

Many of us continue to hear about the necessity of having our business accessible via mobile. What does that mean exactly? Can we just duplicate what’s working on the web to mobile?

A mobile experience is vastly different from a web experience. Think about how many times you visit a website on the web to only be frustrated by the usability of the site. Imagine how that experience translates to mobile. Businesses must see the two experiences as polarizing forms of interaction.

With mobile, you must pay close attention to how a message will be consumed. For instance, will deals be delivered to a customer’s mobile device when they check into your store? Are they receiving your message at home or work?

To ensure a positive impact on a customer’s experience with your brand, embrace the various ways they will interact with your business. Be sure to craft your mobile marketing messages based on how they will consume them.

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7 Noteworthy Mobile Ads Insights & Stats

Recently, Mashable released an article of insights into the world of mobile based on a couple of valuable studies. Encapsulating statistics from an annual presentation on Internet trends by Venture Capitalist Mary Meeker and a study by leading mobile ad platform Opera, some statistics have been unveiled that require your attention.

Here are 7 insights & statistics I extracted from these sources:

1. The effective cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for desktop web ads is about $3.50, while the CPM for mobile ads is just $0.75; (Mary Meeker)
2. At $2.85, the iPhone has the highest average CPM for mobile ads of any smartphone, but still falls short of the CPM ($3.50) for web ads on a desktop. (Opera)
3. In comparison, print ads can command rates of as much as $100 CPM. (Opera)
4. iPads had a CPM of $3.96 (more than a dollar higher than the iPhone) but accounted for less than 7% of mobile traffic in the second quarter of 2012. (Opera)
5. It isn't recommended that advertisers take the same approach of using desktop web ads for mobile - tailor a specific strategy for your mobile campaigns. (Mashable)
6. It is worth the investment to build and test mobile specific landing pages for lead capture. (Mashable)
7. An alternative to using “cookies” for mobile, geofencing technology may be used to target ads based on GPS locations. (Mashable)

As mobile usage and adoption continues to grow, it is inevitable that mobile advertising costs will increase. Remember, the key is testing! Keep an eye on how the market is evolving and evolve with it. How do you plan to test mobile ads for your business?

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New Strategies for Your Mobile Playbook

As you may have already noticed, I place a lot of importance on having a mobile strategy for your business. Interacting with your customers via mobile in some form or fashion is inevitably going to be a part of your business’s future. Mobile is a critical component to the overall success of your marketing strategy.

Google has released an update to the prior Mobile Playbook that includes new strategies on mobile creativity and ROI. The two main areas of focus expanded upon examples of compelling mobile creative and measuring the real ROI of mobile and its associated impact on a business.

The Playbook also features case studies covering the 5 mobile conversion types. This consists of mobile web, from apps, phone calls, cross-device and in-store. Using the “mobile web” conversion type case study as an example, TicketNetwork’s mobile site was designed with two critical components at the forefront – speed and simplicity. Four months after launch, ticket sales from mobile grew by 184% due to their efforts to build a mobile site that made the purchasing process easy for the consumer.

You can find the updated Mobile Playbook here. What mobile conversion type have you experienced the most success with?

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10 Eye-Opening Mobile Usage Statistics of Consumers

Throughout the typical day, how often do you have your cell phone within arm’s reach? I’m guessing if the phone isn’t in your pocket then it is sitting right next to you. Keeping your own phone usage behavior in mind, more often consumers are using multiple screens to get what they need. A consumer’s search is no longer limited to the desktop.

The smartphone has become an extension of many of us above all else. As a result, when you need to find something, you are more than likely going to grab your smartphone and initiate the search.

In a recent Google study, they provided insights into just how impactful a mobile-friendly site is when turning visitors into customers. Let’s check out 10 eye-opening statistics:

1. 61% of people said that they’d quickly visit another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site

2. 67% of people are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site, so if that site is not yours, it’s your competitors

3. 96% of people say they’ve encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices even though nearly 75% of people prefer a mobile-friendly site

4. 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site in the future

5. 67% of people say that they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service when they visit a mobile-friendly site

6. 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly

7. 48% of people say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly

8. 36% of people said they felt like they’ve wasted their time by visiting sites that are not mobile-friendly

9. 52% of people said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company

10. 48% of people said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business

These statistics clearly illustrate the opportunity for your business to give consumers what your competitors perhaps aren't. How do you see your business evolving with mobile?

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How Consumers Use Multiple Screens to Get What They Need

In our “always on the go” lifestyles, consumers have evolved their digital consumption behaviors to reflect our current multi-screen worlds.

As a result, it’s imperative that you understand consumers’ behaviors across the multiple platforms. In Google’s new report, The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior, they provide the statistic that 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal, whether that’s on smartphones, PCs, tablets or TV.

What does the multi-screen approach mean exactly? Say for example that you need to book a dinner reservation for a big meeting. You start searching on your smartphone for the best hot spots in town to get a better idea of where to host the meeting. Later on in the morning, you continue the search on your laptop now that you are in the office. And finally, once you have the perfect restaurant in mind, you book the reservation on your PC later on that night. The multi-screen approach proved to be more convenient in your search for the ideal restaurant.

The importance of structuring your online presence for mobile, tablets and multiple screens becomes more of a necessity every day. It’s crucial that you understand how consumers want to interact with your brand and adapt to those needs.

Google’s full research report explains further useful statistics and findings on the topic.

How is your business accommodating this behavior?

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