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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[Free Report] Smartphone Usage and Understanding Mobile Consumer Behavior

I am a firm believer that the question isn’t if your business should be in mobile but in what way.

As mobile technology continues to evolve, people around the world are growingly having their mobile device become an extension of them. Now is the time to start thinking about how to get started with mobile marketing for your business.

Yesterday, Jason Spero, Head of Global Mobile for Google, released a list of interesting predictions for mobile in 2012.

1. More than 1 billion people will use mobile devices as their primary internet access point
2. There will be 10 days where >50% of trending search terms will be on mobile
3. Mobile’s role in driving people into stores will be proven and it will blow us away
4. “Mobile driven spend” will emerge as a big category
5. Smartphones will prove exceptional at driving a new consumer behavior
6. Tablets will take their place as the 4th screen
7. New industry standards will make mobile display easy to run
8. 5 new, mobile first companies will reach the Angry Birds level of success
9. The ROI on mobile and tablet advertising will increase as a result of the unmatched relevance of proximity
10. The intersection of mobile and social will spark a dramatic new form of engaging consumers
11. 80% of the largest 2,000 websites globally will have an HTML5 site
12. One million small businesses globally will build a mobile website

One of his predictions that I would like to highlight is #12. A recommended first step in delving into the world of mobile is to build a mobile version of your website.

For more information about mobile usage and its related consumer behavior in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Japan, download Google’s latest report “Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Users”.

Image Credit: jetalone

Getting Started: 7 Mobile Marketing Resources

Are you interested in testing mobile marketing for your business but need a few resources to brush up on your knowledge or to get started altogether? While pursuing my own knowledge about mobile marketing, I thought, what a perfect opportunity to share these resources with you.

Google’s “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” study found a staggering 82% notice mobile ads and 74% make a purchase as a result of using their phone during the shopping process. By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide (Gartner). Statistics like these only lead me to believe there is a lot of opportunity in mobile marketing for business – and the time to move on it is now.

Mobile marketing resources (in no particular order):

• Google Mobile Ads
• Mobile Marketing Watch
• MMA Global
• MarketingProfs
• Mobile Marketer
• 60 Second Marketer
• Top Rank Blog

How do you see mobile affecting the marketing space in the future?

Image credit: Incase

Advertise on the Go

Who has time these days to go to their office every time they want to optimize pay per click campaigns, check on performance, or add keywords? Well we no longer have to thanks to AdWords for mobile.

AdWords for mobile is now fully available and gives you on-the-go access to all of your campaigns, alerts, and statistics. The interface is also fully customizable so you can streamline the most important aspects of your account. For example, you can set up a custom alert to let you know when a campaign is close to reaching its daily budget. You can even set up alerts to inform you of things such as a drop in clicks compared to a previous week.

The AdWords for mobile interface does not have all the features of the desktop version, but we can certainly expect many updates from Google in the months to come.

AdWords for mobile is currently available on iPhone, Android, and Palm devices.

Advertising on iPads

With the recent release of Apple’s iPad, one may wonder how to ensure their pay per click ads will show on this device. Since it is indeed a mobile device, your pay per click campaigns must be set to run on mobile devices, rather just on desktop or laptop computers. In Google Adwords, this can be set in the “Settings” tab of each of your campaigns.

The current problem, however, is that if you are running ads on an iPad, you will also be running your ads on mobile phones. The issue with mobile phones is that since the screens are so small, pay per click ads are often clicked by mistake, therefore costing you money.

Google intends to resolve this issue, however, by including an option to run ads specifically on iPads, rather than all mobile devices. So for now, if you want your ads to show on an iPad, set your ads to display on “All mobile devices” in the Adwords settings. If you don’t want to take the risk of running ads on phones, however, you may want to wait until Google updates the settings.

Device Targeting in Google Adwords

When setting up a pay per click campaign in Google Adwords, you are able to determine if you want ads displayed on the search network, the content network or both. I have previously discussed duplicating campaigns and running one mirror campaign on each network to see which performs better for your business. Another targeting option that is currently available is device targeting.

By default, your pay per click ads will run on desktop and laptop computers, as well as mobile devices with full internet browsers. The problem with this default targeting is that unless you are promoting a product or service specifically for mobile devices, running ads on mobile devices can decrease your conversion rate.

The reason for the lowered conversion rate on mobile devices is accidental clicks. As most people with a touch screen mobile browser can tell you, it takes a lot of precision to click on the right place on the screen. There are many free applications for smart phones that display pay per click ads within the app. The problem is that the ad is often very close to a function of the application, leading many people to click on the ad when they do not mean to. This results in a wasted click.

With this in mind, I usually target pay per click ads to only display on computers. If you are selling a device-specific product like an iPhone case, then it is probably worthwhile to run your ads on iPhones. If not, you will reduce wasted clicks by removing mobile devices from your campaign targeting.

Optimize Mobile Landing Pages Per Device

With mobile devices accounting for more and more internet usage, more and more focus should be placed on advertising on these devices. A key challenge is creating a landing page that is useful on each of the different devices and their corresponding operating systems. While there is currently no standard for optimizing pages for all devices, you can tailor different landing pages to each device.

Through Google Adwords, you can now target your campaigns to different mobile carriers and devices. This way, you can have a different landing page optimized for each device, and target your ads to only display on that device.

This new targeting is also useful if you are advertising carrier or device specific products. For example, if you are selling screen protectors for the myTouch 3G, you can set your campaign to only display ads on that device, so you are only reaching your target audience.

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents Why The Small Screen Gets BIG Results!

There will soon be more mobile phones than there are people on the planet. If you are like most people, that phone in your pocket has dramatically changed your behavior and the way you think about and access your information, communications and entertainment. For the younger generations, the mobile phone truly is the center of their universe and the hub for their social interactions. What better place for advertisers and marketers to reach a captive and attentive audience?

In this discussion we will review:

• Why Mobile? Another device vs. a personal accessory…
• Mobile Advertising vs. Mobile Marketing
• If Content is King, is mobile content Master of the Universe?
• Is there really an App for that? How should marketers leverage the current “app” craze

Jeff Sass is the VP of Business Development for leading Mobile Entertainment site, Myxer. With more than 28 million users, Myxer delivers over 70 million mobile downloads per month and is a pioneer in ad-supported mobile content. A former entertainment and game industry exec, Jeff Sass has more than 10 years experience in Mobile and was co-founder and CEO of early mobile commerce player, BarPoint.com.

This webinar will take place on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 12:30pmEST – 1:30pmEST. To register please visit: Why The Small Screen Gets BIG Results!