It's About Time to Go Mobile

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Take me as the perfect example. I can't go anywhere without my mobile phone. It's the first thing I look at in the morning and the last thing I use before I fall asleep. With mobile activity on the rise in Asia Pacific, every advertiser should be jumping on the mobile advertising express and tapping into mobile search engine marketing campaigns.

High impression volumes, greater variety of ad formats, and targeting options make Google a better test bed for understanding the potential of mobile. While Google dominates the APAC region with most of the mobile searches, there are some best practices to consider when setting up a mobile campaign on Google.

Don't make it complicated. Start with three campaigns and gradually expand your campaigns over time.

1. Start with the Top Converting Terms

• Set yourself up for success
• Increase quality score for new campaigns
• Discover differences in user behavior between mobile and desktop terms

2. Add your High Traffic Terms and Must-Win Keywords

• Generic non-brand terms core to your campaign
• Increase awareness to your mobile presence/new customer acquisition

3. Brand Terms

• Ensure your brand terms are covered. These are less expensive but make sure you have these covered so competition does not buy your terms.

Remember that most mobile searches are less than three words. With this in mind, what kind of match type strategy should be used?

• Broad = volume
• Exact = decreased CPCs/increased relevancy
• Phrase = unlikely to be worth the effort

Make sure you have separate mobile search campaigns set up.

• Control
  • Increased control of Quality Score and CPCs
  • Assign landing pages for optimal user experience

• Messaging: "on your smartphone now," "call now," etc.
  • A strong call to action as it increases relevancy and performance
  • Assures users they can expect a positive mobile experience
  • Relevant, factual, and informative ads garner greater response rates

• Targeting
  • Better control the user experience by targeting devices optimal for your landing pages.
  • Increase relevancy (geo-target, etc.)

Start to optimize your Google mobile campaigns by opting in to a few mobile initiatives.

Ensure your ads show EVERY time a user searches on a keyword you're eligible to show for so you may want to accelerate your delivery. Make sure your ads are fixed on rotate to allow for A/B testing.

1. Mobile Sitelinks

• Increases share of voice
• Deep-linking help to reduce the click path

2. Location Extensions

• Triggers if user is in proximity to location
• Can be used to drive traffic in store

3. Click to Call Location Extensions

• Triggers if user is in proximity to location
• Displays phone number for CTC

4. Google Offer Ads (Limited Release)

• Increased CTR/lower CPCs
• Opportunity to drive users in store (connect online to offline)

5. Mobile Brand Logos (Limited Release)

• Increases users' responsiveness to ad
• Users place greater trust on ad

Concurrently, apply effective mobile SEO best practices in tandem to your mobile site to enhance search ability. Conduct a mobile site audit to evaluate keyword rankings and competitive research. Develop and optimize your mobile site content to improve your overall ranking.

Last month Google released a list of recommendations for building smartphone-optimized websites, the best chance of performing well in Google SERPs. Also consider optimizing your digital assets such as your social media pages to help enhance search engine rankings.

Mobile is here to stay. It's time to start setting up your mobile campaigns and establishing a quality score. Get in there before the competition does.

Below are three takeaways when setting up a mobile search campaign.

1. Create actionable mobile campaigns to achieve client goals.
2. Evaluate new opportunities and potential vendors.
3. Leverage your knowledge of innovations to understand the impact to the channel.