Introducing new ways to reach your customers on tablets

With more than 165 million tablets expected to ship over the next two years, tablets are becoming a popular device with engaged, tech-savvy consumers. So we’re pleased to announce that we’re developing new targeting options to help you better connect with this audience. To give you greater control over your AdWords ads, we’re changing the way you can target tablet devices.

In the next couple of weeks, the “Networks and Devices” section of your Settings tab within your AdWords account will include a new targeting option titled “Tablets with full browsers.” While you’ve been able to specifically target Apple iPad devices in the past, the new capability will enable you to easily target your ads to the entire tablet device category. In addition, you'll be able to select more precisely the types of devices and operating systems on which your AdWords ads will show. For example, to display your ads on the Apple iPad, you’ll be able to choose “Tablets with full browsers” as your device targeting setting and “iOS” as your operating system setting. Tablet targeting will be available initially for Apple devices only, but we'll expand ad serving to other specific devices in the near future.

Once this capability is available in your account, your ads will automatically start running on tablet devices and no further action will be necessary on your part. If your campaigns were specifically targeting Apple iPad devices, you may notice an increase in impressions and costs as we include more tablets in our ad serving options. If you don't want your ads to appear on tablet devices, you’ll be able to specify this preference in your device targeting settings by following these step-by-step instructions.

For now, only standard text and image ads can be shown on tablet devices. So please make sure your landing page renders properly on tablet devices, as our system will automatically limit your ads from running on tablet devices if we detect that users will be led to a landing page containing a significant amount of Flash or other content that will not render properly. To learn more, please visit this Help Center article.

We’re constantly working to provide our advertisers with new targeting capabilities for their AdWords campaigns. We hope that these targeting options will enable you to successfully connect with your customers across a variety of devices and platforms.



Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Smartphone User Study Shows Mobile Movement Under Way

Cross posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog:

71% of smartphone users search because of an ad they’ve seen either online or offline; 82% of smartphone users notice mobile ads, 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase as a result of using their smartphones to help with shopping, and 88% of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day.

These are some of the key findings from “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” a study from Google and conducted by Ipsos OTX, an independent market research firm, among 5,013 US adult smartphone Internet users at the end of 2010. Join us in tomorrow’s webinar where we’ll present the full research findings. In the meantime, enjoy this research highlights video and read on for a summary of our main section findings:

General Smartphone Usage: Smartphones have become an integral part of users’ daily lives. Consumers use smartphones as an extension of their desktop computers and use it as they multi-task and consume other media.

• 81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone
• 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV
• 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home

Action-Oriented Searchers: Mobile search is heavily used to find a wide variety of information and to navigate the mobile Internet.

• Search engine websites are the most visited websites with 77% of smartphone users citing this, followed by social networking, retail and video sharing websites
• Nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.)
• 24% recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search

Local Information Seekers: Looking for local information is done by virtually all smartphone users and consumers are ready to act on the information they find.

• 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information
• 88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs
• 77% have contacted a business, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business

Purchase-driven Shoppers: Smartphones have become an indispensable shopping tool and are used across channels and throughout the research and decision-making process.

• 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer
• 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones
• 70% use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store

Reaching Mobile Consumers: Cross-media exposure influences smartphone user behavior and a majority notice mobile ads which leads to taking action on it.

• 71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%)
• 82% 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% visiting a website and 49% making a purchase

Implications

The findings of the study have strong implications for businesses and mobile advertisers. Make sure you can be found via mobile search as consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information. Incorporate location based products and services and make it easy for mobile customers to reach you because local information seeking is common among smartphone users. Develop a comprehensive cross-channel strategy as mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions. Last, implement an integrated marketing strategy with mobile advertising that takes advantage of the knowledge that people are using their smartphones while consuming other media and are influenced by it.

Learn More

To learn more about the study, please join us in a webinar tomorrow where we will present and discuss the research findings in-depth. Register for “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” webinar on Wednesday, April 27th at 11am PST/ 2pm EST. To receive the research report, please visit the Google Mobile Ads blog after April 27th to download a complimentary copy of the study.

Posted by Dai Pham, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Join us for Google’s Think Mobile Event Live Stream

The rise of the mobile web is driving one of the most dramatic consumer behavior transformations in history. Billions of people are using their smartphones to search for information, consume news, watch videos, interact through social networks, and engage with advertising every day. So what does this mean for mobile marketing?

Tune in and find out what Mary Meeker, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, and Google’s Dennis Woodside, SVP of Americas Operations, and Jason Spero, Head of Americas Mobile Advertising, have to say about the future of mobile and what marketers can do to better connect with the mobilized, modern consumer.

The live stream will start on February 10, 2011, at 1:05 pm EST, and you’ll be able to watch from your desktop computer or mobile device. Please register for this virtual event by visiting the Think Mobile Live Stream page.

Following us on Twitter? Use the #thinkmobile hashtag as you're watching the event.


Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Get started with mobile advertising in a new live online course

On Wednesday, November 3rd we’ll be hosting a live online course about how you can start using mobile advertising to reach more customers.

Did you know that there are now 4 billion mobile phone owners globally? Half of all new internet connections come from mobile devices, and by 2014 it's projected that there will be more mobile internet users than desktop internet users.*

In this course we'll take you through the changing landscape of mobile advertising. We'll also show you how to identify if users use mobile devices to find your services and how to set up Mobile Search and Display Campaigns.

This course is for those of you interested in learning more about mobile advertising and how to easily set up your AdWords account to target more users on mobile devices. The interactive course will be delivered by an Online Media Specialist and will take approximately 1 hour including time for Q&A. It will take place on Wednesday 3rd November from 3pm - 4pm BST / GMT+1 (London), 10am-11am EST (New York), 7am-8am PST (San Francisco).

If you're interested in this course, sign up now!

*Morgan Stanley report, 'Internet Trends' published on April 12, 2010.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew

Find information faster with mobile Ad Sitelinks

Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog

We recently launched Mobile Ad Sitelinks, a search ad format that displays additional links to content located deep within your site. Available globally on high-end mobile devices, Ad Sitelinks are an easy way to introduce customers to multiple landing page options for your website.

Ad Sitelinks on mobile function similarly to Ad Sitelinks on desktop. Currently, only two-line sitelinks will appear on mobile devices, with each line displaying one sitelink. As shown in the example below, a mobile ad from Oakley, Inc displays two links, driving users to the “Custom Products” and “Sunglasses” sections of the company’s site.

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Desktop Ad Sitelinks have been a useful tool, leading to an average increase of more than 30% in click-through rates. Because websites may not yet be optimized for viewing on mobile devices, navigating them to find information can be more difficult. As a result, we anticipate that mobile Ad Sitelinks will be similarly, if not more, effective on mobile as the benefit of deep linking and driving users further down the conversion funnel is even more valuable. Mobile Ad Sitelinks help by taking users directly to the specific content they’re looking for, enabling them to find information and complete transactions more quickly.

Since we’re constantly working to bring our experience with desktop advertising to the mobile web, starting with Ad Sitelinks is simple. If you’ve enabled Ad Sitelinks on desktop, your ads will automatically show on mobile phones -- provided your campaigns are opted-in to run on iPhone and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

To learn more about Mobile Ad Sitelinks, please visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew

Location extensions with multiple addresses available on mobile devices

Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Ads Blog

Do you have several business locations in one city? For example, are you a national retailer of consumer electronics who wants to increase foot traffic to your Los Angeles area stores?

Every day, consumers are using their high-end mobile devices to find directions to local businesses, making mobile an ideal way to reach this audience. We’re excited to streamline this experience by announcing a new enhancement to the location extensions ad format: location extensions with multiple addresses. This new feature will ensure that your customers connect with the right location of your business at the right time.

Now available on Google Maps for Mobile (GMM) versions 4.4 and above on Android devices, location extensions with multiple addresses allow consumers to find the most relevant location of your business on a Google mobile map.

Featuring your business location alongside your mobile ad is a powerful method to drive foot traffic and in-store sales. For instance, if a potential customer is looking for a wireless communications store like Sprint, an ad within GMM can display all Sprint locations near them. This not only delivers a relevant search experience, but also enables customers to visit the closest and most convenient Sprint store location.

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Here’s how location extensions with multiple addresses work:

1. Based on a user’s search and location signals, AdWords can display a clickable banner with the option to show all locations for a particular business in Google Maps for Mobile.
   
   
2. When the “Show all” banner is clicked, the map displays just the locations of your business as indicated by your business icon. Using your business logo as the icon is a great opportunity to build awareness and loyalty for your brand.
   
   
3. Clicking on a specific business location leads the user to a page with more details about the business -- including ad text, business address with directions and the ability to call or visit the website.
   
   
4. After the search is completed, the business icon and location are automatically saved as a GMM Layer and will continue to appear on the map in subsequent search results until turned off by the user.

To take advantage of this enhancement, you must be a primary business owner and have enabled location extensions within your Google Places account. Additionally, your campaigns must target the iPhone and other high-end mobile devices with full mobile browsers. You will only be charged when users click on the website URL or the phone icon displayed on the details page of a particular business location.

Location extensions with multiple addresses launched for desktop earlier this summer and we’ve worked hard to bring it to mobile. For now, this feature is only available on Android devices, but we hope to expand to other platforms in the near future.

Location extensions ad formats can show in the United States as well as a number of other countries. To learn more about location extensions with multiple addresses, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager

Get started with mobile advertising with a new online course

We’ve just added a new course to the AdWords Online Classroom all about mobile advertising and how you can start using it to reach more customers.

Did you know that there are now 4 billion mobile phone owners globally? Half of all new internet connections come from mobile devices, and by 2014 it's reported that there will be more mobile internet users than desktop internet users.* We offer a number of innovative ad formats to help you reach mobile users looking for products and services.

This course is suitable for anyone who’d like to learn more about mobile advertising and how to easily set up your AdWords account to target more users on mobile devices.

Click on the country flag most appropriate to you to watch this course now!

Click for U.S. course

Click for U.K. course

Click for Australia course

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

*Morgan Stanley report, 'Internet Trends' published on April 12, 2010.

Tracking clicks from mobile devices

The ValueTrack parameter has long allowed you to track the clicks that you get via search and the Google Display Network separately. We know that many of you would like to be able to see the clicks you get from mobile ads separately as well. That’s why we’re pleased to introduce Mobile ValueTrack, a new way for you to do just that.

Mobile ValueTrack works the same way it does for search and content: by automatically adding a tag to your website URL. To use this feature, you just need to add the Mobile ValueTrack parameter: {ifmobile:NewTagName} to the “Destination URL” field when you create a text ad.

There are two ways to take advantage of this feature:

Automatic re-directs to mobile optimized sites
By adding the MobileTrack parameter to your landing page URL, you can automatically redirect people using mobile devices to a mobile-optimized version of your site. In the example below, you can create a mobile site at www.travelingdog.net/mobile and ensure that mobile clicks get re-directed to this site by adding the Mobile ValueTrack parameter, {ifmobile:mobile}. Note that non-Google-ads traffic to your site won’t have the ValueTrack parameter, so it’s still a good idea to send all users to your mobile-optimized site.

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Third party tracking tags
Additionally, If you use third party tracking to identify how many of your visitors clicked through to your site from your AdWords ads, you can use Mobile ValueTrack to track clicks coming from mobile devices. Just insert a tag into your destination URL. Let’s say that you’re Travel Dog Company and want to distinguish clicks coming from mobile devices. By adding the Mobile ValueTrack parameter to your landing page URL, www.travelingdog.net?type={ifmobile:hello}, the tag “hello” will be inserted into the destination URL allowing you to see which clicks are coming from mobile devices.

Mobile ValueTrack works for both WAP mobile ads and regular text and image ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers. Keep in mind that any change that you make to your URLs will need to be reviewed and approved before they go live.  You can also get more stats for mobile devices with full browsers by selecting “Segment By: Device” within Campaign Management.

We hope that this feature will allow you to better track your mobile performance and ensure that users get the best experience on mobile.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

Click-to-call for mobile content and apps now fully launched

Last month at Google I/O, we previewed a new mobile advertising format, click-to-call for apps and mobile website content. We wanted to follow-up and let you know that this feature is now fully live and available to everyone who advertises with AdWords.  Expanding our popular click-to-call functionality on mobile search ads to now include mobile content and apps helps increase the reach of your ads across the mobile web and provides mobile publishers and app developers with even more ways to make money and grow their businesses. 


With click-to-call, potential customers can connect with your business via a phone call when they use their favorite mobile apps or when they browse the web from their mobile devices.  Ads will appear as animated banner or text ads with a call button on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.  To use this new format, you need to enable phone extensions and run your ads on both the Google Content Network and mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

(click for full-size image)

Click-to-call for mobile content and apps is one of many ad formats that you can use to help achieve your mobile marketing goals. It’s a great option for you and also helps drive great results for mobile publishers and app developers.


Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, Google Mobile Ads

More phone numbers eligible for click-to-call ads in the UK

We have good news for AdWords customers in the UK who want to generate sales or leads from phone calls:

Our click-to-call ads enable you to include a clickable phone number as an additional line in your text ads. These are shown to Google users when they search using a mobile phone with a full HTML browser (such as the iPhone, Android-powered devices or those running Palm OS). They can simply click the phone number to call and connect directly with your business. It’s a quick and convenient way for a potential customer to reach you while they're on the move.

Until now, you could only include free phone numbers (e.g. those starting with '0800'), or phone numbers with a local area code (e.g. starting with '020' for London). Starting today, we're making more types of numbers eligible to appear in ads, namely those beginning with 0843, 0844, 0845 and 0870. We hope this will provide many more businesses in the UK with a great opportunity to attract new customers by phone.

(click to view full size image)

In one advertiser case study, we found that calls from AdWords click-to-call ads were 22% more likely to be relevant than other lead sources. They were also 31% more likely to result in an appointment.

Click-to-call ads are easy to set up, whether your business has a phone number for a national call centre, or if you want to direct Google users to call your local branches.

We're working to make more numbers eligible in more countries, so stay tuned for future updates.

Posted by Emily Williams, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords for mobile is fully available

A few weeks ago, we introduced you to AdWords for mobile, our new mobile interface for Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices. Now, when you log into AdWords from one of these devices, you’ll be directed to AdWords for mobile automatically (currently only available for accounts managed in US, UK or Australian English).

AdWords for mobile gives you a quick overview of how your account is performing and allows you to easily make select changes to your keywords and campaigns. You can see AdWords for mobile in action in this short video:

For more details and to send us feedback, check out the AdWords for mobile page on Google Ad Innovations.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew

Go Mobile! Series: iPad Device Targeting Now Available

As we announced earlier this month, we’ve included the iPad in our list of mobile devices with full internet browsers, making it easy for you to run your campaigns on it.

Now that we’ve finished our rigorous iPad testing, we feel confident adding the iPad to the list of mobile devices that you can target specifically. To do this, simply edit the “Devices” section in your Campaign Settings, and select the iPad under 'Advanced device and carrier options:

(click for full size image)

A few things to keep in mind:

• If your device settings are set for desktop and laptop computers only, your ads won’t show on the iPad.
• If you’re already targeting selected mobile devices (such as iPhone or Android), your ads won’t show on the iPad. Make sure to select the iPad as well if you want to include it in your device-targeted campaign.

Also, remember that you can promote your iPhone/iPad or Android apps directly by linking to the download URL in your ads. This way people can download your app straight from your ads. To make things easier, we’ll handle the device targeting automatically when these ads show on mobile devices.

We’re excited to see the iPad and other innovative devices come to market and will continue to improve AdWords to help you reach and connect with your audience and your customers!

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Go Mobile! Series: Your ads on the iPad

Like many of you, we’re excited about the upcoming release of Apple’s iPad and the promise of tablet computers. Innovative products like the iPad are on the cutting edge of a whole new class of devices that promise to make accessing information and content easier and more fun.

Over the past year, we’ve been working to make sure that our advertising products work well on a different class of exciting new devices - mobile phones with full Internet browsers like the iPhone and those running Android. These mobile devices have exploded in popularity, and have allowed advertisers to achieve incremental reach and great results. With these high-end phones making up 50% of mobile search queries, it’s highly valuable for advertisers to connect with these users.

In many ways, an iPad is more similar to these mobile devices than to desktop and laptop computers. It runs on a mobile operating system, has a touchscreen, runs mobile apps, and is highly portable, suited for on-the-go browsing. For this reason we’ve decided for now to include the iPad as a mobile device in AdWords, which means that as AdWords advertisers, you can easily extend the reach of your current ad campaigns to these new types of devices.

To ensure that your ads appear on new mobile devices like the iPad, simply make sure that you have “all mobile devices” selected in your campaign settings under the “Networks and devices” section. You can also use the default setting, "All available devices."

(Click to view full size image)

If you want to target the iPad specifically, our engineers are busy at work doing the final testing on an option to enable you to do just that. It will appear in the coming days when you choose to “target only selected mobile devices”. And don’t worry - if you’ve already changed your AdWords settings to not appear on these mobile devices, your ads won’t appear on the iPad.

Of course, the world of devices like the iPad is in its infancy, and these devices may evolve in ways that we haven’t anticipated yet. So we’ll continue to watch the space and ensure that no matter which direction the devices go in next, we'll make sure to give advertisers the reach, control and features they’ll need to get great results from their ad campaigns.

Posted by Paul Feng, Group Product Manager for Google Mobile Ads

AdWords for mobile: check in quickly, anywhere

Did your smartphone suddenly start blinking and buzzing like crazy? No need to worry– it’s probably just getting excited about AdWords for mobile, our new mobile interface for Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices.

We’ve heard that your smartphone and AdWords account have been pining for each other. Over the past few months, many of you have let us know how much you’d like to have fast and easy mobile access to AdWords, which is why we’re now testing a streamlined mobile experience. AdWords for mobile gives you easy access to your key alerts and statistics, enabling you to make quick changes even when you’re out and about.

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AdWords for mobile works best when you customize your experience. Before using the mobile website, you should log in from your desktop computer and choose the parts of your account that you want to monitor closely. Set up custom alerts for key account events (like when your campaign reaches 90% of your daily budget, or when your traffic drops substantially compared to the previous week), and saved filters to flag your most important keywords and campaigns. You’ll then see these filters and alerts on your AdWords for mobile home screen.

We built AdWords for mobile to help you quickly access the essentials in your account, so we’ve focused on letting you view and make basic edits to campaigns and keywords through the mobile application. If you need access to the other parts of your account, like ads or campaign settings, you can switch to the desktop version of AdWords through a link at the bottom of the screen.

Today, AdWords for mobile will be used as the default mobile interface for a small percentage of English language advertisers, and we look forward to enabling the feature for additional advertisers and languages in the coming weeks. However, if you’d like to try AdWords for mobile immediately, simply direct your Android, iPhone, or Palm Pre to http://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard

Hope you (and your lovestruck smartphone) enjoy having easy access to AdWords wherever you go!

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew