A recent comment on another news story complained that some of what we talk about here, while related to the companies running the search engines, has more to do with tech gadgets and other side-properties of these groups. Well, Romanz, this one’s for you. The world of mobile advertising is blossoming with each passing year, making presence — and, when possible, ownership — in the mobile market truly crucial. As we start out 2011, Google is launching forward with a great focus on mobile advertising, pushing for greater attention to this important niche section of the search engine market.
As reported by ADI News, Google Adwords is continuing its bid for smartphone searches — what ADI calls “the fastest way to the modern consumer” — by tracking and allowing greater fine-tuning of their campaign targeting.
Of course, this isn’t new. It’s been the standard for Adwords to allow advertisers to enable or disable mobile targeting. The interface continues to improve, however, and much of what we see added is directly relevant to tracking and marketing to mobile searchers.
One piece of advice is to take a solid look at the results for last year for your individual searches. What ads are performing well on mobile? How are your conversions looking? How are the search terms different? If mobile is performing well, consider separating your advertising into “for mobile” and “for web” campaigns. This will allow you to tweak and experiment with this platform and its unique users.
Mobile search exploded in 2010, with quarterly figures as much as quadrupling the numbers from previous years. It’s clear that, in addition to focusing on making appealing search applications, both Google’s and Bing’s presence in the smart phone market is a necessary part of staying alive in the war for searchers.
