According to Google, 3 out of 4 mobile searches convert into follow-up actions. Optimizing your mobile ads can pay off big bringing your business phone calls, store visits and purchases!
Google has spent the better part of the last year trying to convince marketers that mobile ads are a crucial part of their advertising mix. Now, in hopes of getting businesses to buy more search ads, it has teamed with Nielsen to provide some insight into how mobile searches drive people into stores, get them to call a business, and ultimately make a purchase.
The study had 400 people log their searches on their mobile phones, a total of about 6,400 queries over a couple of weeks. That immediacy may give the study a little more weight than the usual recall studies, which may ask people weeks later what they did. Jason Spero, Google’s head of global mobile sales and strategy, says the study will be used to persuade marketers that Google’s recently introduced ad services such as proximity-based bidding and a metric that counts calls made from an ad as a conversion are worthwhile.
In any case, the study showed, perhaps not surprisingly, that people searching on smartphones tend to make queries very close to the time they intend to make a purchase or at least check out a product in a store. Some 55% of conversions-that’s marketing-speak for a desired action by the consumer, in this case a purchase, a store visit, or a call to a store-happened within an hour of the search query.
The study also showed that while most people use their smartphones to search outside the home, some 77% of mobile searches actually happen at home or work. That, says Spero, means that marketers need to make sure their ads are aimed not just at people while they’re on the go, but potentially any time of day.
Another interesting stat: About 45% of mobile searches are made to aid in making a decision, but that rises to two-thirds when people are in a store-meaning ads need to be especially targeted to people while they’re inside a store.
Read more from the source: Forbes